Arthur Jordan, a large, bull-necked, thick-lipped Negro worked for the Corder family and began having relations with one of the daughters, Miss Corder. It is unknown whether Miss Corder consented to Arthur Jordan's advances. However, many people in the town were suspicious that she was being taken advantage of. Once word got out that a black man was having a relationship with a white woman,...
Edison’s electric light bulb was patented on January 27, 1880 (patent# 223,898). It was one of his early patents; he eventually obtained 1,093 of them, and represented an improvement on earlier, short-lived light bulb designs. Edison’s light bulb design has a unique pointed top and looks quite similar to light bulbs in use today. The socket at the base is also the same as those used today. The...
During the mid- and late-nineteenth century, railroads and supporting businesses like iron and steel rolling were the nation's largest industrial employers. When the Panic of 1873 began causing financial problems for railroads, many had to cut wages and lower their orders from iron, steel, and cement suppliers; others, like the Northern Pacific, went bankrupt and ceased production immediately....
On February7, 1880 the New York Times ran an article condemning educational tests for voting registration in the South which an editorial in the Charleston News had proposed as a way of suppressing the black vote. The article explains that the reasoning behind the author in the News editorial was that the "'more intelligent and reasonable citizens must rule'" no...
Little Chief of the Cheyenne Indian tribe once said, "I'd rather die than conform to the white man's way." On the morning of May 19, 1879, Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz spoke to the Cheyenne Indians and their leader, Little Chief. Little Chief was old and spoke for the Cheyenne Indians, while the five other tribe members, being very young, listened. Schurz had told Little Chief, "the...
October 5, 1879 was a Sunday, and the weather was beautiful and bright as the many religious people of Danville, VA, walked to church to attend the hour-long service that morning. Later that night, at the Main Street Methodist Church in downtown Danville, Rev. P.A. Peterson delivered a speech called The Primacy of St. Peter, according to the Catholic Church. To a packed audience which was deeply...
When the Chinese population increased, they began to form large neighborhoods within the cities called “Chinatowns.” The first and most important Chinatown began in San Francisco. The Chinese dressed "in long gowns of bright cotton or silk, and some of them wore little round skull-caps with a bright button on the crown. Men’s heads usually were shaved up to the crown, leaving a place for...
On the evening of February 18, 1880, a prominent young man from Mobile anxiously awaited the clock striking seven, upon which he would walk down the aisle to be joined in matrimony. The groom, Mister Richard P. Deshon, was marrying Miss Mary E. Herndon, the daughter of Hon. Thomas Herndon M.C., an Alabama Representative in Congress. They held their wedding in the parlors of the Representative's...
When Reverend W. M. Todd came to his new district, he heard threats that the white men in the area had a way of getting rid of men who came from the North to preach to the colored people. Todd may or may not have taken the threat seriously. Regardless, he worked with his superior Reverend I. G. Pollard to organize services that were open to mixed congregations. It was after such a service on March...
“Blacks achieved greater political power in SC than in any other Southern state.' (Edgar 388) As a result of black Republicans' overwhelming legislative successes (blacks won 255 of the 487 federal and state elections in South Carolina between 1867 and 1876), equal opportunity education was made a top priority. A government-funded public school system was instituted, albeit with segregated...