Episodes Nearest to May 1, 1885 to May 31, 1885: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Slave Becomes One of the Wealthiest Women in 19th Century America
    date March 1, 1885 to July, 1885map HANCOCK, Georgiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Amanda America Dickson, the slave daughter of her owner, became one of the wealthiest black women in nineteenth-century America. Amanda's birth resulted from the rape of her black slave mother, Julia Frances Dickson, by her white master, Mr. David Dickson. Amanda was treated as part of the Dickson family. She was taken from her mother and lived in the Dickson Household. Here she was given privileges...

  2. Women and the Church in the 19th Century
    date May, 1885 to 1885map PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvaniatags Women, Christianity

     

    The article called, “Woman in the Church” published in the Phrenological Journal and Science of Health, discussed the question of whether or not women should be granted equal representation with men in the church.  The author discussed how women were treated in the Christian church as opposed to the way they were minimized in Paganism.  Paganism includes all religions other than...

  3. Faith Healers at the Turn of the Century
    date May 1, 1885map JEFFERSON, Alabamatags Church/Religious-Activity, Health/Death

    After friends and family left her to die of a malignant tumor, the Birmingham faith healers cured Eliza Phillips. For the first time in ten years the hopeless invalid, Peter Smith regained mobility and began to enjoy life once more. Cancer-free after years battling the disease, Mrs. Henry Synder experienced a full recovery. On May 1, 1885, the New York Times detailed the mysterious faith...

  4. Watermelon and Sun
    date April, 1885map ALACHUA, Floridatags Economy, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    One plantation owner who was drawn away from his home near Montgomery, Alabama to Alachua County, Florida (near Gainesville) was James B. Bailey. After his resettlement, Bailey became an active participant in government serving as Superintendent of Labor for the Engineers Department of the Eastern District of Florida and was even a candidate for Alachua County's commissioner of roads. In his...

  5. "Northerner's Reaction to Lincoln's Assassination"
    date April 16, 1885map DUTCHESS, New Yorktags Crime/Violence, Politics

    Benjamin Stouffer lived in Poughkeepsie, New York and attended school at the time of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865. In a letter back to his family in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, he described the feelings he had, and the reaction of the town concerning the unexpected death of the beloved president.

    In the letter Stouffer writes that he did not know what to do...

  6. The founding of the Women's Exchange for Women's Work in Charleston
    date 1885map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Women

    The Women's Exchange for Women's Work was founded in Charleston in 1885 with the intention of helping the “educated poor' become self-sufficient. Numerous goods were sold there, including foods, flowers, and various crafts. So that it would not be a “humiliating charity,' they placed a 10% surcharge on the goods. A similar exchange was soon opened in New Orleans. These...

  7. The Double Hip “Ironsides” Corset shapes American Women
    date 1885map NEW YORK, New Yorktags fashion, corsets, women's rights

    Victorian women liked their corsets tight.  If a person looked up and down any busy street in the late nineteenth century, they saw townswomen that struck dramatic silhouettes.  The corset, a tight fitting, boned garment, restricted movement and reshaped the natural position of organs inside a women's body.  A trade card from 1885 featured a corset typical of the period dubbed the Double Hip...

  8. Whitman mourns for the fallen star of the Union
    date 1885map COLUMBIA, New Yorktags Politics, Health/Death, assassination, Murder

    Walt Whitman, one of the major American writers of the Civil War, wrote When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd after the assassination of the very charismatic leader of the Union during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln. This poem mourned the death of the powerful, western fallen star which was now hidden by blackness, leaving only desperation and bitterness behind. The poem followed...

  9. The 1885 Florida Constitutional Convention
    date June 9, 1885 to August 3, 1885map LEON, Floridatags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    Assembled for the purpose of reforming the “Carpetbag' Constitution of 1868, the Florida Constitutional Convention opened in Tallahassee on June 9, 1885. Hon. Samuel Pasco, the long-time chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee, was elected to be President of the convention unanimously. Because Florida was a relatively new state at the time, many of its delegates were not native-born....

  10. Democrat Disappointments
    date March 25, 1885map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Civil Service be (blanked), said he, do you suppose the (blanked) (blanked) old fool thought we were in earnest about such (blanked) (blanked) nonsense and not as that? A Democratic workingman had no trouble speaking his mind to a Norfolk gentleman, out on the streets, when asked of his opinion of President Cleveland. The workingman, having so ardently supported the first Democratic president-elect...

  11. Passing of a Temperance Bill in Georgia
    date July 13, 1885map FULTON, Georgiatags Church/Religious-Activity, Politics, Women

    On July 13, 1885, the Women's Christian Temperance Union met in Atlanta, Georgia to oversee the passing of a law to promote temperance in Georgia. The women recorded how they sat at the courthouse for many hours in very hot temperatures just to see the bill that they supported pass through the legislators. They sent flowers down to the representatives who were supportive of temperance and prayed...

  12. A Convict Jumps Ship
    date July 15, 1885map WEST BATON ROUG, Louisianatags Crime/Violence, Government, Politics

    In November of 1885, the British ship Rebecca J. Morton was lying in port. A fight occurred between some of the sailors, and one man was severely injured while another was killed. Charles Furlong, one of the men who intervened in the quarrel in an attempt to stop the men from fighting, was convicted of murder. He was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment and was sent to the Baton Rouge Penitentiary...

  13. AT&T Incorporated Established
    date March 2, 1885map MACON, Georgiatags Arts/Leisure, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    In the years following 1876, after the invention of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, there existed no national telephone organization, just a handful of decentralized regional operations. Bell had gradually acquired all the companies that licensed its telephone equipment in what was known as the Bell System; the predominant driving force in telecommunication. In March of 1885, the American...

  14. The Grand State Farmers' Alliance Convention
    date August 4, 1885map JOHNSON, Texastags Agriculture, Economy

    Formed in response to rapidly declining commodity prices and monetary deflation, the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, or the Southern Farmers' Alliance, was first formed in September of 1877 in Lampasas County, Texas, to address the economic plight of the farmers in the region. An outgrowth of the Grange Movement, the Alliance endeavored to solve the economic woes of the...

  15. Death of Capt. K G Gittio
    date February 25, 1885map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags Health/Death, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Few citizens of Portsmouth could escape the mourning of K G Gittio's death. On February 25, 1885 it covered the front page news, flags flew at half-mast, locomotives were shrouded, and traffic stopped, while people flooded to his funeral. The city had lost a respected citizen and a leading businessman, regarded as one of the South's best railroad men. Gittio, thinking he had a cold, had...

  16. Publication of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    date February 18, 1885map MARION, Missouritags Arts/Leisure

    On February 18th Samuel Clemens' The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published under his pen name, Mark Twain. Twain was born in Florida, Missouri and later moved to Hannibal, a town on the Mississippi River much like the towns depicted in his two most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. <br /><br />Twain began work on Huckleberry...

  17. Midwifery in Mississippi
    date February 15, 1885 to February 17, 1885map MADISON, Mississippitags Health/Death, Women

    On February 17, 1885, Mrs. Octavia Wyche wrote from Meridianville in Madison County, Mississippi to her daughter Imogene in Virginia about a number of things. Perhaps the most important news of the letter was the complication during child birth that her other daughter Mollie had gone through two days before. Mrs. Wyche noticed her daughter was acting strangely and sent Walter, one of her sons, for...

  18. Circumstantial Evidence
    date February 14, 1885map SHELBY, Tennesseetags african americans, circumstantial evidence, courts

    In early 1885 an African American named McKeever went hunting in Memphis, Tennessee, in the same location as a white hunter who was later found dead.  Based on extremely circumstantial evidence, McKeever was put on trial for first degree murder in February 1885.  The jury deliberated for two days before they decided to convict McKeever.

    The circumstantial evidence that the jury considered...

  19. Debating Prohibition
    date August, 1885map MC LENNAN, Texastags Politics, Women

    Dr. J.B. Cranfill, a resident of Texas, an ardent supporter of temperance and prohibition, packed his bag, headed for Crawford, Texas, and prepared to defend prohibition in what would be a heated debate in August of 1885. His opponent was to be Roger Q. Mills, a man formerly an advocate of prohibition but whom since had taken the side of whiskey men. Cranfill compared the encounter to that of David...

  20. Hurricane
    date August 25, 1885map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Health/Death, Economy

    A Category 3 Hurricane with 125 mph winds besieged the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Beginning at about 5 AM, the cyclone ripped through the city for about eight hours, climaxing at roughly 8 AM. It was at this point that the velocity of the winds dramatically increased, incurring within fifty minutes more damage in Charleston, according to the News and Courier, “than has been known...

  21. Charity for a Minister
    date January 27, 1885map HAMPSHIRE, West Virginiatags Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity

    On a crisp evening in January of 1885, Mrs. John H. Barney, a minister's wife, expected to have a quiet night socializing with a few close friends. However, she was pleasantly surprised to find that what was expected to be a few friends turned into a large number of congregants from the Timber Ridge Christian Church of Hampshire County. However, the one person missing from this engagement was...

  22. The Twain-Cable Readings
    date January 10, 1885 to January 11, 1885map ST LOUIS CITY, Missouritags Arts/Leisure

    On the evening of January 10, 1885, Mark Twain, also known as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, traveling on a reading tour with another author, George W. Cable, read selected passages from his various literary works at the Mercantile Library Hall in St. Louis, Missouri. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the newspapers covering the event, noted that a brilliant audience (about 700 people) turned...

  23. Victorious Democratic Letter to Blacks in Newspaper
    date November 12, 1884map WILKINSON, Georgiatags African-Americans, Government, Law, Politics, Race-Relations

    On November 4, 1884 Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected President of the United States, and the beginning of the end of Reconstruction throughout the South commenced. While the Democrats had already taken over the Georgia state legislature as early as 1870, the party wished to appease any fears that black citizens may have about the end of Republican rule. On November 12, 1884, the Savannah...

  24. The Publication of a series of letters by Benjamin Ryan Tillman in the News and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina
    date November 19, 1885map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Agriculture, Economy, Education

    Benjamin Ryan Tillman was a relatively affluent farmer from Edgefield County whose family lost much of its property during the Civil War. Benjamin, however, was able to regain much of his prosperity in the ensuing years. Determined to , in his own words , “overthrow an aristocracy which had come down to us from colonial days', he mounted a campaign in the 1880s to foment discontent amongst...

  25. The filing of a discrimination suit against the Norfolk and Portsmouth Ferry Company by two African-American preachers
    date November 23, 1885map BALTIMORE, Marylandtags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    Two black preachers from Baltimore , Rev. Harvey Johnston, of the Union Baptist Church, and Rev. P.H.A. Braxton, of the Calvary Church , filed suit against the Norfolk and Portsmouth Ferry Company in the Fourth Circuit of the Eastern District of Virginia. They did so after being accosted and, eventually, arrested for resisting the orders of the ferry's personnel to remove themselves from the...