Episodes Nearest to April 2, 1887: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Engines of Progress
    date April 2, 1887map CALHOUN, Alabamatags Economy, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Deep in the iron-rich north central region of Alabama, industry was booming. The owners of Murray and Stephenson ironworks in Anniston took the huge step of enlarging their foundry, allowing for bigger commissions and higher production rates. They had negotiated with the managers of the Alabama Car Works for a contract for enough work for the next eight months.

    Over at the engine works of...

  2. Communion Alcohol
    date April 9, 1887map ALEXANDER, Illinoistags Temperance Movement, woman’s suffrage

    In a letter dated April 9, 1887 Isabella Maud Rittenhouse described a confrontation with her pastor. Rittenhouse, a teetotaler and member of the Temperance Movement, had demanded to know whether communion wine contained alcohol, to which her pastor dismissively replied that “it amused him to hear these WCTU people talking about unfermented wine; that there was no such thing in Christ’s time”.

  3. Chincoteague Prohibition
    date April 25, 1887map ACCOMACK, Virginiatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Law, Politics, Race-Relations, Women

    On a late April weekend, Chincoteague residents gathered to celebrate the one year anniversary of their local option legislation, which barred their community from devastating alcohol consumption. Crowded in the town's Temperance Hall, because of rain outside, Friday night witnessed the much anticipated literary and musical entertainment. Despite the weather, spirits remained high and prominent...

  4. Anne Sullivan begins teaching Helen Keller
    date March 3, 1887map COLBERT, Alabamatags Health/Death, Education

    Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama in 1880. At the young age of nineteen months, Helen's brain and stomach were exposed to Scarlet Fever, which left her blind, deaf, and mute. Helen explained in her autobiography, “then, in the dreary month of February, came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a new-born baby. They called it acute...

  5. Town Improvement Association of Winter Park
    date March 3, 1887map ORANGE, Floridatags Agriculture, Economy, Government

    The city of Winter Park was established in 1881 as a main trading center for fruit companies throughout Central Florida. This flourishing trading spot transformed itself into a popular resort where northerners came to flee from the harsh cold northern winters. According to the Seminole Hotel Booklet, the Winter Park area was ideal for northern settlement since it was full of natural...

  6. Hatch Act of 1887
    date March 2, 1887map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Agriculture, Health/Death, Economy, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    During and after the Civil War, many farms and ranches were without the man power needed to cultivate the land. William Henry Hatch of Missouri joined forces with Norman J. Coleman to create legislation that would promote all aspects of agriculture. The Martinsburg Gazette reported that “President Grover Cleveland approved the famous Hatch Act on March, 2 1887,' which created agricultural...

  7. Badly in Need of a Revival
    date February 26, 1887map HAWKINS, Tennesseetags Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity, Women

    Rogersville needed religion- at least Reverend Jarvis and Reverend Roberts thought so. These two clergymen, along with the ministers of the churches near Rogersville held a series of union meetings or revivals at the Methodist Episcopal Church.

    The faithful churchgoers who attended prayed together, coming forth to offer their wishes for the success of the revival meeting and for the souls...

  8. Post-Reconstruction Tensions in Fairview Township, South Carolina
    date April, 1887 to June 29, 1887map GREENVILLE, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    Tensions between the black and white communities of Fairview Township in Greenville County increased drastically due to the revelation of secret night-time meetings amongst the black societies. The Enterprise and Mountaineer initially talked to the white population of Fairview and it was revealed how the African-American community was holding secret meetings at varying locations; according...

  9. The Federal Government Passes the Dawes Act
    date February 8, 1887map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Indians

    By the 1870s, prime agricultural land remained in the plains. Many American citizens believed the federal government should free this valuable land from nomadic Indian tribes for white settlers. Other whites approached the situation from a paternalistic perspective and insisted Indians should be assimilated into American society. Named after Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, the Federal Government...

  10. Equal Educations?
    date May 27, 1887map FAUQUIER, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Economy, Education

    Mr. Mathews opened the letter. It was from his son who wrote of the upcoming exams he had in school. Included among those exams were Geometry, Rhetoric, Vergil and Latin Exercises, French Reading and Exercise, Latin Syntax, Algebra, and History. Among these exams, there was no break except for Sunday, a day for Church and rest. Mr. Mathews felt proud that his son was getting such a good education,...

  11. Uplifting Community at the Tuskegee Institute
    date June 5, 1887map MACON, Alabamatags African-Americans, Education, Politics, Race-Relations

    Six years after its foundation in 1881, The New York Times reported on the success of the Tuskegee Institution live from Tuskegee, Alabama. The Tuskegee Institution invited the black community to witness what work the school has turned out, how that work is accomplished, and what is the character of the general population in which the raw material comes. Gathered in the hall were, perhaps...

  12. Male Competition and a Female Audience
    date January 26, 1887map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags Government, Politics, Women

    On January 26, 1887, the Virginian Weekly & Carolinian reported with little excitement that the Senate had rejected a constitutional amendment for women's suffrage. Paying more attention to the Army Appropriation bill, funding for public building, and the Railroad Attorney's Bill, the article hardly focused on women's perpetual disenfranchisement. While one senator presented...

  13. Texas Farmer's Alliance
    date January 20, 1887map MC LENNAN, Texastags Agriculture, Economy, Race-Relations, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    When they met on January 20, 1887 in Waco, members of the Texas state alliance made plans to stage a coup that would get rid of the current president of the organization and unite smaller factions already within the coalition. This newly integrated group created a national alliance, known as the Texas Farmer's Alliance, and declared C.W. Macune their president. <br /><br />The...

  14. A Strike at the Docks
    date January 15, 1887map WARWICK, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Economy, Politics

    The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company lay powerless, while over 300 mostly black dockworkers armed themselves with any object they could find. Once organized, they forced their way through the barricaded doors of Pier 2. Now inside the docks, they struck out at the scabs, filling their jobs, and ravaged the offices, where they stole a barrel of whiskey. The effects of their new capture only further...

  15. Shoot-out in Kentucky
    date July 2, 1887map ROWAN, Kentuckytags Government, Law

    In 1887, a long-standing feud between the Tolliver family and the Martin family came to a bloody end in Rowan County, Kentucky. The feud began after the 1884 election when Cook Humphrey defeated Sam Goodson for the position of sheriff. John Day and Floyd Tolliver were accused of beating John Martin with a club after words were exchanged over the election of Humphrey. This incident was the beginning...

  16. How's the Weather?
    date 1887map RAPPAHANNOCK, Virginiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Health/Death, Economy

    Once again, H. A. Tayloe sat down by the fireplace to read the correspondence he had picked up. Today he received the latest news from a friend he had not seen in a long time, N. H. Hudson. As he read over the news, it was once again, as usual, all about how Mr. Hudson's planting season was going. In this particular letter, Mr. Hudson had finally gotten around to planting his cotton and he still...

  17. Florida in 1887: Malaria and Alligators
    date 1887map ORANGE, Floridatags Arts/Leisure, Health/Death, Migration/Transportation

    "It was a malaria-cursed desert, a barren wilderness swarming with poisonous snakes and repulsive reptiles." Travel author Iza Hardy observed that this was the resounding view of Florida in 1887 held by those in the northern, eastern and western United States. The statement is only one of many Hardy presents in his 1887 book, Oranges and Alligators, that illustrates the verbal abuse...

  18. Looking Back: Thoughts On Secession By Anson Morse
    date 1887map ANSON, North Carolinatags Politics, War

    Views on why and how secession occurred plagued the thoughts of Anson D. Morse and others. Morse, explaining to his comrades why the country remained divided even twenty years after the close of the war, stated that "the terms North and South retain too much of their earlier meaning. This vitality of the sectional spirit....testifies to the completeness of...the conservatism of American character."...

  19. The Revolution of Vocal Assemblage
    date 1887map GRATIOT, Michigantags Liberal Arts, Choir Tour, Choir, Alma College

    The choral programs at Alma College have been an important part of the liberal arts experience.  Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a wide variety of choral groups were formed such, as the early Almaroon Quartette, Choral Club, Men’s and Women’s Glee Clubs and several a cappella choirs and have been named some of Michigan’s finest small choirs.  At times, after a student’s...

  20. Henry Grady sells the “New South'
    date December 22, 1886map FULTON, Georgiatags Economy

    Henry Grady was the editor of the Atlanta Constitution and a supporter and spokesman of the “New South' concept. Grady was invited to speak at the New England Club of New York in 1886, where he made a famous speech about the New South. He disarmed his listeners by saying “There was a South of slavery and secession that South, thank God, is dead. There is a South of union and freedom...

  21. Henry Grady and His New South Speech
    date December 22, 1886map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Politics

    A man of great charisma and incredible oratory skills, Grady was a man with a goal. Henry W. Grady was born in Georgia and was throughout his career a spokesman, a proponent, and an ambassador for the South to the rest of the world. Growing up in the disenfranchised and embittered South, Grady had a vision of a reintegrated South that would take its place of glory and prominence in the newly restored...

  22. Illicit Whiskey Distilleries in Mountains of Western North Carolina
    date April, 1887 to October, 1887map WILKES, North Carolinatags Crime/Violence, Government

    In early 1887, B.F. Jones of Yadkin County leaked information to the Internal Revenue Service-he knew of men who had been illegally distilling whiskey in the mountains of Western North Carolina. These men were arrested and punished for their crimes. But how did B.F. Jones, a former Sheriff of his home county of Yadkin, a Republican, and a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1875 know of these...

  23. Negro Family Turning White
    date December 11, 1886map TAZEWELL, Virginiatags African-Americans, Law, Race-Relations

    Race relations and classifications resounded strongly in the minds of many in the South. West Virginia was no exception to this. A story ran in the Martinsburg Gazette on December 11, 1866 that a young African American boy living in Chicago, Illinois was supposedly turning white. Born to two African American parents, the pigmentation in the young boy's skin was becoming increasingly lighter...

  24. A Great City
    date December 4, 1886map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags Arts/Leisure, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    By 1900, Staunton had a population of 7,289, and in 1886, the city already boasted of its greatness. The Goodson Gazette, a small circulation paper, ran a few lines devoted to the city's attractive characteristics. Not only did the city have electricity, but also they had streetlights on some of the main streets. They had a telegraph since the 1850's, but did not mention it, nor...

  25. A Morning in the Kitchen
    date December 1, 1886map BRISTOL, Massachusettstags Economy, Women

    In December of 1886, "A Morning in the Kitchen" was published in Rushlight, the magazine of Wheaton Female Seminary in Norton, Massachusetts. In this essay our unknown author provided accounts from a day without her cook. She began her essay by remarking on the morning outside and then discussed the tasks of making and cleaning up after a meal. She stated that men's genius was...