Episodes Nearest to January 1, 1895 to December 31, 1895: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Ida B. Wells Writes and Releases Book About Lynching in the South
    date 1895map WASHINGTON, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    Three years prior to the release of A Red Record, Ida B.Wells was forced out of her home in Memphis, Tennessee and into Northern exile by her campaign against lynching. The white Northern press excluded most African American writers, so Wells was forced to create new arguments and tactics. In an effort to attract attention to the plight of blacks, Wells attacked white fears of declining manliness...

  2. Taxes and Their Uses
    date 1895map WESTMORELAND, Virginiatags Arts/Leisure, Economy, Education, Government, Politics

    In 1895 Mr. Thomas Brown paid his taxes to S.B. Hardwick, who was the treasurer of Westmoreland County, Virginia at that time. During that time, everyone had to pay one dollar to the state and fifty cents to the county per head. Taxes were based on every one hundred dollars worth of property. For example, it was thirty cents for state tax, ten cents for state school tax, and fifteen cents for road...

  3. The Importance of Place
    date 1895map RICHLAND, South Carolinatags Map, Agriculture, South Carolina

    Who better than the biggest name in printing today to lead the expedition into map printing than Rand McNally? Starting in railroad guides, the company eventually worked its way into maps in 1872, using a new wax engraving method that allowed it to print maps at a greatly reduced cost. This ensured the company’s ability to expand its publishing productions into maps and geography textbooks; in...

  4. White Man Lynched in New Orleans, LA
    date June 24, 1895map ORLEANS, Louisianatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Race-Relations

    On June 24, 1895, a white man was lynched for an attempt to lynch a black woman in Gretna, Jefferson Parish, a suburb of New Orleans. The intent had been to lynch a black woman named Frances Woodson. The crowd, composed of six young men in the community went to the woman's house, but she, having heard the threats against her life, had left. The pack of young lynchers entered her house by...

  5. Black Ministers Gather in Columbia to form a Suffrage Committee
    date July 10, 1895map RICHLAND, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    As racial tension mounted throughout the South, many black citizens felt that voting the only way that African-Americans could achieve racial equality. Although a few blacks could vote in South Carolina, many were unable to vote because they were chased away from the poles by whites, couldn't afford to pay the pole taxes, or didn't own enough property to be eligible to vote. <br />In...

  6. Solomon Marable Convicted of Murdering Mrs. Lucy Pollard
    date July 12, 1895map LUNENBERG, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Health/Death

    On June 15th 1895, Lucy Pollard, the wife of a white farmer in Lunenburg, Virginia, was beaten to death with an ax just before 6 pm. Later that evening, her husband, Edward found her body by a freshwater spring on the farm, and also noticed 855 stolen from the couple's house. Having witnessed Solomon Marable near the spring the day before the Mrs. Pollard was killed, a concerned group of Lunenburg...

  7. Growing Violence in the South between Blacks and Whites
    date June, 1895map LUNENBERG, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    Lucy Pollard's dead body laid in the grass brutally mutilated by an ax on the sunny June afternoon in 1895. Immediately upon discovery that evening by her husband, Edward Pollard, a black farmhand named Soloman Marable was arrested for the murder along three black women of the crime - Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, and Pokey Barnes. Edward Pollard of Lunenburg County, Virginia was a wealthy farmer...

  8. Convention of Free Silver Supporters
    date June 12, 1895 to June 14, 1895map SHELBY, Tennesseetags Economy

    After the Civil War, silver reserves were discovered in the Western United States. Free silver advocates were people who advocated the Federal Government to allow silver to be minted at 1 per troy ounce as opposed to the gold standard which valued gold at 20 per troy ounce. The result of introducing silver into the market would have been an increase in money supply and inflation. Those who backed...

  9. Black Men & Women Charged with Murder and Robbery
    date June 14, 1895 to August, 1895map LUNENBERG, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    On June 14, 1895, 56-year-old Lucy Jane Pollard (a white woman) was found murdered and robbed in Keysville, VA. The Richmond Dispatch sensationally described the murder and said that “a lynching [was] likely to occur before [the next] morning' of two black female suspects. Three days after the murder, another suspect, a black man was hunted down by the white community of Keysville. When...

  10. Denial of Serive
    date August 3, 1895map CARROLL, Marylandtags African-Americans, Arts/Leisure, Law, Race-Relations

    Nearly twenty years earlier, the United States government ratified the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to alleviate some of the racial tensions still proliferated throughout the inner workings of society. During the summer months, it was common for families of all races to travel throughout the country for vacation and receive such hospitalities as refreshments and other accommodations. The businesses...

  11. Henderson, North Carolina Cotton Mills Announce Plan for a New Mill
    date August 7, 1895map HENDERSON, North Carolinatags Economy

    In the 1890's, the size of the cotton crop was growing at a rapid rate as more and more land in the western part of the United States was being devoted to cotton. Roughly 9.9 million bales of cotton were produced in the country in the 1894-95 growing season, which was almost 2.2 million bales more than the harvest in 1893-94, and over 3.2 million more than in 1892-93. <br />To keep up...

  12. Silencing Lynching
    date August 17, 1895map BALTIMORE CITY, Marylandtags Government, Race-Relations

    In the turbulent South of the late 19th century, the act of lynching was a well-established institution. This degrading act of vigilante violence was initiated to control; mainly African-Americans in a predominantly white society. A response article was written to the African-American Ledger, a black operated newspaper in Baltimore, rebuking these despicable acts towards a fellow human being. A...

  13. African American Composer William Grant Still is Born
    date May 11, 1895map WILKINSON, Mississippitags African-Americans, Arts/Leisure

    William Grant Still was born on May 11, 1895 in Woodville, Mississippi. His father passed away when Still was only three months old, and he and his mother moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where she soon remarried. As a boy, Still learned to play the oboe and cello and took violin lessons. He soon developed an interest in African American, jazz, popular, opera, and classical genres. Still attended...

  14. Roads for Progress
    date August 23, 1895map MONTGOMERY, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Politics, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Roads for Progress

    It is not denied, neither in the past nor in the present that transportation was one of the most important factors in the boosting of the new Southern economy and industry. The Montgomery Messenger, of Montgomery County, Virginia recognized this fact and in an article written on Friday, August 23, 1895, the writer discussed the benefits of a good roads convention. The...

  15. Double Murder in Louisville, Kentucky
    date April 30, 1895 to May 9, 1895map JEFFERSON, Kentuckytags Crime/Violence, Health/Death

    On April 30, 1895, Fulton Gordon murdered his wife, Nellie Bush Gordon and her lover, Arch Dixon Brown. Brown, recently divorced from his wife, was the son of the Kentucky governor. The double murder took place at “the disreputable resort of Lucy Smith, a colored woman,' who was in part blamed for providing accommodations for the illicit lovers. <br /> The murder made the front...

  16. Halma Wins the Kentucky Derby with African American Jockey
    date May 4, 1895map JEFFERSON, Kentuckytags African-Americans, Arts/Leisure

    Twenty thousand people attended the Kentucky Derby in 1895, the largest crowd ever at the Churchill Downs racetrack. Halma's victory increased morale among Kentuckians because he was the first homebred to claim the Derby title for several years. Halma was hailed as a great horse, worthy of the victory. He had never run a mile and a half before, but his superb breeding (Hanover Julia L.) predicted...

  17. Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
    date April 16, 1895 to May 20, 1895map WASHINGTON, Virginiatags Economy

    The Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. was an important Supreme Court case dealing with the first establishment of an income tax in the United States and the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894. The Gorman Tariff Act stated that, for a five year period, any “gains, profits and incomes' in excess of 4,000 would be taxed at two percent. In compliance with the Act, the Farmers' Loan...

  18. The Doctor is Out
    date September 4, 1895map MONTGOMERY, Alabamatags Health/Death, Law

    On the evening of January 8, 1894 the prominent and well-loved town doctor lay bleeding on his bathroom floor. He had left four or five letters addressed to his most intimate friends before shooting himself in the head. The news of John H. Blue's death shocked his Montgomery, Alabama community. As reported by the Birmingham Age Herald, Blue's suicide was the second act of a larger...

  19. Fatal Shooting in Jackson
    date September 7, 1895map JACKSON, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Race-Relations

    On the morning of September 7, 1895 in the Saloon of Cain and Davis, an altercation occurred between two African American men, in which Mr. William Miller shot Mr. Dick Wilcox in the bowels. Miller had allegedly threatened Wilcox, just a day before, that if he refused to repay a debt of fifty cents he would be killed. On the morning of the shooting, Wilcox entered the saloon in which Miller was...

  20. Mob Attacks Black Man
    date September 9, 1895map FAYETTE, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Law, Race-Relations

    Mobs and Lynching were prevalent by 1895 in Tennessee. One early morning, a terrorist mob group named the White Caps, kidnapped Cal Fowler, a black man, and severely buggy whipped his back. The White Caps called Fowler a 'worthless shiftless negro,' and accused him of 'doing a great deal of talking in regard to the lynching of Dock King.' Fowler reportedly had planned to notify U.S....

  21. Effectively Speaking: Booker T. Washington’s Speech at the “Atlanta Exposition”
    date September 15, 1895map MACON, Alabamatags Speeches, Principal, Cotton States, Black Americans, Exposition, Educational Tour, Tuskegee Normal and Indus, Atlanta Exposition, African-Americans, Booker T. Washington

    The time had come to deliver his speech. As principal of an all-Black school he realized the importance of conveying his message carefully at the opening of “the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition in Tuskegee, Alabama”. Standing in front of a large gathering the principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute understood his words had to be effective. He looked into a sea of anxious white...

  22. A Controversial Letter to the Editor
    date September, 1895map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Politics, Race-Relations

    In the summer of 1895, a person identifying themselves only as Pee-Dee wrote an explosive letter to the Charleston News and Courier. He proposed all men, both white and black, should be allowed to vote, but that those who owned property should have their vote count for more. Specifically, a man would receive an additional vote for each 500 worth of property he owned up to 5000. Thus, a wealthy man...

  23. Zeigler Brothers Witch Hunt
    date September, 1895map SCREVEN, Georgiatags Crime/Violence, Politics

    Searching high and low, the virtual witch hunt for the Zeigler Brothers, suspected of murdering Sheriff Brooker, came to an unfruitful end. Sheriff Mills attempted to capture and arrest two populist brothers who were accused of shooting and killing Sheriff Brooker, the predecessor to Sheriff Mills in office. Following the murder of their father by Brooker, the brothers swore out a vendetta against...

  24. Booker T. Washington calls to Cast Down Your Buckets
    date September 18, 1895map FULTON, Georgiatags African-Americans, Economy, Education, Race-Relations

    Cast down your buckets where you are This was the prophetic cry of Booker T. Washington at the Atlanta Cotton Exposition on Wednesday, September 18, 1895. The talented representative of the negroes and President of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School spoke brilliantly and passionately as he lobbied for African American employment in the burgeoning industrial age. He called upon whites throughout...

  25. Women Prepare for 1895 Atlanta Cotton Exposition
    date September 18, 1895map FULTON, Georgiatags Urban-Life/Boosterism, Women

    Porcelain panels of fruit, intricate paintings, exquisite displays of needlework, and skillfully-crafted carpentry. These elaborate and beautiful adornments awaited guests of the Women's Department at Atlanta's 1895 Cotton Exposition. Women's social clubs from the entirety of Georgia labored to make their display a true success. To do so, they culled art and handiwork from around the...