W.H. Brisbane was a respected planter living outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Upon inheritance of the family plantation and slaves, he reaped the benefits of great land and free labor. Much like any other South Carolinian at the time, W.H. Brisbane bought into the beliefs of slavery being supported by the Bible. He even wrote his own articles in the local newspaper about how slavery was...
In Reverend John Ogden’s pamphlet, he described the Bavarian Illuminati as secret organization obsessed with destroying and undermining religion and government in the United States prior to the nineteenth century. Throughout the course of the late eighteenth century the very powerful and rich, who were extensions of the individuals in Europe, met monthly as members of “the secret Clergy.” According...
Life in the village was dictated by the back-and-forth pangs of church bell and mill whistle. The mill village of Union Bleachery was home to workers and their families and known for an abounding sense of community. The Bleachery began with 125 workers who would spin up to 100,000 yards of cloth a day. Imperative to the survival of the community, a tight routine was established and maintained. Monday...
In 1837, Angelina Grimke authored a series of letters to Catharine Beecher on the topic of the cultural roles of women as they relate to their social, economic, and political rights. One was reprinted in Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement, 1830-1870 by Kathryn Sklar. In the letter retitled by Sklar as, “Human Rights Not Founded on Sex,” Grimke argues that humans have rights...
In New England, the Puritans required every town to establish public schools supported by all families. After settling in the United States, the first buildings they constructed were a house of worship and a school. This exemplifies that education and religion were the two most important beliefs that the Puritans held. According to New England First Fruits, “After God… reared convenient places...
Noah Davis sat puzzled, he contemplated his next move. He had already purchased six of his children back from various slave owners, through hard work and many favors gained from people he discovered on his travels. His life defined turmoil. Noah Davis worked against the clock to purchase his seventh and final child, his daughter who was born into bondage. Noah Davis was already well versed in the North,...
John Kennedy’s 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association was delivered to assuage the suspicion many Americans harbored against him from the beginning of his race for the Presidency. Senator Kennedy and most of his aides correctly assumed that they would be facing some of the same prejudice and fear over the course of the campaign that Al Smith, the Catholic Governor of New York...
In 1916, just before the fourth of July, the Baltimore Sun ran an article praising the Baltimore Jewish community for their Americanism. The article stated, “[a] Great Many of us are discussing at present the meaning of Americanism and what constitutes a real American, but our Jewish fellow-citizens have no doubts on the subject. They have grasped the idea in all its fullness, and they have made...
“O Lord and Master of us all, Whate’er our name or sign, We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, We test our lives by Thine.”  Winsome Womanhood, a book written by Margaret Sangster, provided young women of the early 20th century with a connection to God as well as a purpose/identity within the Christian faith. It was Sangster’s belief that all women, regardless of age, could benefit from the...
On June twenty second, 1865, the first African American Methodist Episcopalian Church (A.M.E. Church) was established in Jacksonville, Florida. Appropriated as the corresponding reverend of the A.M.E. Church in Florida was Reverend W.A. Stewart, who helped build churches around Florida and spread Methodist Episcopalism throughout the state. The South Carolina A.M.E. Conference of May, 1865 recorded...