On an ordinary day in Rogersville the Southern Railway train, run by Conductor Shell, pulled into the station to unload its cargo of flour and take on the next load of lumber. Lewis Boyd, a black man, hopped up into the car to help unload the flour. As he removed the sacks of flour from the car, he happened to throw some of them to the ground. Conductor Shell reprimanded Boyd for his carelessness and...
It was already hot. As the Superintendent lined the convicts up to march back to the Dade County coal mines for another day of exhausting labor, one group refused to move. At the head of a long line of men chained together, the leader of the rebellion spoke up to Colonel Tower. He said that he and all the rest of the men from his stockade refused to work another day in the heat at their awful work....
Betting during the earlier decades of the nineteenth century was remarkably more popular among southern citizens than among citizens of the northern states. Although forms of gambling were less common up north, it was a prevalent facet of southern society in 1821. While New Orleans proved to be the major gambling center in the south, even rural South Carolinians were likely to bet on cards, dice,...
The Richmond Dispatch reported on October 28, 1890, on the status of the Richmond Public Schools.Administrators gathered at the Richmond high school building to discuss enrollment and attendance for the 1890-91 school year.The superintendent, W.F. Fox, reported that enrollment had increased from the previous year.The statistics included a category for blacks as well as whites.Interestingly, enrollment...
A focused, open-minded man capable of sound reasoning and clear expression- these, according to John Broadus, were the characteristics distinguishing an educated man. The Baptist minister was a fierce advocate of higher education and lamented the fact that many young men attended schooling in their younger years, but, when about to enter the potential peak of their intellectual growth, chose to be...
Mrs. M.A. Moore, widowed mother of seven grown children, was alone in her home one morning. As she went about her household business, a black man forced himself into her house and assaulted her. He then escaped, leaving Mrs. Moore in her house. The white population of Chattanooga was outraged that such an offense could be committed in broad daylight upon a well-respected white woman. So, they cast...
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 of...
Surveying Jacksonville society, Leigh Hunt saw humor in the consumption of tobacco. Men of all classes, of all shapes and sizes, employed distinctively bizarre methods of using tobacco. Inhaling dry tobacco powder seems simple enough, but the means to that end varied upon the artistic originality of the southern man. Some gentlemen were quite convulsive, propelling the powder upward into their nostril...
On October 8, 1846, in Clark County, Alabama, Sam Forwood wrote a letter to his sixteen-year-old son, William Stump Forwood, who was living in Maryland with his grandmother for schooling.Young William had been questioning what occupation he should pursue, and his father had several points of advice. Sam advised his son to pursue the profession of medicine. As Sam explained it, becoming a doctor would...
B.F. Porter was an important individual around Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. Not only was he a practicing lawyer, but he owned a large crop of cotton and produced valuable gin. However, someone apparently had a problem with his extracurricular activities. On February 21, 1842, the Mobile Commercial Register reported that Mr. Porter's gin house, along with his entire cotton crop, went up in flames only...