In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...
Though a large religious presence existed in Missouri, its inhabitants succumbed to a great number of vices, including alcohol abuse amongst men. The widespread alcohol abuse in St. Louis, the gateway to the West, caused many that passed through the city to comment on the wicked city containing an excessive number of deists and infidels. Some cited alcohol abuse as a result of the growing population...
On a brisk morning in January of 1836, Dr. J. Marion Sims started his day with his routine house-to-house calls in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. Sims was a well-established and distinguished practitioner of medicine who came to Alabama from South Carolina to establish his own medical practice; he was also best known for his accomplishments in Women’s health and for the establishment of the first Women’s...
John Dewery, a bright mulatto...nineteen or twenty years old, found himself in a precarious situation. As he was sitting in the Clark County Jail in Alabama on January 7, 1836, the Mobile Commercial Register published an announcement about his capture and arrest as an escaped slave. This was problematic because he swore in vain that he was a freed person. Nevertheless, the paper reported that if...
In Chapter XIX of Frederick Douglass's My Bondage My Freedom, he talked about how he was fed up with not being a free man and began to devise a plan to escape. At this point in Douglass's life he worked for Mr. Freeland, and even though he considered him a friend, the idea of being enslaved his entire life gave Frederick the drive to escape. It was the beginning of 1836, and Fredrick...
As early as 1830, three years before the Nullification Compromise, South Carolinians in the coastal Georgetown area became agitated with raised tariffs. This financial strain, however, concerned Southerners less than its implications for domestic policy. They warned, If it is not, it ought to be understood that the Tariff is only one of the subjects of complaint in the South. The Internal Improvement,...
As early as 1830, three years before the Nullification Compromise, South Carolinians in the coastal Georgetown area became agitated with raised tariffs. This financial strain, however, concerned Southerners less than its implications for domestic policy. They warned, If it is not, it ought to be understood that the Tariff is only one of the subjects of complaint in the South. The Internal Improvement,...
During the nineteenth century Louisiana was one of the country's largest producers of sugar. The sugar plantations contributed to the American economy and although they were not always the wealthiest of ventures, the proved to be objects of mystique to travelers passing through southern Louisiana.
One such visitor to Louisiana was William Gray Fairfax of Virginia. Gray was on his way...
Christmas day, 1835, was a most miserable day for Henry Clay. One moment he was laughing and joking with friends; then his life changed drastically. He received a letter from home. Upon opening it, he fell directly to the ground, as if he had been shot. The first words he managed to utter, Every tie to life is broken He had received new of his daughter's death. Although he became more composed...
In the evening hours of Wednesday, December 16, 1835, smoke billowed above the downtown Manhattan skyline. At the time, no one knew exactly where the sparks had ignited and the fire begun, but by Thursday afternoon, the flames had engulfed approximately seventeen square blocks on and surrounding Wall Street. An article in the magazine The Albion indicated that by Thursday evening between 700 and...