Economic change was slow to come to the former Confederacy after the Civil War. Although railroads began to crisscross New South cities like Atlanta, dependence on an agricultural way of life made the cities of the South less likely sites of industrial development than their Northern counterparts. This impeded development was only further hindered by the outbreak of Yellow Fever in Montgomery,...
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...
"If you knew, as we do, the horror of Mahoneism, you would not begrudge us the few hours of your time which we ask," wrote Alexander McDonald to President Grover Cleveland in August 1887. McDonald affirmed his solemn belief that "the best interests of Virginia are involved in this proposed visit, and it may be the country, too." Not surprisingly, McDonald was the editor of a Democratic...
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...
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...
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,...
On October 12, 1887 Walter B. Simpson and fellow Hannibal Square resident Frank R. Israel were elected as Winter Park Aldermen. They were the first black men to have ever been elected into any type of political office in Winter Park at that time. This vote came during a tumultuous time when Hannibal Square was taken out of the Winter Park boundaries and during this 1887 election was once again reincorporated...
James Holladay, the owner of a plantation in Spotsylvania County, Virginia was exceedingly proud of his new invention. Holladay had worked hard to perfect the new silo he designed for his farm, but he wanted assurance from an expert that his silo needed no further improvements. On October 28, 1887 Holladay wrote to Professor Elliot W. Stuart, an expert in agriculture at the University of Virginia,...
During the fall convention of the Knights of Labor in Minneapolis, Minnesota delegates from Warrenton, Georgia asked the convention board to pursue action and facilitate in the arrest of the shooters of Hiram Hoover. Hoover, a white labor organizer, had gained momentum in South Carolina as he promoted interracial labor organizing. He was shot by an enraged group of white vigilantes on May 8th....
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...