Detroit in the 1880s was growing, and seeking a reputation among the great cities of the era. When well-to-do citizens formed the exposition company, they imagined a fair that would marry agriculture and industry in a world class exposition. By early 1889, the exposition company had a capital stock of $500,000 to draw on, and the Detroit International Fair and Exposition became a reality.
Seventy...
On January 5, 1899 the Virginian-Pilot reported that a young black male in the town of Portsmouth, Virginia had stolen the pocketbook of a lady whose services he was filling. While this petty incident of crime was relatively unnoticed, buried in the middle of the paper, the style in which the brief story was written illustrates the social opinions in this southern city. The story goes on to describe...
The January 21 edition of the Richmond Dispatch announced the opening of large cotton mills in two towns in Virginia, Manchester and Old Dominion. The mills were already constructed in both towns, but had been closed, the Marshall Mills in Manchester for eighteen months and the Dominion mills for five years. The Mills would now be run in cooperation with one another, adopting the name United Cotton...
In 1899, there were a total of twenty-two Cuban students attending Rollins College, whereas before 1896, there were none. According to the Winter Park Scrapbook, they were the moral and intellectual equals of their American peers, though most knew very little English upon arriving in Winter Park. These students chose Rollins College primarily because of its proximity to their homeland and its affordable...
A two month long strike in the cotton mills of Augusta ended in January after workers gave in a struggle with employers over wages and standards of living. The strike began on November 22, 1898. The strike was expected by those in the community, as tension had been mounting among the workers of the King mills, the Sibley mills, the Enterprise, the Warwick and the Isaetta. Workers at several of the...
On February 3, 1899, an aging Confederate soldier from Portsmouth, identifying himself only as C.M.B. wrote to the Virginian-Pilot in response to Senator Marion Butler's proposed bill that would open up federal pension plans to all veterans of the Civil War. Despite a divide among many Southerners about the honor of accepting federal pension, C.M.B. argues, Why then should ex Confederates prefer...
Proposed and adopted unanimously by the Democratic caucus on February 8, 1899, this amendment would fundamentally change the constitution of the state of North Carolina and block a large percentage of its population from employing their right to vote. The amendment was based on a plan devised by Francis D. Winston of Bertie County and largely mirrored a provision adopted in Louisiana the previous...
Raised specifically for duty in the Philippines, the Thirty-third Infantry regiment of the United States Volunteers became the most famous combat unit to serve in the Philippine-American War, which lasted from 1898 to 1902. The U.S. had purchased the Philippines from Spain at the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898; however, Filipinos had been fighting for their independence since 1896 and refused...
The Need for More Ships
In the late nineteenth century, as the steel and iron industries of the United States slowly became larger and more powerful, newly developed Southern industrial areas began to show interest in the building of a stronger, more powerful merchant marine. A Virginia newspaper, The Montgomery Messenger, shows great interest in the economic benefits of a more extensive...
After years of research, in 1899 German company, Friedrich Bayer & Co. began manufacturing Aspirin for release into the market as a fever reducer and pain reliever; physicians could then prescribe Aspirin to their patients in one-gram doses. Previous to this tweaked product, the most common medicine of its function was Salicylic Acid, which is contracted from Willow Tree bark, having medicinal...