The Year Was . . . A Shades Of The Departed Column

The Year Was 1923

2009-09-12T01:33:00.000-07:00

THE YEAR WAS
BY SHERI FENLEY
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column

The "Roaring 20's" and the "Jazz Age" were in full swing - bathtub gin, Flappers, speakeasies, dance marathons. Americans in the 1920s were the first to wear ready-made, exact-sized clothing. Women smoking cigarettes, cosmetics, and synthetic fabrics such as rayon, newspaper gossip columns, illuminated billboards, commercial airplane flights--all were novelties during the 1920s.

The youth of America challenged traditional notions of proper behavior. For the first time, adolescents become known as a separate entity in American society. They also developed their own language. Some of the words and phrases that originate from this time:

Spifflicated - Drunk. The same as canned, corked, tanked, primed, scrooched, jazzed, zozzled, plastered, embalmed, lit, potted, ossified or fried to the hat

Dapper - a Flapper's dad

Bank's Closed - no kissing or making out - i.e. - "Sorry, Mac, the bank's closed"

Fire Extinguisher - A chaperone

Bee's Knees - An extraordinary person, thing, idea; the ultimate

Hotsy - Totsy - Seemingly excellent, outstanding. He thinks that just because he drives some hotsy-totsy Stutz Bearcar, he's the cat's meow.

Sinker - a doughnut

Wet Blanket - a solemn person, a killjoy

"Moon Mullins" by comic-strip artist Frank Willard makes its debut June 14, 1923 featuring the adventures of a roughneck ne'er-do-well, his kid brother Kayo, Uncle Willie, Aunt Mamie, and Lord and Lady Plushbottom.

SCIENCE and MEDICINE

Scopolamine, previously used as a childbirth anesthetic, is found to act as a "truth" serum after tests on convicts at San Quentin Prison.

The Noble Prize for Medicine was awarded to Sir Frederick Banting (Canada) and John J. R. Macleod (Scotland) for the discovery of insulin.

16 February 1923 - Howard Carter, an English Egyptologist, became the first person to enter the burial chamber of King Tut in over 3000 years.

LAW AND LAWLESSNESS

28 May 1923 - Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty says, "It is legal for women to wear trousers anywhere." When I read this I had to investigate further. I asked the esteemed Craig Manson, "Was there really a law that made it illegal for women to wear trousers?" I was astonished by his reply:

"There were laws in several states that made it illegal for women to wear pants in public. Most such laws eventually were repealed, but it still remained legal for employers to order women not to wear pants at work. California did not change its law on this matter (the "no pants for women at work" rule) until 1995! True fact . . . ."

In 1923 the Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom, ruled that "Not all Caucasians are white." Its decision in the case of U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind (261 U.S. 204 ), deemed that Asian Indians are ineligible for citizenship because U.S. law allowed only free whites to become naturalized citizens. The court conceded that Indians were “Caucasians” and that anthropologists considered them to be of the same race as white Americans, but argued that “the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences.”

A rebel against injustice and abuse and a hero to the people, Pancho Villa was considered an outlaw to authorities. He was assassinated in Parral, Chihuahua on 20 July 1923, three years after he had ended his revolutionary actions.

On 5 May 1923, the states of Montana and Nevada become the first to enact old age pension laws.

FASHION

What the "Good Girls" were wearing -

What the "Really Good Girls" were wearing -

SPORTS

April 18, 1923 – Yankee Stadium opens its doors in the Bronx, NY. Completed in 284 days, the total cost was $2.5 million dollars. If you were a fan, your expenses were not quite as much. A seat in the grandstands - $1.10, a program - 15 cents and a baseball glove from the Sears Roebuck catalog - $4.20. Getting their very own stadium was worth the price, the New York Yankees won their first World Series hammering the New York Giants 4 games to 2.

POLITICS

On 2 August 1923, Warren G. Harding dies in office at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. He may be best known as America’s worst president. This may very well be true, however, he certainly kept busy while he was in office.

President Harding was the first President to:

* Pay taxes

* Have a radio in the White House and the first to broadcast a presidential message on the radio

* Know how to drive a car before taking office

* First president to ride to his inauguration in a limo

* First president born after the Civil War;

and even though he wasn't the first president to have an extramartial affair, he might very well be the first to have had TWO affairs going on simultaneously. Carrie Fulton Phillips was one of his lovers who just happened to be a close friend of Florence Harding - the president's wife. The other was Nan Britton who was the daughter of one of the president's friends. President Harding and his wife never had any children of their own, but he did father a daughter with Nan Britton.

It is no wonder then that when he died, the rumour mill went into overtime. Gossips suggest that Mrs. Harding, the last person to be with him that evening, had poisoned him after learning of his extra-marital affairs, or that he committed suicide rather than face inquiries about the scandals involving his cabinet members (The Teapot Dome Scandal). Her refusal to allow an autopsy of the President only fed the rumors.

President Harding and First Lady Florence Harding

Carrie Fulton Phillips and Nan Britton

On a brighter note, Harding's successor Calvin Coolidge lit the first White House Christmas tree on Christmas Eve 1923 starting a tradition that still exists. Upon learning of the death of President Harding, Calvin Coolidge, was sworn into office by his father, a Vermont judge who read the oath of office from a copy of the World Almanac.

CATASTROPHES and CALAMITIES

On the evening of September 8, 1923, seven U.S. Navy destroyers ran aground off the California coast in what is now called the Honda Point Disaster. It was the largest peacetime loss of U.S. Navy ships.

The Great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo killing 142,807 people and destroying 1/3 of Tokyo. It had a magnitude of 8.4 on the Richter scale when it hit the city at noon on September 1, 1923.

ENTERTAINMENT

Popular music in 1923

"Down-hearted Blues" sung by Bessie Smith

"Yes! We Have No Bananas"

"King Porter Stomp" by Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton

"When You Walked Out Someone Else Walked Right In" by Irving Berlin

"I Won't Say I Will But I Won't Say I Won't" by Ira and George Gershwin

Books that were published in 1923:

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle - Hugh Lofting

The House at Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne

Men Like Gods - H. G. Wells

Movie-goers were treated to "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" starring Lon Chaney, Cecil B DeMille's 1st version of "Ten Commandments" and "Safety Last" starring everyone's favorite Harold Lloyd.

Photo of Bessie Smith - 1923, by Edward Elcha, Courtesy of Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc.

Photo of Tokyo Earthquake - Donated by Corbis-Bettmann to http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/index.cfm

August 8

2009-08-08T01:33:00.000-07:00

THE YEAR WAS
BY SHERI FENLEY
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column

LIFE IN GENERAL

In Springfield, Massachusetts the Duryea brothers (Frank and Charles) drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America on public roads.

May 10, 1893 was a day to remember - The Supreme Court of the United States legally declares the tomato to be a vegetable. The case of Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304) was brought about because of the all mighty dollar. You see, under the Tariff Act of 3 March 1883, imported vegetables were subject to a tariff. The plaintiffs - the Nix family was suing Edward Hedden who was the tax collector of the port of New York to recover back duties they had paid. They argued that the tomato was a fruit - as in "of the vine." The justices in their wisdom basically said that tomatoes are served with dinner not dessert and therefore they are vegetables.

The Panic of 1893 - The New York Stock Exchange crashes and throws the country into a depression. The overbuilding of railroads and bankruptcies of over 15,000 businesses are partially to blame.

The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All", which was written and composed by American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893.

Speaking of songs, here are a few that had people tapping their toes in 1893:

"The Cat Came Back" - words and music by Henry S. Miller

"Do Do My Huckleberry Do" - words by Harry Dillon, music by John Dillon

"Liberty Bell March" by John Philip Sousa

"Mamie, Come Kiss Your Honey" - words and music by May Irwin

The average worker is bringing home about $9.42 per week in 1893, while immigrants are thought to be making less than $1 per day.

On 1 May 1893, the World's Fair, also known as the World's Colombian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago‘s Jackson Park. It was a celebration marking the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' landing in America. The fairgrounds covered 630 acres.

One of the main attractions of the Expo was "Little Egypt." She belly danced her way into stardom. The barker at the fair was heard to have said:

"When she dances, every fiber and every tissue in her entire anatomy shakes like a jar of jelly from your grandmother’s Thanksgiving dinner. Now, gentlemen, I don't say that she's that hot. But I do say that she is as hot as a red-hot stove on the fourth of July in the hottest county in the state."

The State of Nebraska took a statewide census of all Civil War Veterans.

Here's one more song that was published in 1893 - Katherine Lee Bates, from Colorado, wrote “American the Beautiful.”

POLITICS

Stephen Grover Cleveland has the unusual distinction of being both the 22nd and the 24th President of the United States. He took the Oath of Office as the 24th President on 4 March 1893. Grover Cleveland was the only President to leave the White House and return for a second term four years later. Cleveland was the second President to marry while in office but the only President to actually get married IN the White House.

At the age of 49, he tied the knot with 21-year-old Frances Folsom making her the youngest First Lady in history. Despite their age difference, they remained happily married and had five children. Their eldest daughter Ruth had a candy bar named after her - "Baby Ruth."

Women in Colorado are given the right to vote on November 7, 1893.

At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 an estimated 100,000 raced to claim 42,000 parcels of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip.

SPORTS

April 8, 1893 – The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania between the Geneva College Covenanters and the New Brighton YMCA.

FASHION

Bust supporter 1893 US patent 507373

I may be wrong, but I don't thing that this was a top selling item. I think this photo says it all, don't you?

These two women are wearing tailor-mades, which were worn outside the home. Tailors, rather than dressmakers, made them, hence the name. They have the wide leg-o-mutton sleeves, fitted bodices, and bell-shaped skirts. Small hats complete the outfits.

LAW & LAWLESSNESS

"Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one."

On 20 June 1893, Lizzie Borden is acquitted by a jury of her peers in the 1892 murder of her parents in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

DISASTERS

Two deadly hurricanes hit the gulf coast in 1893. The Sea Islands Hurricane was the first to arrive on August 27. Nearly 2000 people lost their lives on the Sea Islands, in Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. Then on October 13, over 1800 people are killed when a hurricane invades the Mississippi Coast.

MEDICINE

Chicago surgeon Daniel Hale Williams performs the world's first open-heart surgery July 10, saving the life of a street fighter with a knife wound in an artery near his heart.

INVENTIONS

Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for the diesel engine on 23 February 1893.

The “Clasp Locker for Shoes” was invented by Whitcomb L. Judson. After changes and improvements over a 30 year period, it became what we know today as the ZIPPER.

“Cream of Wheat” is manufactured by Nabisco Foods and put on the shelves of grocery stores.

Edward Goodrich Acheson patented a method for making an industrial abrasive he called "Carborundum" or silicon carbide on 28 February 1893.

Juicy Fruit chewing gum is introduced by William Wrigley Jr.

July 11

2009-07-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

THE YEAR WAS
BY SHERI FENLEY
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column

"Black Gold, Texas Tea" - On January 10, 1901 oil is discovered at Spindletop near Beaumont, Texas marking the birth of the modern petroleum industry. Once refined into cheap fuel, it revolutionized transportation and changed America forever. All of the following took place in the same year:

-- The Automobile Club of America installed signs on major highways on January 10th
-- Cadillac Motor Company founded
-- New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates.
-- The Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Co. of Springfield, Mass., produced the first com-mercially marketed gasoline-powered bike in the US.

Joshua Lionel Cowen set up a battery-powered toy train to draw customer attention to goods in a store display window. This marked the beginning of Lionel Trains.

Lionel Trains

Anna Edson Taylor, a 43 year old schoolteacher from Michigan gambled on gaining quick fame and fortune with a barrel trip over the thundering Falls on October 24, 1901. Her vessel was a large oak barrel, equipped with a 100-pound blacksmith’s anvil on the bottom to keep it floating upright. Padding was placed all around her, and sufficient air for the trip was pumped into the barrel via a bicycle pump before the lid was carefully screwed on with ordinary wood screws. With her pet kitten inside the barrel with her, the tie rope was severed about 4:40 pm.

Mrs. Annie Edson Taylor
and her cat

The barrel rode through the upper rapids, and within minutes, Taylor passed over the 163 foot high Horseshoe Falls. The barrel disappeared from view into the swirling waters before bobbing to the surface and gradually floating to the Canadian shore, where it was stranded until rescuers could reach it. Once released, Taylor emerged quite bruised and shocked, but alive. Her attempt to “cash in” on the stunt was far from successful. She died in poverty, but for 10 years held the honour of being the only person to have ever gone over the Falls, until the first man attempted it in 1911.

1901 is the first time the Nobel Prizes are awarded.

Henry Dunant won the 1st Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in establishing the International Red Cross and the First Geneva Convention covering treatment of those wounded in war. The prize was shared with Frederic Passy , French economist, for his efforts toward international peace. Wilhelm Konrad von Röntgen won the Nobel in Physics. Sully Prudhomme won the 1st Nobel Prize in literature. Jacobus Henricus van Hoff won the first Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the relationship of volume, pressure and temperature in gases which became known as van't Hoff's Law. The first Nobel Banquet was held at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm for 118 male guests.

Arthur Conan Doyle published the 1st installment of his book "Hound of the Baskervilles" in The Strand Magazine. It was later reported that he had stolen the idea for the novel from his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson. A 1st edition copy with dust jacket sold at auction for $131,541 in 1998.

Edwardian Era - Queen Victoria of England dies, finally at peace beside her beloved Albert. Their son is crowned King Edward the VII.

Queen Victoria

In New Orleans, Louisiana, the "Blue Book," a directory of some 2,000 prostitutes working in Storyville was printed for the first time in 1901. It continued to be printed annually and carried ads for over 30 years. Storyville covered sixteen square blocks from Iberville to St. Louis, and Robertson to Basin Streets.

Basin St.
"Down The Line"
New Orleans

Every nightspot had its own brand of music. The Tuxedo Dance Hall was known for ragtime, Pete Lala’s had its trumpet kings, and bordellos had their “professors” of the piano. What all nightspots in the District had in common was: Liquor, prostitution, music and gambling. And it was legal—most of it, anyway.

Basin Street was the center of the action for bordellos catering to white clientele. At Number 235 Basin, you’d find Lulu White’s Mahogany Hall, the most famous bordello in town. Down the block, The Countess Willie Piazza held her nightly salon in a sumptuous Italian-style villa, where Jelly Roll Morton played ragtime dances on her white grand piano. At Gypsy’s on Villere Street, Tony Jackson would pull out one of his fast tempo pieces when a ‘naked dance’ was called, and a beautiful young woman danced nude on a small table top, spinning faster and faster to the music. Jelly Roll once explained, “In New Orleans, the naked dance was art.” In “black Storyville” the action centered around South Rampart and Perdido Streets where Buddy Bolden played his trumpet in the Funky Butt Dance Hall for many years until he was committed to the state asylum for the insane.

Storyville prospered for 19 years, attracting everyone from sailors and traveling salesmen to celebrities like P.T. Barnum and Babe Ruth. Madams like Lulu White and "Countess" Willie V. Piazza became local celebrities, paying rent that lined the pockets of New Orleans' most respected businessmen and enriched institutions like Tulane University and the Archdiocese of New Orleans, both of which owned property in the district.

First exhibition of Pablo Picasso's work opens March 31, 1901.

POLITICS

On March 4, 1901, William McKinley was inaugurated president for the second time. Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated as vice president. The team ran on the issue of keeping the Philippines as a colony. On September 2nd, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair. Words that he was going to have to live by. Just twelve days later, a man named Leon Czolgosz shot and killed President McKinley in Buffalo, New York. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States

RELIGION

The Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated writer Leo Tolstoy, a self-described Christian Anarchist, for blasphemy.

Pentecostalism was founded by Reverend Charles F. Parham at the Bethel Bible Col-lege in Topeka, Kansas.

SPORTS

The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (later renamed Minor League Baseball), is formed in Chicago, Illinois.

LAW AND LAWLESSNESS

A fingerprint system, developed by Inspector Edward R. Henry of the London Police, was introduced.

Members of The Wild Bunch, including Kid Curry, committed their last American robbery near Wagner, Montana, taking $65,000 from a Great Northern train. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and his lover Etta Place had already fled to New York where a picture of Etta and Sundance was taken. Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Longabaugh, known as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, settled in the Cholila Valley of southwestern Argentina after fleeing US Pinkerton agents. They bought a 12,000-acre ranch with stolen loot.

The Wild Bunch

FASHION

Gibson Girl hair, throwing away corsets.

CALAMITIES

The ferryboat San Rafael sank in a collision off Alcatraz. The accident served as the setting for the first chapter in "Sea Wolf" by Jack London.

The steamer Rio de Janeiro piled up on rocks at Fort Point at the bay entrance of San Francisco and 130 people died.

INDUSTRY

Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.

Marconi sent his 1st transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland.

The first espresso coffee machine was invented.

MEDICINE

In Havana, Cuba, U.S. Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever. Days later, Carroll developed a severe case of yellow fever, helping his colleague, Army Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes can transmit the sometimes deadly disease.

SOURCES:

Photograph of Anna Edson Taylor courtesy of Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library
Whalen, Dwight. The Lady Who Conquered Niagara: The Annie Edson Taylor Story. Brewer, Maine: EGA Books, 1990.

Weekend With Shades - Saturday - June 13

2009-05-10T21:08:00.000-07:00

THE YEAR WAS
BY SHERI FENLEY
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column

OVERVIEW –

“There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the "Old South." Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind...”

~ From the opening of the film Gone with the Wind (1939) ~

The book , written by Margaret Mitchell, and the movie has fixed in my mind a picture of what Antebellum United States was like. It is however, an extremely romantic and fantasy version of what life was really like during the years leading up to the Civil War.

In reality the country was slowly being torn apart and forced to choose sides, the air filled with tension and hostility.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act had split the Kansas territories into two states: Kansas and Nebraska. The act mandated that any state accepted into the Union would decide with a majority vote of the people whether it would be a free or slave state. Groups from both sides immediately sent in settlers by the hundreds in order to have a majority of the vote in their respective favors. As Tensions and tempers flared, people were tarred and feathered, kidnapped, killed. All too soon, the violence escalated. In an era that would come to be known as "Bleeding Kansas," the territory would become a horrific combat zone for five years.

CULTURE –

The Great Chinese Merchant’s Ball of 1856

On June 19, 1856 Alexander Liholiho, Kamehameha IV, The King of Hawaii married Emma Naea Rooke. The American Club hosted an affair on July 4th to celebrate the nuptials and three weeks later, the German Club honored the royal couple with an extravagant ball. The King and Queen then set out for a tour of their island kingdom. It was during their absence that a group of Cantonese merchants decided that they needed the King’s favor if they wanted to be successful in their trade with Hawaii. The Chinese set out to have an event that would far surpass any other held to date.

Alexander Liholiho, Kamehameha IV
The King of Hawaii &
Emma Naea Rooke

They ran into a major cultural and social wall. Men and women did not dance together in China. In fact is was quite unacceptable for members of the opposite sex to dance. One of the group finally convinced the others that they would need to learn to dance or scrap the idea of the ball. Grudgingly they made their way as a group down to the local dance hall where they learned over the course of several weeks to dance the polka and waltz

The festivities on that November 1st far exceeded the Cantonese wildest dreams. Every influential person in Honolulu had been invited. Over 1000 attended, double that of the previous events. Guests were delighted with three foot high pagodas made of pastries, watermelon that had dragons carved into the rinds. Larges bouquets of flowers were in every window.

Not only did the Chinese gain the King’s favor, they won the respect of the other ethnic business groups who were their peers.

February 19, 1856 - Tin-type camera was patented by Hamilton Smith in Gambier, Ohio.

Example Of A TinType Image

The first installment of Gustav Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary appeared in the Revue de Paris on October 1, 1856 after the publisher refused to print a passage in which the character Emma has a quickie with a beau in the back seat of a carriage.

Harper's Weekly begins publication at New York, where it will continue until 1915.

Fiction books published in 1856 include “It's Never Too Late to Mend” by Charles Reade. The book details abuses that include torture in English prisons. “ Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp” by Harriet Beecher Stowe expands on the author's antislavery views.

On the hit parade for 1856 were "Darling Nelly Gray" by Benjamin Russell Hanby and "Gentle Annie" by Stephen C. Foster.

LAW AND LAWLESSNESS –

Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago, Illinois.

May 16 – The Vigilance Committee is founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18.

The “Sacking of Lawrence” by Pro-Slavers took place on May 21, 1856. A few days later, to avenge the violence on Lawrence, John Brown, his sons and a group of abolitionists went to Pottawaromie Creek, dragged five pro slavery men from their homes and hacked them to death.

SPORTS –

James Ambrose, better known as bare-knuckle boxer “Yankee Sullivan” is found dead in his San Francisco jail cell May 31 at age 45. His boxing style was described as “fast, tough, spunky and hit hard with both fists.”

"Yankee Sullivan committed suicide while confined in the vigilance committee’s headquarters, awaiting trial for various crimes. Sullivan became so panic-stricken when he heard a Vigilante say that he would probably be hanged on the morrow that he opened a vein in his wrist and bled to death before a physician could reach him."

His burial in the Mission Delores Cemetery in San Francisco is quite the exception as suicides are not buried in Catholic cemeteries.

TRANSPORTATION –

The Wabash and Erie Canal opens after 24 years of construction. The 458-mile canal extending south to Evansville on the Ohio River is the largest ever dug in America

The first railway bridge to span the Mississippi opens April 21st between Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa. Built of wood resting on stone piers, the bridge is 1,582 feet. On April 22nd, the bridge is tested for durability by driving a train of three locomotives and eight passenger cars onto it. All goes well until a couple of weeks later when a steamboat rams into the bridge. Before the railroad company can sue for damages, the steamboat company files suit, claiming that the bridge has blocked its right of way.

POLITICS –

Even the U. S. Senate saw bloodshed. On May 19, 1856 Senator Charles Sumner, a Republican from Massachusetts and a staunch abolitionist, delivered an oration lasting most of the day. Entitled “The Crime Against Kansas”, it was basically a plea to accept Kansas immediately as “Free State”. Apparently he used the opportunity to singled out a couple of Pro-Slavers, one being fellow Senator Andrew Butler from South Carolina, and called their integrity into question.

Three days later, Preston Brooks, a Representative from South Carolina and the nephew of Senator Andrew Butler, felt the need to defend his uncle’s honor. Brooks walked right onto the Senate floor and proceeded to whip Senator Sumner senseless with his cane. He beat him so badly, Sumner was laid up for three years.

On the ballot for the November 4th elections were three candidates for president: John C. Fremont who was a Republican from California, James Buchanan a Democrat from Pennsylvania and former president Millard Fillmore from New York representing the American ("Know Nothing") party. James Buchanan won with 174 electoral votes becoming our 15th president.

FASHION –

The cage crinoline patented by a French-born American named Tavernier consists of lightweight, flexible, "watchspring" steel hoops, protected by rubber inserts riveted to vertical tapes.

Mauve (purple) becomes the color of fashion as the French empress Eugènie decides that the color matches her eyes. An English chemistry student, William Henry Perkins, first produced this mauve dye from coal tar making it the world's first synthetic dye.

CALAMITIES AND CATASTROPHES –

The Great Train Wreck of 1856 occurred on July 17th near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An excursion train carrying Philadelphia schoolchildren plows into a scheduled train at Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. 67 are killed, most of them children and more than 100 are injured.

On August 10, 1856 a hurricane destroyed Last Island, Louisiana, leaving 400 dead. The island had been the home to a popular resort and several gambling establishments. The storm broke the island up into a few small islands stripping it completely of any vegetation.

INDUSTRY –

Baking powder becomes available commercially for the first time in the United States.

Mechanical ice-making is pioneered by Australian inventor James Harrison, an emigrant from Scotland.

Gail Borden patents his method for condensing milk using heat and a vacuum pan.

MILITARY –

On August 30, 1856 the U.S. Army started an experiment unlike any other in U.S. military history . Back in the spring of 1855, Jefferson Davis, who was the Secretary of War, somehow convinced the War Department to give him $30,000 to purchase camels. Yes, camels and the purchase price included an authentic camel trainer to teach the soldiers everything they ever wanted and needed to know about camels. 34 camels arrived at the Quartermaster Depot in Indianola, Texas having traveled all the way from Egypt. The plan was to use the camels in the building of a wagon road from Texas to California.

For the most part, the experiment was a success, however the start of the Civil War put an end to the Camel Military Corps. What happened to the camels you ask? Well a few were sold off to privates parties for $30 each, a few went to Ringling Brothers Circus and the camel trainer took a few for himself and started a freighting business along the Colorado River.

SOURCES

“Gone With The Wind” movie poster courtesy of Netflix.com

"James Buchanan", Mathew Brady, photographer, courtesy of The Library of Congress

“The Great Chinese Merchant’s Ball”, by Bob Dye, The Hawaiian Journal of History, 1994, Vol. 28, accessed online at http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/

Queen Emma & Kamehameha IV, 1856 courtesy of the Hawaii State Archives

“Yankee Sullivan No More”, The New York Times, Wednesday, June 1, 1856, p.1

BoxRec.com
http://www.boxrec.com

“Bridging the Mississippi: The Railroads and Steamboats Clash at the Rock Island Bridge”, By David A. Pfeiffer, Prologue Magazine, Summer 2004, Vol. 36, No. 2

The U.S. Senate website - http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/The_Caning_of_Senator_Charles_Sumner.htm

www.fashion-era.com

"The Great Train Wreck of 1856", an unknown artist rendition, courtesy of Amusement Park Nostalgia, http://www.amusementparknostalgia.com

“The Story of Last Island”, The New York Times, Wednesday, 15 October 1893, p. 24

The US Army Quartermaster Museum
http://www.qmmuseum.lee.army.mil/

This Day In History – www.history.com

InfoPlease - www.infoplease.com

Wikipedia = www.wikipedia.com

"1856." People's Chronology. The Gale Group, Inc, 2005. Answers.com 27 May. 2009. http://www.answers.com/topic/1856

Territorial Kansas Online - http://www.territorialkansasonline.org

Weekend With Shades - Saturday - May 9

2009-05-09T04:30:00.001-07:00

THE YEAR WAS
BY SHERI FENLEY
A Monthly - Weekend With Shades - Column

OVERVIEW - 1878 was the beginning of the “Gilded Age” in United States history. Great fortunes were made during this time and the opulent way of life this wealth supported lent to its name.

Fortunes were made by the likes of Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker - collectively known as “The Big Four.” They were the Nouveau Riche, the West Coast’s own version of royalty.

The Big Four

Each of these men had become wealthy and politically powerful in their own right. Stanford sold equipment to miners in Northern California and had been elected governor of California in 1861; Crocker had a merchandise store in Sacramento where he was elected to the city council and later to California's state legislature. Hopkins and Huntington also had a merchandise store in Sacramento.

The big money and prestige started in the early 1860s, when the four of them came together to plan and manage the construction of the Central Pacific railroad, which was to cross over the Sierra Nevada mountains and meet with the Union Pacific which was headed west from Nebraska. Charles Crocker managed the actual construction of the railroad, while Mark Hopkins handled the finances. Leland Stanford became the first president of the Central Pacific Railroad while Collis Huntington secured financial backing for this huge endeavor.

Their homes were the mansions of Nob Hill. From the Daily Alta California, 7 April 1876:

Stanford Mansion

“Stanford’s Home is the largest private residence in the State, being built on the east half of the block bounded by California, Pine, Powell, and Mason streets. The site is one of the finest in the city, commanding a view northward past Alcatraz and the Two Brothers, eastward to the Coast Range, southward to San Jose and beyond, and southwestward to the Twin Peaks.

The exterior of the residence will be imposing, and the interior commodious and elegant with all modern appliances. The ground will be terraced up on all sides. The basement is to be of brick, the two stories above it of wood, with handsome ornaments. The main front on California Street will be in the composite style of architecture and quietly elaborate, having flat windows and a porch 50 feet long by 14 feet broad, supported by sixteen Corinthian columns. The house will have an iron cresting and ornamental chimneys. The roof will be covered with copper. The carriage porch will be on the Powell-street front. The rear front will be relieved by a balcony and conservatory.

The main entrance will open into a hall twenty feet wide by one hundred feet in length, widening in the center of the building into a rotunda thirty feet in diameter, reaching to the roof. At the right of this long hall are the parlor and the dining room. On the left beginning at the entrance, are the reception room, the library, and a billiard-room and sitting room. All are beautifully frescoed. The rooms on the main floor are spacious and can be opened into one grand apartment for parties. There are twenty-five bedrooms. The house will have an elevator and an elaborate heating apparatus. The basement will contain a supper room, a playroom, a breakfast room, and a kitchen with butler’s pantry and other domestic rooms and offices. The interior of the house will be finished in hard woods, very elegantly, but without needless ornament. The treasures of art seem to have been lavished almost indiscriminately upon the whole by Mr. G. G. Gariboldi, the artist.”

An example of obscene extravagance happened on 10 April 1878 when the “Big 4” formed the California Street Cable Railroad in San Francisco. The cars ran exclusively from Market Street to their fabulous mansions atop Nob Hill.

The working man and woman had to settle for a much less opulent way of life. In Chicago the city's meatpacking establishments, rail yards and factories offered plentiful jobs to unskilled laborers. In the wake of the 1877 strikes, socialists organized as the Workingmen's Party of the United States. Like the mainstream American political parties, the socialist organization provided its members with a full slate of social and cultural activities, including parades, picnics, and rallies. The Workingmen's Party proved especially popular among German and Scandinavian immigrants and, in 1878 changed its name to the Socialist Labor Party.

Deadwood, South Dakota - 1888
People celebrating the building of the largest reduction works of the kind
(for gold and silver ores) in the world

For the adventurous, there were employment opportunities in abundance in the mining business. In Deadwood, South Dakota, the average wage paid to miners was $2.50 per day. Not much when you consider room and board ran about $8.00 per week, tobacco was 62 cents per pound, firewood $3.25 per cord, $1.00 for ten loaves of bread, lager beer 5 cents bottle, venison 7 cents per pound and watermelons were $3.00 each. If you wanted to get out of Deadwood, the stage would take you to Omaha, Nebraska, for $40.00. It was much cheaper if you could pass yourself off as freight - $1.50 for each 100 pounds was charged.

In the summer of 1878, a Yellow Fever Epidemic started in Louisiana and went up the Mississippi River to Memphis, Tennessee. 120,000 cases were reported, 20,000 of those were fatalities. It did not distinguish between rich and poor. It took them all.

CULTURE - The first White House Easter Egg Roll was held on Easter Monday. Since 1878, American presidents and their families have celebrated Easter Monday by hosting an ‘egg roll’ party. Held on the South Lawn, it is one of the oldest annual events in White House history. “Egg Rolls" had actually been held previously on the grounds of the Capitol on the west side of the building. This came to an abrupt end just two weeks after Easter in 1876, when Congress approved the “Turf Protection Act” to prevent any portion of the Capitol Grounds and terraces from being used as playgrounds or otherwise.

The first ever telephone book was published in New Haven, Connecticut on 21 February 1878.

Gilbert & Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” opened on the stage in London.

Some of the popular books published in 1878 were “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy, “Poganne People & Their Loves and Lives” by Harriet Beecher Stowe and “The Return of the Native” by Thomas Hardy.

On January 16, 1878, the United States Post Office in Washington, D.C., held their annual auction of items that had accumulated in the “Dead Letter” office. Some of the items listed in the catalogue were revolvers, wax toys, false hair, stuffed lizards, bed quilts, 1275 individual lots of jewelry and preserved potato bugs.

LAW AND LAWLESSNESS - Two important acts were made into law that opened the rest of the West to settlers. First was the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, which provided for the sale of valuable timber and stone lands in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington for $2.50 per acre. The second was the Timber Cutting Act of 1878, which authorized citizens of certain area to cut down trees on government land at no charge, however the timber could only be used for agriculture, mining and domestic building purposes only.

The American Bar Association was founded in Saratoga, New York on August 21, 1878

The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in response to abuses by federal troops in the South after the Civil War. It basically prohibited the use of the military "to execute the laws" of the United States.

26 July 1878 - Black Bart made his last clean get-away when he stole a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach that contained $379 and a diamond ring worth $200. The empty box was found later with a taunting poem inside.

"Here I lay me down to sleep
To wait the coming morrow,
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow.
Yet come what will, I'll try it once,
My conditions can't be worse,
And if there's money in that box,
'Tis money in my purse.

February 18, 1878 saw the beginning of the bitter and bloody Lincoln County War in New Mexico. This conflict involved wealthy ranchers, the owners of a general store called “The House,” William “Billy the Kid” Bonney and a group of mercenaries called “The Regulators.”

SPORTS - Phillip Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Phillips Exeter in Exeter, New Hampshire, faced off against each other for the first time in a game of American Football. This oldest schoolboy rivalry is still in existence today.

“Day Star” was the winning horse in the 3rd running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville, Kentucky.

Jamie Anderson from Scotland won the British Open.

The first bicycle club was organized in Boston, Massachusetts and on May 24, 1878 the first American bicycle race was held.

The first American badminton club was formed in New York City. Its charter limited play to men and "good-looking single women."

Rutherford Birchard Hayes

POLITICS - The 19th President of the United States was Rutherford Birchard Hayes. Hayes himself had tremendous integrity, but his Presidency was weakened by the means of his election. After the electoral votes were counted, his opponent, Samuel Tilden, already claimed a majority of the popular vote and needed just one electoral vote to win. Hayes needed twenty. Precisely twenty electoral votes were in dispute because the states submitted double returns — one proclaiming Hayes the victor, the other Tilden. A Republican-biased electoral commission awarded all 20 electoral votes to the Republican Hayes, and he won by just one electoral vote. While he was able to claim the White House, many considered his election a fraud, and his power to rule was diminished. Some things just never change.

William “Boss” Tweed died on April 12, 1878 in the Ludlow Street jail in New York City.

In 1878, a Women’s suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress after work by activist Susan B. Anthony (pictured to the right). The Senate does not vote on it until 1884.

RELIGION - Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in LaCrosse, Wisconsin began to pray at 11:00 AM on 1 August 1878. They have never stopped praying. In rotating shifts, 24 hours per day, the sisters have spent the last 131 years praying.

Pope Pius IX, Giovanni Ferretti died on February 7, 1878. Revenge-seeking Italian liberals tried to dump his body into the Tiber River.

General William Booth (in the photograph to the left), the founder and leader of the Salvation Army, changed the name of his Christian Mission to the Salvation Army in 1878, adopting a military structure.

In Reynolds vs. the United States, the Supreme Court rejected the freedom of religion defense for polygamy.

The population of America was growing rapidly; there were many empty seats in Protestant churches. Middle-class churchgoers were ever faithful, but large numbers of workers were starting to lose faith in the local church. The old-style heaven and hell sermons just seemed irrelevant to those who worked very long hours for very little pay. Out of this concern grew the social gospel movement. Progressive-minded preachers began to tie the teachings of the church with contemporary problems. Many ministers became politically active. Washington Gladden, the most prominent of the social gospel ministers, supported the workers' right to strike. Ministers called for an end to child labor, the enactment of temperance laws, and civil service reform.

Liberal churches such as the Congregationalists and the Unitarians led the way, but the movement spread to many sects. A wave of urban revivalist preachers swept the nation's cities. One of the stars of the pulpit, Dwight Lyman Moody, was a shoe salesman who took his hell and brimstone sermons on the road. As he traveled from city to city, he attracted crowds large enough to affect local traffic patterns.

Many historians call this period in the history of American religion the Third Great Awakening. Like the first two awakenings, it was characterized by revival and reform. The main difference between this movement and those of an earlier era was location. These changes in religion occurred because of urban realities, emphasizing the social impact of booming city growth.

FASHION

"The full bustle, cascade, or waterfall bustle was popular from 1870 to 1878. It began simply as fullness from the skirt swagged back and was pinned or sewn in place and decorated with ribbons and frills. As this early period advanced, the crinolines were made with a layer of stiffened ruffles at the back to support the drapery at the rear. Skirts were made with drapery attached to further enhance the appearance."

Fashion 1878

From 1878 to 1883, bodices grew extremely long and narrow and the bustle fullness dropped down to the floor in a train off of a slim-fitting skirt. A small, semicircular frame supported what fullness was left at the back of the dress. The bodices were called cuirass bodices.

INDUSTRY

Hills Brothers Coffee is founded in San Francisco, California

Edison Electric Company begins operation on October 15th.

The first “Hurdy-Gurdy” house was opened in Butte, Montana. A Hurdy-Gurdy house was a dance hall. Young women danced the Hurdy-Gurdy to get the miners to buy drinks and Butte was a mining town. Hurdy-Gurdy houses were outlawed in Montana in 1885.

September 1, 1878 was the day Emma M. Nutt became the first female telephone operator in the United States, for the Telephone Despatch Company of Boston.

Sources:

Residences of Mr. Mark Hopkins and Senator Leland Stanford, Block bounded by Powell, Mason, California, and Pine Streets, S. F. Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.

Residence of Mr. Charles Crocker, California Street, bet. Taylor & Jones Sts., S. F.,
Contributing Institution: The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.

“Dead Letter Office Annual Sale”, San Francisco Evening Bulletin, Vol. XLV, No. 77, January 7, 1878

“A review of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Geo. Reynolds vs. the United States”, George Quayle Cannon, Published by Deseret news printing and publishing establishment, 1879, Original from Princeton University, Digitized Oct 13, 2008

"The story of the outlaw: a study of the western desperado, with historical narratives of famous outlaws; the stories of noted border wars; vigilante movements and armed conflicts on the frontier"
By Emerson Hough
pp. 196-226
Published by The Outing publishing company, 1907
Original from the University of Michigan
Digitized Oct 31, 2006

Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
San Francisco Evening Bulletin
Monday Evening
January 7, 1878
Vol XLV Number 77

The Boston Journal
July 7, 1878
p. 4

The New York Times
Sunday
April 14, 1878
p. 2

Religious Revival: The "Social Gospel"
U.S. History Online Textbook
http://www.ushistory.org/

The Private Lives of Public Women: Prostitution in Butte, Montana, 1878-1917, by Mary Murphy © 1984 Frontiers, Inc.

Condra, Jill. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. 2008.

Photographs:

Big Four. Southern Pacific Bulletin. August 1920.

Celebrating. Graybill, John C. H. Deadwood, S.D. Cabinet Card. 1888. Digital Collections : Prints and Photographs. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/index.html : 2009.

Reward Poster. Unknown. San Francisco, California. Poster. 1877. Digital Collections. Sonora Stage Company.

Hayes, Rutherford B. Brady and Handy. Print. Between ca. 1877 and 1893. Digital Collections : Prints and Photographs. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/index.html : 2009.

Anthony, Susan B. Condon, L. Atlanta, Georgia. Cabinet Card. Between ca. 1890 and 1906. Digital Collections : Prints and Photographs. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/index.html : 2009.

Booth, William. Falk. New York, New York. Print. 1907. Digital Collections : Prints and Photographs. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/index.html : 2009.