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Timelines - Decade
28y Physical 36y Emotional 44y Intellectual
American Cycles 1870s
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These Timelines are a detailed look at the time and the influence of Cycles. Significant events of the decade are analyzed through Twelve categories that serve as a kaleidoscopic lens through time, (see the clickable links above), as well as the position of Cycles at the time, (see the clickable folder links in the upper left corner). You can read and link up and down vertically through this Timeline, or, you can go any Category and link horizontally to the same Category in other Timelines (links are provided at the head of each Category). This cross linking is designed to provide a fast and easy way to make reading fun and interesting.

See the go to Overview here link near the top for a brief look at Cycles for this decade.

See the Matrix links above left for navigating through all Overviews and Timelines by Time, Subject, or Cycle as described in Introduction to Part II).


Note to readers: Work from the Kala-Rhythm archives is being offered here in the Timelines for the first time. We are allowing a view into the Timelines now by posting both the finished and the unfinished pages of the Timelines as editing from our references continues.  Unfinished pages (like this one) contain raw data from history sources to which we give credit in our "biblio/webography". Check back for updates to this and other pages.

XXX MAIN INTRODUCTION

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1870 Virginia, Mississippi. Texas, and Georgia, (for the second time) are readmitted to the Union.

8/1/70 Women use their vote for the first time in the US in an election in Utah territory.

1871 US and Brit, sign the Treaty of Was, providing for arbitration of the "Alabama" claims and the San Juan boundary dispute.

1872 International tribunal awards $15.5 mil to the US for damage done by the "Alabama" and other Conf cruisers built in Eng. during the Civil War. San Juan Islands is the strait between Vancouver Island and Washington are awarded to the US by the German Emperor, arbitrator in the dispute between Brit and the US.

1872 Grant (Rep) is reelected pres; Henry Wilson (Rep) id elected VP, Horace Greeley, NY newspaper editor, loses as the pres candidate of the Democratic and Liberal Republican Parties.

1872 Yellowstone National Park is established.

11/5/72 US Grant wins a second term by a landslide 186 electoral votes for 66 for Horace Greeley.  Grant receives 3,597,132 votes to Greeley's 2,834,125.

1873 Am Schooner "Virginius" is seized by Span officials in Cuba on suspicion of carrying men and arms to the Cuban revolutionaries. Fifty-three members of the crew, including some Americans are executed.

1873 Am Schooner "Virginius" is seized by Span officials in Cuba on suspicion of carrying men and arms to the Cuban revolutionaries. Fifty-three members of the crew, including some Americans are executed.

1874 Territorial government in the Distinct of Columbia is abolished and replaced by a commission of three regents.

1875 US-Hawaii treaty recognizes reciprocal commercial rights. Hawaii agrees to cede no territory to any third power.

October 1875 The government attempts to buy some of the Indian lands north of the Platte but the Indians refuse the money.  They are then told to return to their reservations nonetheless, and forfeit these lands ceded to them by treaty in 1868.  The Second Sioux War erupts violently and treacherously .  It will continue through the winter, but by spring and summer stepped-up attacks by the Army, led by Gen George Crook and incited by Lt Col George A. Custer, bring the Indians to final defeat.

1876 Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, led by Chiefs Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Gall, kill 264 cavalrymen and their leader, Gen. Gorge A. Custer, at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Mont.

1876 Col becomes the 38th state.

1876 In pres election, Dem Samuel J. Tilden receives about 250,000 more popular votes than Rep Rutherford G. Hayes. Electoral vote is Tilden 184 to Hayes 163, with returns from Gl, La, SC and Oregon in dispute. Fight for delegates and charges of corruption result in Congress deciding the vote.

1876 THE LAST SIOUX WAR  The Paha Sapa section of t South Dakota's Black Hills was a sacred part of the Sioux reservation which had been ceded to the Indians in the Treaty of 1868 made w Chief Red Cloud.  In 1874 the intrepid Indian hunter Lt Col George Custer trespassed into the holy grounds following reports that there was gold in the hills.  And gold he found.  Foreseeing the predictable reaction, he broadcast his find, inevitably enticing gold diggers to the area.  The government attempted to purchase the land but the Indians refused to leave.  The Indians were then ordered to return to their reservations, without recompense of any kind, and without regard to whether the passage was possible to advance in winter weather.  Gen George Crook was ordered to round up recalcitrant bands north of the Platte R.  His first encounter was w a band of Cheyenne heading toward and Indian agency to surrender.  George Crook was later known and trusted by the Indians for his dealings, but in this instance he attacked without provocation.  The braves fought hard and were fortunately reinforced by heroic young Crazy Horse and his band.  Crook retreated to fortifications on the Platte R.  Left no choice, the Cheyenne threw in with the Sioux to endure together the bitter fights against white encroachments.

As Spring 1876 came, Gen Crook once again advanced north of the Platte into Indian hunting grounds in central Montana.  Again he was stopped by the fierce Crazy Horse and his Oglala band at Rosebud Creek.

On June 25 1876 a three-pronged attack on the Sioux and Cheyenne encampment at the Little Bighorn R was turned into a massacre when Lt Col Custer disobeyed orders and contacted the enemy prematurely.  He and 250 of his men were killed.  Custer had incautiously attacked some 2000 to 4000 braves.

Some have called the Battle of t Little Bighorn Custer's Last Stand, and come have cynically called it the Indian's Last stand, because the action was so revolted by the defeat that it tacitly concurred in the extinction of the Sioux nation.  Army efforts were savage and successful.

8/1/76 The 38th state to join the Union is Colorado.  The impeachment trial against Sec of War Wm W. Belknap is dismissed on grounds he is no longer in office and Congress has no jurisdiction over him.

11/7/76 In the pres election, Tilden gets a majority of the popular votes, but disputes over fraudulent election practices and electoral votes will throw the final decision to Congress and Hayes will be declared the winner in March 1877.

1877 Congress sets up Electoral Commission (8 Republicans, 7 Democrats) to break pres deadlock. It awards al desputed returns to Hayes, thereby giving him a majority of one in the electoral vote. Hayes is declared Pres. William A. Wheeler (Rep) is declared VP.

1877 Nez Perce Indians, led by Chief Joseph, fight US forces and retreat across 1600 miles of Wash., Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Forced to surrender, Joseph's band is sent to a reservation in Indian Territory.

1878 Congress passes Bland-Allison Act over Pres. Hayes's veto. It requires Treasury to buy from two to four mil dollar's worth of silver bullion for coinage.

1878 Labor orgs join with advocates of cheap money to form the Greenback-Labor Party.

1878 US-Samoa treaty reserves Pago Pago Harbor as a coaling station for US Navy ships.

1878 Democrats win control of both houses of Congress for first time since 1858.

11/5/78 In the mid-term elections, control of both houses of Congress reverts to the Demo Party, Members fr the new Greenback Party are seated.

2/22/78 The Greenback and Labor Reform parties pool their strength and unite in to the Greenback Labor Party.  The party will press for more greenbacks and free coinage of silver, restrictions on Chinese immigration and fewer working hours for labor.  Twenty-eight states are represented at the Convention, 800 delegates being present.  During this election year the party garners 1,060,000 votes and send s14 representatives to Congress.  In 1880 the party endorses woman's suffrage and n 1884 Benjamin F. Butler, the old Reconstructionist, will be its candidate for Pres.

1879 US resumes specie payment, Greenbacks are worth their face value in gold.

1879 Pres. Hayes vetoes bill restricting Chinese immigration; he calls it a violation of the Burlingane Treaty of 1868. Ca. adopts new constitution with a provision prohibiting the employment of Chinese workers.

1879 By Act of Congress, women lawyers are permitted to argue cases before the Supreme Court.

1879 Uprising of Ute Indians is suppressed. By a treaty in 1880, the Utes are moved from Col to Utah.

1879 Pres. Hayes vetoes five attempts by Dem Congress to pass rider forbidding the pres to use troops in congressional election.

1. Political  1870s Physical Cycle top    

 

Physical High (1859 -1873)

5/25-27/70 The anti-British Irish group called the Fenians continue their raids across the Canadian border despite carefulwatch by US and Canadian authorities.  The leaders of the adventure are jailed but when released are given a great parade in NYC.  The terrorist org continues to be regarded as heroes by the Irish immigrant pop on the East coast of the US.

As Southern society struggle to integrate blacks into its wobbly structure, diehard white banded together in secret societies.  They called themselves by childishly romantic names.  Knights of the White Caelia, Society of the White Rose.  The most durable and the most chilling was the Ku Klux Klan.

March 21,  The Klan was started in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1860 by six ex-Confederate soldiers wishing to form a secret social group.  Searching for a fraternity-like three-letter name, they struck upon the word "kyklos." Greek for "circle."  They used the name Kuklos Adelphon. Liking the sound they added Klan for alliterative purposes and the KKK was born.  Soon dens and caverns bubbled up, and in a grand meeting in Nashville in 1869 the Invisible Empire of the South was formally established, complete with Grand Wizard, and lesser officers known as Grand Dragon, Fury, Titan, Hydra, Nighthawk.  Their uniform was the ludicrous all-hiding sheet.

March 21,  At first the members were fairly restrained.  they tended to ride around in sheets scaring the superstitious and drawing a certain amount of laughter from otherwise puzzled citizens.  But intimidation proceeded under the cloak of anonymity and soon, emboldened, their acts became ever more vicious.  In fact, members behaved so despicably that is 1869 its own officers formally disbanded the group.  However, nothing could now stop the terrifying troops.  Night rides turned to numbing horror, whippings, mutilation, burnings, lynchings.  The North was revolted and Congress attempted to legislate against secret societies, but the Ku Klux Klan Acts of 1870 and 1871 had no teeth and were later declared unconstitutional. 

March 21,  As the withdrawal of Federal Troops proceeded, the Klan stepped up its terrorism unopposed.  By the end of Reconstruction in 1877 the Klan had enforced its will.  Because of the vicious policing by the Ku Klux Klan it would be almost a century before the South would recover from its wound.

7/14/70 Clarifying the Monroe Doctrine as it is to be applied now and in the future, sec of State Hamilton Fish declares that territory in the Western Hemisphere belonging to a European power cannot be handed over to a second European power but must be set free with no strings attached.

 CORRUPTION IN RECONSTRUCTION SOUTH, NORTHERN INDUSTRY AND NATION POLITICS:Americans were intoxicated with their new-found freedom and luck, and did not notice when excess became corruption.  Corruption in the last third of the 19th century was of a special order because an entirely new social structure, one of capital and technology, was being developed without the guiding restraints of law.  Dangerous precedents of dubious courts were set and corruption became as acceptable as apple pie.

Stories of fraud in the Reconstruction South make lured reading.  Senator Patterson of South Carolina said it for all: "There are five more years of good stealing in South Carolina,"  Henry C. Warmoth managed to make an $8000 salary add up to $1,000,000 in four years.  A Louisiana chief justice sold a state-invested $2,000,000 railroad to friends for $50,000.  Blacks and whites alike, suddenly put in charge for city and state treasuries, found no curbs placed on greed  Corruption in the industrial North was as staggering.  It was said of John d. Rockefeller, and was equally true of several other industrial barons, that he owned the best legislatures that money could buy.  Jay Gould's attempt to corner the gold market involved official all the way up to the vice-pres.  Grant's sec of the Treasury took 50 percent on all collections, racking up $213,000 in one years.  Scandal was endemic to the Post Office and the Navy, and impeachment procedures were begun against Secretary of War William Belknap for selling Indian trading posts.  The $40,000,000 Whiskey Ring scandal touched high and low in the Republican Party, including Grant's private sec, Orville Babcock, already involved in most other big scandals.  In the cities, new orgs like Tammany Hall were invented to deal w new condition.  Thieves like "boss" Tweed of NY bilked the city out of $200,000,000 in less than six years.  In the West, burying timber, farm and mining land under "dummy" names was common practice.  Illegal rebates from railroads served to consolidate some companies into giants while forcing other middle-sized merchants into bankruptcy.  selling a barren tract of land to settlers or salting a played-out mine w gold nuggets made easy money.  The exuberant young society agreed on one point; a citizen's value could be judge by one standard alone: money. [when were the some of the scandals mentioned above?]

 STEEL  In 1870 the US produced approx one mil tons of pig-iron.  by 1900 production had jumped to 36,000,000 tons and the country was first in the world in the manufacture of iron and steel products. 

March 21,  The mining of iron began in the Appalachians in early colonial times.  The industry moved steadily westward until in the 1840s it reached spectacular deposits in northern Michigan.  Forty years later, the extraordinary Mesabi range on Lake Superior offered up its easy-to-mine and extremely pure treasure.  Coal and iron were brought to the centrally located smelters of Chicago where the first steel rails were rolled in 1865.  W steel rails the railroads could expand like so much ribbon.  Other smelters began to flourish in Pittsburgh and other mid-west cities.  By the 1880s the coal and iron deposits of the Southern Appalachians were exploited and Birmingham could claim to rival Pittsburgh.

March 21,  The Kelly-Bessemer and open hearth processes, electricity and chemistry all contributed to the gigantic growth of the industry.  The open hearth process produced  superior steel and by 1880 became the predominant method of manufacture.

March 21,  Mill life for the workers was hard in the extreme.  It was not unusual for the fiery furnaces to claim 200 deaths a year in a single factory.  Neither state nor federal governments concerned themselves w workers.  Usually they had been bribed into passivity by mill owners. Labor had not yet devised the means to deal w the new industrial giants.

March 21,  At first steel mills grew strong in the almost genial competition of pre-Civil War days.  Alexander Holley and Abram S. Hewitt of NY pioneered the new technological processes, sharing their knowledge throughout the spreading industry.  When Andre Carnegie and his men came on the scene, vertical organization took over, crushing out competition like so much pig-iron.  Carnegie ended up w most of the industry in his hands.  The added efficiency was in some ways admirable.  By 1890 the US made more steel than Great Britain and by 1900 the country made more than Germany and Great Britain combined.  Although American raw material combined w American labor produce the Am steel, $400,000,000 in profits went to Carnegie.  In 1901 Carnegie sold his company to  J.P. Morgan combine, capitalized at $1,400,000,000, which called itself United States Steel.  It was America's first billion-dollar corporation.

Physical Downward Crossover (March 21, 1873- March 21, 1874)

1873 Coinage Act of Congress makes gold the US monetary standard and eliminates all silver currency. Advocates of silver call it "the Crime of '73." [what mo.?]

1874 Greenback Party is formed in Indianapolis, Ind. Its members are chiefly farmers of the West and South who want an inflated currency to wipe out farm debts.

in the South. [what mo.?]

1874 Seventy-five Negroes are killed when they assault the court house at Vicksburg. Moss. Whites had ousted a carpetbag sheriff. [cross-over?] [what mo.?]

Physical Low (1873 - 1887)

March 1876 Gen Crook encounters Cheyenne Chief Two Moons and Oglala warrior Crazy Horse at Rosebud Creek, north of the Platte R.  In a fierce battle the Oglalas force Crook's withdrawal.

1/2/77 One by one the Rep carpetbag and scalawag governments are coming to an end in the South.  The Ku Klux Klan and other gangs persist in their terrorist tactics.  Whippings, tar-and-featherings, incendiarism drive northerners away.  Federal Troops no longer can prevent large-scale intimidation.

4/24/77 The last Federal Troops still policing the South are withdrawn from New Orleans by order of the Pres.  The South, as southerners say, is "redeemed."  Although Reconstruction has not achieved its primary goal of black civil rights, and although state governments have mired down in some extravagant corruption, nonetheless Reconstruction has some notable achievements to its credit.  By providing money and skills it has helped rebuild the war-wrecked South and established many services not there before the war, such as hospitals, and asylums, Perhaps the most effective an lasting of Reconstruction achievements is the dev of a strong public school system.

Physical 3rd Qtr. Review (1873 - 1880)

11/4/74 Samuel J. Tilden becomes governor of NY.  It is he more than anyone who is responsible for breaking up the incredible "Tweed Ring."  By analyzing the bank accounts of some Ring members he amasses the necessary proof of the extent of the larceny.  In order to bring the corrupt politician to trial.  Tilden has first to get rid of the corrupt judges that prevent prosecution.  He manages to get the impeachment of some of them and can proceed against Tweed.  His energetic and successful reforms bring him to public attention and to the NY Governorship.  In 1877 the rapidly rising, reform-minded lawyer has a chance at the Executive Office in the uniquely contested presidential election. [note: this action against Tweed began in 1872, during the Emotional 3rd Qtr. (no P 3rd) - and continued into 1874 during the Physical 3rd Qtr. (no E3).

11/18-20/74 Delegates from 17 states meet in Cleveland, Ohio to form the Women's Christian Temperance Union.  Other orgs formed this year include the Young Men's Hebrew Assoc and in Nov the Greenback Party is org in Indianapolis.  It mainly attracts farmers who favor inflationary money over gold because it helps them to pay their debts.  The Social Democrat Workingmen's Party is also org in Am this year.  The Social Democrats base themselves on the economic theories of the German Socialist Ferdinand LaSalle.  LaSalle is a social evolutionist and advocates a political approach to reform.  Capitalism has become two-pronged: on the one hand, it believes in freedom and sees this as freedom from legislative restraint.  On the other hand it is clear that there is a need to curb unbridled greed and dishonest maneuverings merely to leave anything at all for future capitalists.  In the same way labor has two prongs:  first there is the need for relief from increasingly oppressive practices in factories and mines and in general working conditions.  The second is the fact that it is becoming ever more apparent that two classes are emerging in classless Am, the rich and the poor, and unless action is taken, the Am dream of independent and socially mobile citizens will come to an abrupt end.  The social Democrats inject a new issue into this already complicated scene: Will reform be brought about by legislation and public opinion, or will government have to take over the activities of private enterprise to ensure a fair distribution of the incredible wealth of the nation?  The debate is never clearly articulated.  The fight is usually more bloody than eloquent.  The distinctively American contribution to the controversy will emerge in the 1880s when Samuel Gompers begins to org the American Federation of Labor.

1875 Secretary of the Treasury Benjamin H. Bristow investigates the conspiracy of distillers and public officials, known as the Whiskey Ring, to defraud the federal government of liquor taxes. More than $3 mil in taxes are recovered; 238 persons are indicted and 110 convicted.

5/1/75 The Whiskey Ring scandal surfaces into public view.  Scandal after scandal has lace Grant's easygoing administration.  Perhaps the one that spread furthest in the country is the Whiskey Ring.  Although the ring was not confined to St. Louis, it was there that the corruption reached its greatest depths.  It is led by John McDonald, a personal friend of Pres Grant and now a supervisor in the internal revenue in that city.  Through blackmail and threats, Rep official large and small have been snared into cooperation w the leaders, and shakedowns of million from distillers and government taxes have occurred.  The chief Clerk of the Treasury is involved and so is Orville Babcock, Grant's personal secretary.  Thirty-two distillers in Milwaukee, St. Louis and Chicago are found to be involved, but the corruption has spread like a cancer and there is no way to catch all the men implicated in the fraud.  although Babcock is saved from conviction by intercession from his protector Grant, the faithful Pres realizes that Babcock is too much of a liability to stay on as personal secretary to the man who holds the highest office in the land.

9/1/75 A conviction of murder leads to the breakup of the Irish miners' group known as the "Molly Maquires."  The Mollies are an outgrowth of the unsanitary and unsafe conditions in which miners are forced to work.  Miners are badly paid and harassed into long working house.  Mine operators are able to buy off government officials who might have come to the miners' aid, and public opinion is still ensnared by the idea that somehow it is his own laziness or moral weakness that brings a laborer into such distressing conditions.  The mollies take matters into their own hands.  They begin to org in the anthracite mines of Pa, where some of the most severely exploited white workers in the country can be found.  They resort to the ruthless tactics of terror using murder, intimidation, property damage and the like to bend contractors, "bosses" and strikebreakers to their will.  The uniform they adopt is women's clothes and they call themselves the Molly Macguires after the secrete and sinister Irish terrorist org which they take as their model.  The Mollies are finally exposed when a coal boss hires a detective to infiltrate the group's inner circle.  The leaders are brought to trial and the group dissolves.  However once the public no longer has the bloody doings of the Mollies to fulminate against they turn their attention to the inexcusable working conditions, and protest for reform begins to find energetic backing.

1876 House of Reps votes to impeach Secretary of War William W. Belknap after investigation indicates he accepted annual bribes from the trader at an Indian post. Belknap resigns and is acquitted by the Senate.

1876 Prohibition amendment to the Constitution is proposed in the House.

Feb 1876 Contractor Caleb P. Marsh charges that Sec of War Wm. W. Belknap has offered him control over trading posts at Fort Sill in Indian Territory.  Belknap has informed Marsh this should be worth $12,000 to the contractor.  Belknap expects money in return for the favor.  Subsequent investigation show that Belknap has received at least $24,450 for trading post privileges.  Impeachment proceedings will be initiated against the Sec.

3/2/76 Impeachment proceedings are voted against Sec of War William W. Belknap by Congress.  Belknap has been found to be taking bribes in return for lucrative trading posts in the Indian Territory.  Grounds for impeachment are malfeasance in office.  Belknap successfully avoids prosecution.  The trial without his presence continues, but the resolution for impeachment is dismissed on the grounds that there is no jurisdiction over Belknap since he is no longer in office.

1877 In "Munn v. Illinois," the Supreme Court upholds the Granger laws, establishing the principle of public regulation of bus. that serve the pub interest.

Reconstruction. [also note E 3rd qtr.]

1877 Reconstruction era ends when last federal troops leave the South. Carpetbag rule ends; southern states regain control of their governors.

1/25/79 The Arrears of Pension act is passed by Congress.  It authorizes back-payment of military pensions beginning from the day of discharge.  If the veteran is dean, payments will be made to the family.

1. Political  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

Emotional Low (1865 - 1883)

1875 Congress passes Civil Rights Act, guaranteeing Negroes equal rights in public places and the right to serve on juries. [3rd q? w/ E high?] [note: civil rights usually comes during a high.  In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was could not be protected except for jury duty.

3/30/75 In "Minor v. Happersett," Sup Ct finds that the Fourteenth Amend does not prevent a state from setting up suffrage requirements.  A time-bound interpretation of the privileges and immunities clause deprives women of the voting rights otherwise guaranteed to all US citizens.

1/10/78 The Women's suffrage Amendment is introduced into Congress by Senator A. A. Sargent.  The battle for a woman's right to vote will be arduous, vicious and long, but the words used in the final Amendment adopted in 1920 will be those in Senator Sargent's proposal in 1878.

1/14/78 In "Hall v. De Cuir," the Supreme Court finds that railroads need not provide equal accommodations to all passengers regardless of race.

Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review (1865 - 1874)

1872 "New York Sun" accuses several prominent Republicans of accepting bribes in the form of stock from Credit Mobilier, the construction company that built the Union Pacific Railroad.

11/4/74 For the first time since 1860, Demo majorities are returned to the House of Representatives.

1. Political  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

Intellectual 1st Qtr. Foundation (1863 - 1874)

1870 Cartoon using the donkey as a symbol of the Democratic Party is printed for the first time in "Harper's Weekly."

1874 Cartoonist Thomas Nast establishes the elephant as a symbol for the Republican Party in a cartoon appearing in "Harper's Weekly."

 6/22/70 Congress establishes the Department of Justice, thus acknowledging growing responsibilities of the Attorney General.

1. Political  1870s Polyrhythms top    

Physical High with
     Emotional Low
(1865 - 1873)

1870 Northerners, called "carpetbagger," and white Southerners, called "scalawags," join the Republican Party to carry out the congressional Reconstruction program in the South, sometimes meddling in the region's political affairs to their own benefit.

1870 Fifteenth Amend is ratified by 29 states. It gives the right to vote to black men, but not to women.

1871 Congress enacts Indian Appropriation Act, nullifying all Indian treaties an making all Indians wards of the nation.

1871 US Army suppresses the Apache Indians and forces them onto reservations in New Mexico and Ariz. Many resist confinement and begin raids on white settlers.

1874 Carpetbaggers seize control of Arkansas's government until fed troops restore order. [what mo.? P cross-over?]

Physical Downward Crossover with
Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review
(March 21, 1873- March 21, 1874)

1871 William Marcy ("Boss") Tweed, Tammany leader, is indicted for fraud in NYC. The Tweed Ring defrauded the city of at least $30 mil, profited from tax favors, and bought votes. Tweed is convicted in 1873; his henchmen flee to Europe to escape jail. [what mo.?

1873 Investigation by Congress of the Credit Mobilier scandal results in the censure of two US Representatives, but no prosecutions. The scandal is one of many instances of corruption in Grant's administration. [P cross-over? beg. of 3rd qtr] [what mo.?]

[PX & EL combined?] 9/18/73 The failure of the respectable brokerage firm of Jay Cooke and Company precipitates the country into a five-year depression.  The Panic of 1873 causes 5000 businesses to fail in the first year and 10,478 will close before the country turns a corner in 1879.  The Panic of 1873 is essentially the result of years of over-trading, over-production, over speculation, over-issues of paper money and inflated prices.  The economy has been running at fever heat for 12 years and a letdown is inevitable.  The failures of Cooke is merely the snowball that starts the avalanche, it is not in itself responsible for the conditions that lead to the disaster.  Unforeseen problems in financing the Northern Pacific Railroad, a projected second transcontinental line, wrecks the otherwise honorable company.  Thirty-seven banks and brokerage houses close the same day as Cooke.  Two days later the Stock Exchange closes for an unprecedented 10 days.  Other railroads and banks are soon force to shut down, affecting the fortunes of thousands of merchants and farmers.  The Panic is a psychological watershed in the fortunes of the country.  some part of the continent's unbridle optimism leaks away forever.  In its place the need for cooperation emerges as a necessary factor in the affairs of both management and labor.

Physical High with
     Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review
(1866 - 1873)

6/5-6/72 The Rep National Convention is still dominated by Radical Republicans as it meets in Philadelphia, Pa.  Present are the first clack delegates to a presidential convention.  Three of their number give speeches endorsing Pres Grant, who is elected on the first ballot.  Grant could boast that his country, under his hands-off policies, is in good shape: he has reduced the national debt, gold is at 114, the Treaty of Wash bodes fair to settle some long-standing injustices which have been ranking many citizens; some strong anti-Ku Klux Klan legislation has been enacted; Grant has declared a Peace Policy toward the Indians; and receipts from the usually corrupt Post Office have substantially increased.  If one does not look too closely into most of these boasts, it appears to be a strong position to campaign from.  Besides which , no other man can compete w the affectionate hold Grant has on the nation.  scandals may swirl around him like tornadoes, but the beloved old soldier manages to remain unscathed by the worst of them.

11/5/72 During the election, Susan B. Anthony, Vice-President-at-large of the National Woman Suffrage Association, casts a vote in NY State.  she is arrested and fined $100.  she objects, citing the Fourteenth Amendment which states that the vote cannot be denied to born or naturalized citizens on basis of race or color. It is a stand-off: Anthony never pays the fine but not until 1920 will the Twentieth Amendment be adopted guaranteeing women's right to vote.

Physical 3rd Qtr. Review with
     Intellectual WHATEVER
(1873 - 1874)

6/6/76 The US branch of a Masonic Order is org by Dr. Walter Fleming w the help of Charles T. McClenachan.  It is called the Imperial Council of the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.

Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review with
     Intellectual 1st Qtr. Foundation
(1865 - 1875)

1870 Congress passes act creating the Dept of Justice.

1871 Pres. Grant appoints the first Civil Service Commission, which begins reform of the civil service and the spoils system.

1872 Congress passes Amnesty Act, which restores civil rights to almost all citizens.

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7/8/71 William "Boss? Tweed is exposed in a series of articles pub in the New York Tomes.  Tweed will be brought to trial and geld responsible for taking up to $200,000,000 in fraudulent contracts, kickbacks, false vouchers and other corrupt practices which have brought New York City to the verge of bankruptcy in six short years.  Jay Gould, of the Black Friday 1869 gold scandal, is on of the signatories to Tweeds' million dollar bail bond.

6/6/72 With an eye on election, Grant' administration makes some token reductions in duties by declaring a ten percent cut on all major imported items.

1873 depression?

2/12/73 Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1873.  Gold-standard advocates lobby successfully for demonetizing silver.  The silver dollar is dropped as a coin, although a special coin continues in use for trade in the Orient.  It is not by chance that the gold-standard advocates push legislation though Congress at this time: rich silver strikes in Nevada are already making silver available in quantity.  Later, when silver is mine on a large scale, the money issue becomes political, as pro-inflationary groups allied to the mine owners press for silver coinage.  The 1873 Act becomes known as the "Crime of 1873 and unsubstantiated charges of gold conspiracy persist for two decades.

There was great deal wrong, besides over speculation, with the national economy and the laws regulation it. Corporations, which as early as 1919 employed 86.5 per cent of all wage earners in industry, were proliferating under practically no control. Holding companies were often so rigged that an outsider who bought stock knew nothing of what was going on, and the insiders profited, just as railway construction groups did in the days of President Grant.

To their dismay, in the turbulent years after the Civil War, women had watched as the 14th Amendment gave black males the vote, deliberately excluding females. Women turned directly to the states for support and with careful strategy for some 15 to five them the ballot. From a position of strength they could begin their offensive on the Federal government.

1875 congress passes Specie Resumption Act, providing for the resumption of specie payments (coins) on January 1, 1879. Greenbacks in circulation are reduced from $382 mil to $300 mil.

7/14/77 The great strike of 1877 begins as workers walk out on the Baltimore and Ohio RR.  RR unions demand better working conditions, protest recent 10 percent cuts in pay, the second since the depression began, and demand redress for their many grievances.  Strikes spread to other railroads from New England to the Miss and soon fr the Atlantic to the Pacific.  All the great cities are pulled into the struggle which is finally settled by militia and Federal Troops.  But it serves notice that labor and capital are on a new footing, that until reconciling social ideas are brought to bear, conflict between the two forces will be sanguinary, wasteful and titanic.  Sympathetic strikes of factory workers and miners engulf industry.  Overnight the nation grinds to a halt.  Sympathetic strikes are a novelty and speak of a growing understanding of the distress shared by industrial workers.

[P low?]

7/16/77 Violence erupts at Martinsburg, West Va.  state militia has been ordered to guard railroad property on the B & O to prevent a train from being moved.  Instead the train is derailed.  Soon the entire line, yards, tracks, roundhouses are in the strikers' hands.  President Hayes orders the men back to work.  The local militia refuses to fire on the strikers but the sec of War sends Fed Troops to break up the strike.  It is the first time since Jackson that Fed Troops have been used against civilian Americans.  Violence continues unabated across the country.

7/20/77 In Baltimore nine strikers are killed and several wounded, when State militia fire point blank at a crown trying to prevent them from reaching the railway state, which is in the hands of angry strikers.  In four days of rioting, 50 more people are killed.

7/21/77 In Pittsburgh, where railway property is concentrated, a large number of sympathy strikers and general populace support the railroad workers.  They are attacked by State troops when the Pa militia, attempting to clear a street, is met by volley of stones.  The militia fire into the crowd, which then fires back.  In the battle which ensues the militia secures itself in a roundhouse from which it is ultimately forced by fire.  At one time a wall of fire three miles long destroys installations.  About 2000 freight cars are burned and nearly $10,000,000 in property damage is sustained by the rail companies.  All night long the strikers riot, turning from sullen, desperate working men into a monstrous mob, looting shops, burning buildings, often attacking people and property which have no other connection w the railroads than proximity.

7/26/77 In Chicago a strike turns into a bloody massacre when an unorganized gathering is attacked by police aided by cavalry.  Nineteen people are killed.

12/9/78 Greenbacks reach face value on Wall Street.  They can be redeemed on-for-one for gold for the first time since 1862.

2. Business & Economy  1870s Physical Cycle top    

 

Physical High (1859 -1873)

10/3/70 Sec of the Interior Jacob D. Cox, in advocating restraint it the use of the nation's natural resources, runs afoul of industry's rapacious "robber barons."  Cox is pressured to resign by a Congress paid well to cater to the shims of industrial giants.

Physical Downward Crossover (March 21, 1873- March 21, 1874)

9/20/73 The Stock Exchange closes its doors for 10 days, and the Sec of the Treasury releases $26,000,000 in greenback which are marked for recall by Jan 1874.  The total circulation of the paper money is now $382,000,000.

3/11/74 The Potter Law, Wisconsin legislation initiated by the Grange movement, regulates railroad freight rates within the State.  It is achieved against massive resistance by lumber and railroad interests.

Physical Low (1873 - 1887)

1877 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad workers strike in protest against wage reductions. The move spreads quickly to other Easter, later Western railroads, and riots occur in several cities. This is the first general railroad strike in the country.

7/31/77 Inspired by the railroad workers, strikes have spread to most other industries in the two hot weeks of July.  Meanwhile under intense pressure from state and fed governments the railroad strikers have been forced to settle.  Most railroad men return to work without substantial increases or betterment of the working conditions.  Sympathizing strikes in coal mines have spread, and by the end of July, 40,000 coalminers are on strike in Scranton, Pa.  These workers are more fortunate then the railway workers: after almost a month of violence and looting, the mine owners cave in , offering a 10 percent raise, and agree to other demands made by the unions.  Order is restored, but not before the strike has spread through most of the coal-producing states.  From this inauspicious beginning a cohesiveness is formed among workers that has not existed before.  The strikes have been dramatic lessons in the power of employers and the powerlessness of the single working person or even small groups.  The labor movement, which has begun to weaken during the depression, membership having fallen from 300,000 to 50,000 finds energy in the explosive events of the summer of 1877.

1878 Durfee establishes America's first copper refinery in Ansonia, Connecticut.

Physical 3rd Qtr. Review (1873 - 1880)

3/23/74 Legislation in Iowa, initiated by the growing Grange movement, regulates rail freight rates within the State.

12/4/75 Wm. "Boss" Tweed, convicted of cheating NYC out of some $200,000,000 is helped to escape from jail and gets away to Cuba.

 6/21/77 Ten members of the violent reformist Irish miners' society, the Molly Macguires, are hanged for murder.  The Society, infiltrated by Pinkerton detectives, is severely weakened and soon force to disband.

2. Business & Economy  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

 

Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review (1865 - 1874)

11/5/72 Wm "Boss" Tweed is convicted on all counts of defrauding the city of NY of some $200,000,000.  He is sentenced to twelve years in jail.  His cohorts escape abroad w their share of the loot and are never punished.  Oddly enough, when "Boss" Tweed escapes to Spain in 1876 he is sent home by that country's government.  Tweed dies in jail in 1878.

2. Business & Economy  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

 

Intellectual High (1863 - 1885)

1875 Steel manufacturer Andrew Carnegie builds the first factory to use the Bessemer steel-making process.

1878 First regular telephone exchange opens in New Haven.

1878 Edison Electric Light Company is formed in NYC.

1879 Frank W. Woolworth opens his first successful 5-and-10-cent store in Lancaster, PA.

2. Business & Economy  1870s Polyrhythms top    

Physo-Emotional Dbl. 3rd Qtr. Review (1873 - 1885)

5/8/74 Mass is the first sate to adopt a 10-hour day law for women.  Public demand for reform of substandard working conditions is increasing daily.

Physical High with
     Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review
(1865 - 1873)

9/4/72 The Credit Mobilier scandal erupts in the press.  During the building of the cross-continental railway, which was done w considerable government money, Mass Representative Oakes Ames and other directors of the Union Pacific Railroad formed a company and then awarded themselves the rich construction contracts.  During the life of the company, named Credit Mobilier of America, millions of dollars were siphoned into the pockets of the directors and their friends.  In order to forestall congressional investigations, Ames distributed shares to congressmen, Cabinet officers, even to Vice-President Schuyler Colfax.

The Credit Mobilier Scandal:  In Sept 1872, the New York Sun began a series of articles exposing a lucrative scandal w ramifications that reached to the highest levels of government.  During the building of the transcontinental railway, million of dollars were dispensed by the US government.  Mass Representative Oakes Ames and the other directors of the Union Pacific Railroad formed a company and named it "Credit Mobilier of America."  To this company they awarded all the construction contracts.  Some estimate that $73,000,000 was paid to Credit Mobilier for work worth closer to $50,000,000.  In order to forestall congressional investigation, Oakes Ames, taking advantage of his position in Congress, distributed 160 shares to congressmen, Cabinet officers, and even to vice-Pres Colfax, or as he so succinctly put it, "where it would do the most good."  Some of the contracts paid $341.85 on each $100 share and some of the lucky b4eneficiaries of Ames' generosity paid only par value, ir anything at all.  Vice-Pres Schuyler Colfax and Grant's second term Vice-Pres Henry Wilson, James G. Blaine and many otherwise honorable men were badly damaged politically by the greedy scheme.  Ames admitted it was a "diamond mine" and the "Sun," in a bit of hyperbole considering the nature of other swindles in the Grant administration, called him the "King of Frauds."  The House proposed to expel Ames, but finally settled on February 28, 1873 for a vote of censure.  Leland Stanford's Central Pacific Railroad Company adopted the same procedures but their schemes were never exposed.

2/18/73 The House Committee investigating the Credit Mobilier Scandal finds Massachusetts Representative Oakes Ames guilty of bribery and recommends his expulsion from Congress.  Although guilty of corruption as charged, Americans had to his credit that he, more than any other reason, had instigated the building of the transcontinental railroad.  Whether it was public opinion that came to his defense or the fact that so many congressmen and high government officials were implicated in the scandal, in the end Ames is merely censured. [combine w/other Physical High / Emotional 3rd Qtrs. & add introduction to theme].

Physical Downward Crossover with
Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review
(March 21, 1873- March 21, 1874)

3/3/73  In the so-called "salary Grab" Act, congress increases its salaries by 50 percent and double both the President's salary and that of Justices of the Supreme Court.  To add insult to injury the increase is made retroactive for two years.  The Act is met w strong opposition n the country.  The public is deeply disgusted w the veal ways of its representative.  Congress will be forced to repeal the the raises which it has granted to its own members.  On the same day, Congress passes the Coal Lands Act which offers public coal bearing lands to anyone who can pay $10 to $20 an acre.  Not more than 160 acres are permitted per person and 320 acres per group.  all such acts which limit the purchase of land grants are circumvented by fraudulent means, and rich acreage in easily transferred to cagey profiteers sometimes for a little as a glass of beer.

1/20/74 Under great pressure from a shocked nation, Congress repeals the Salary Grab" Act of 1873.  It leave intact raises for the pres and Sup Ct Justices but forgoes raises for itself.

Physical High with
     Intellectual 1st Qtr. Foundation
(1863 - 1873)

1870 Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (The A&P) is organized. It becomes the largest single chain of grocery stores in volume of business.

1870 John D. Rockefeller, after combining several Cleveland refineries in 1867, forms Standard Oil Company of Ohio.

1872 Montgomery Ward & Company, the first mail order house, opens for business in Chicago.

1873 Bethlehem Steel Company begins manufacturing in Pittsburgh, Pa. Iron ore shipments from mines near Marquette, Michigan, amount to more than one million tons a year.

Physical Low with
     Intellectual Intellectual High
(1873 - 1885)

12/9/78 Greenbacks reach face value on Wall Street.  They can be redeemed one-for-one gold for the first time since 1862.

1/1/79 Greenbacks have reached a face value with gold.  The pub has confidence in the government's ability to redeem paper in specie, which will be done for the first time since 1861.  When specie payments begin, as authorized by Congress in 1875, there I no great demand for the coinage.

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3. Science & Technology  1870s Physical Cycle top    

 

Physical Low (1873 -1887)

George B. Selden, one of many working on the combustion engine, develops a 2-cycle "gasoline carriage."  Curiously enough, Selden is a patent lawyer, and yet he fails to get a patent until 1895.  by then it is too late because  when Henry Ford and others beg to manufacture autos, Selden's claim is submerged in the modifications and advances made since his time and he is unable to lay claim to his discovery.

3. Science & Technology  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

3. Science & Technology  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

 

Intellectual High (1863 - 1885)

10/15/78 In what will amount to a complete revolution in the Am way of life, Edison establishes the Edison Electric Light Company in NYC.  Although Edison won't find the answer to the incandescent light for another year, he knows he is on the track and it is only a matter of time.  J. P. Morgan and other financiers are eager to invest in any invention of Edison's and back the company which plans to produce electricity on a large scale for public and private use.  Once the light bulb is developed, other companies are quickly formed to cash in on the electrical bonanza.  But guided by financier, J. P. Morgan, a master of the vertical organization, the Edison Company soon eats up all its rivals and becomes the General Electric Company, established by the inventor George Westinghouse in 1886.  To forego further competition the two companies come to agreements on the division of patents and territories.  No laws prevent monopolies or such unfair competition, so that small companies simply go under.

1878 George Eastman begins manufacture of photographic dry plate

1878 Albert A. Michelson measure distances by light wave-lengths.  He uses his own invention, an interferometer, to grasp the enormous interplanetary distances he is measuring.

10/19-21/79 Thomas A. Edison finds that a thread of carbonized cotton in one-millionth of an atmosphere will burn for 45 hours without overheating.  His dream of an incandescent light bulb is within reach.  He will now proceed to test 6000 other possible vegetable fibers which he has in his well-stocked laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey.  He finally settles on carbonized bamboo.  Edison immediately puts his invention to practical use.  By the following year the Edison Electric Light Company begins to light up NYC.

Intellectual 1st Qtr. Foundation (1863 - 1874)

1870 Federal Meteorological Service is established as part of the US Army Signal Corps.

1870 John W. Hyatt, NY printer, patents a process for making Celluloid.

1870 Peirce pubs "Linear Associative Algebras," thus establishing a new branch of mathematics.

1870 Edward De Smedt, NY scientist, paves a road in Newark, NY, with asphalt pavement.

1870 Motion Pictures: Pioneer Stage. Experiments in depicting motion followed invention of Zoetrope (designed in France, 1860), a series of pictures whirled on a drum to give effect of motion applying similar principle to magic lantern, Henry R. Heyl Showed projected animated pictures (1870). Edward Muybridge set up a series of coordinated camera to take successive photograph of a horse in motion (1878).

1871 Luther Burbank, horticulturist, begins his experiments with plant breeding and hybrids. The hybrid "Burbank potato" is and instant commercial success.

1872 Edward Muybridge, En.-American. motion picture pioneer, designs the "zoopraxiscope," a crude forerunner of the movie projector.

1872 Henry Draper, Virginia. astronomer, begins using photography in his studies of nebulae.

1872 "Popular Science Monthly" begins pub

1872 Frank Hamilton, Vt. physician, pubs "Principles and Practice of Surgery."

1872 Edward Weston, Eng.-American scientist, builds a dynamo that is commercially successful for use in electroplating.

1872-75 Calculating Machines. Edmund d. Barbour invented adding machine which printed totals and subtotals (1872). Eugene Felt (1862-1930) made 1st accurate comptometer (1884). First successful recording adding machine (1888) by William S. Burroughs (1857-1898).

1873 William Osler, Canadian physician, discovers blood platelets.

1873 Louis Agassiz established the Anderson School of Natural History on Pekinese Island, Mass. This is the first Am school to concentrate its studies on oceanography. Studies - Water.

1874 Philadelphia Zoological Garden, America's first zoo, opens to the public.

Intellectual 2nd Qtr. Expansion (1874 - 1885)

1874 Edison invents a quadriplex telegraph system which allows four messages to be sent over one wire at the same time.

1874 Andrew T. Still, Kans. physician, establishes osteopathy, a branch of medicine that stresses the importance of healthy bones and muscles to one's overall health.

1875 Elihu Thompson, Eng-Am engineer, operates the world's first radio.

1875 Edwin T. Klebs, Ger-Am bacteriologist, discovers "pneumococcus," the bacterium that causes labor pneumonia.

1875 Luther Burbank uses cross-breading and selection on a commercial scale.  He develops new strains of plant life, including berries, fruits, vegetables and grains.

1875 A new method of medicine is dev by Dr. Andrew T. Still in Kirksville, Missouri.  He calls it osteopathy.  Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, pubs "Science and Health."

1875-81 Dynamos. William A. Anthony (1835-1908) constructed 1st dynamo for outdoor lighting (1875, at Cornell U); C. F. Brush (1876). Edison Machine Works constructed 1st successfully operating dynamo (27 tons, 1881).

Various forerunners to the telephone existed in idea forms before Bell obtained his patent in 1876. In fact, all that had to be known was known for  decades. Why the invention had not been developed earlier, it is suggested, is that the social needs were not yet ready. For whatever reason, it was not until the intellectual cycle entered the second quarter that Bell00 patented the telephone in 1876, making obsolete the telegraph, (i 2nd)

1876 Alexander Graham Bell, Scot-Am inventor, patents the telephone. The first words transmitted by telephone were addressed to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!"

1876 Josiah Willard Gibbs, Conn. physicist later considered on of America's greatest scientists, pubs "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances" in which he proposes the "phase rule" and applies the laws of thermodynamics to physicl chemistry.

1876 John Ericsson published "Solar Investigations" and describes a solar-powered electric motor.

1876 American Chemical Society is founded in NYC.

1876 Edison establishes as industrial research laboratory (America's fist) in Menlo Park, NJ. He invents the carbon microphone an patents a mimeograph machine.

3/10/76 The telephone, for which Alexander Graham Bell has received a patent on March 7, now functions.

1878 Hughes invents an improved microphone and gives it its name.

1877 Emile Berliner, Ger-Am inventor, develops a microphone for use in the telephone.

Forerunners to the phonograph laid the basis for Edison's invention of 1877.

1877 Thomas Edison patents the phonograph, which he had invented ten years earlier but had not gotten around to perfecting while he concentrated on his incandescent light.

1878 Edison patents the phonograph. He records "Mary had a little lamb" on a cylinder wrapped in tin foil.

...they and their pupils implemented and continued the revolution in medicine and surgery that began with Eliot's reforms at Harvard in 1870.

1877 Copper wire is invented.

1877 Charles J. Glidden, Mass. engineer, designs the world's first telephone exchange.

1877 Weston installs an electric streetlight in Newark, NJ.

1877 First intercity telephone communication takes place between Salem, Mass. and Boston, and Chicago, and Milwaukee.

1877-95 discoveries by Nikola Tesla. Tesla discovered the principle of the rotary magnetic field, applying it in a practical form to the induction motor and making  possible the alternating current motor and the readmission of power by such current, employing what became known as 2-phase, 3 phase, multiphase, and poly-phase systems, particularly on long distance lines (later used extensively). Also Edison system of central power production introduced (1882) at NYC.

1877 Charles Brush, Ohio scientist, invents the Brush electric arc lamp, a storage battery, and a dynamoelectric machine.

1877 Asaph Hall, Conn. astronomer, discovers two moons of Mars. He names them Deimos and Phobos.

1878 Albert A. Michelson, Ger-Am physicist, measures the speed of light with great accuracy. His measurement is 186,508 miles per second, an error of less than 0.001%.

1878-83 Electric Lighting. Practical application of electric arc lamps (Philadelphia, 1878; Cleveland, 1879) Although Moses Gerrish of Salem had build an incandescent lamp as early as 1859, Thomas A. Edison invented the 1st practical incandescent bulb (1879); established factory (1880).

1878-1948 Phonograph patented by Edison (1878); practical machine made by firm of Bell and Painter (1886). Electronic phonograph introduced 1924 by Western Electric Co., manufactured 1927 by RCA; 33 1/3 rpm. microgroove record invented by Dr. Peter Goldmark, marketed 1948.

1879-1923 Automobiles. Experimentation followed upon the building of an early steam-operated auto in the US (by Henry A. House, 1866). George B. Selden applied for 1st auto patent (1879); took it out (1895). storage-battery auto designed by William Morrison (1891). First gasoline-engine-driven motor built and operated by J. Frank Duryea (1895). Autocar Co. introduced shaft drive (1901) and circulating lubrication (1904). Pneumatic tire (1892) followed by clincher-type tire (1899), the demountable tire-carrying rim (1906), the nonskid tire (1908), the cord tire (1910), and the balloon tire (1923). Electric self-starter invented by Clyde J. Coleman (1899); perfected (1911) by Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958, who also invented lighting and ignition systems. Four-wheel auto brake patented, 1908. Bendix drive, 1914, by Vincent Bendix.

The other forms of incandescent lighting that had been worked on did not deprive Edison of due credit when he brought forth his invention of the electric light in 1879.

1879 Edison invents the first practical electric incandescent lamp. He uses a carbon filament that glows for 40 hrs in a vacuum. Edison also experiments with a platinum filament burning in a vacuum.

1879 Saccharin, an artificial sweetener 500 times stronger than sugar, is discovered by Constantine Fahlberg, Russian-American scientist.

1879 Alpheus Hyatt established an oceanographical laboratory at Annisquam, Massachusetts. Studies - Water.

1879 George Eastman, NY industrialist, patents a process for making dry photographic plates.

3. Science & Technology  1870s Polyrhythms top    

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1874 Joseph Glidden, NH farmer, invents barbed wire.

1878 A. A. Pope manufactures the first bicycles, called "wheels."

1879 George B. Selden, engineer, develops a three-cylinder internal combustion engine and uses it to power a "horseless carriage."

7/7/74 A steel arch bridge across the Miss R at St. Louis is completed.  It is built by James Buchanan Eads and is the first to span the great river.  It takes seven years to complete and is the inspiration for further such construction. [if this took seven years, did it begin in 1867?]

4. Mechanical  1870s Physical Cycle top    

4. Mechanical  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

4. Mechanical  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

Intellectual 2nd Qtr. Expansion (1874 - 1885)

1874 Robert Thurston, R.I. engineer, establishes a mechanical engineering research laboratory at the Stevens Institute of Technology in NJ.

1874 First streetcar to operate by electricity begins running in NYC.

1874 Transportation. Andrew S. Hallidie (1836- 1900) invented cable streetcar (1871; in use in San Fran, 1873). First electrically powered street-car invented by Stephen Dudley Field successfully run in NYC, 1874. RR coupler patented by Eli H. Janey.

1875 Weston estabs a NJ factory that produces dynamoelectric machinery.

1875 James Sargent and Halbert Greenleaf patent a time lock for use in back vaults.

1875 George F. Green, Mich. inventor, patents an electric dental drill.

1875 Samuel F. O'Reilly invents an electric tattooing machine. (Patented in 1891).

1875 By this year, refrigerator cars are used regularly to ship meat from Midwest stockyards to the East.

1879 Brush installs electric arc lamps on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio.

4. Mechanical  1870s Polyrhythms top    

Physical High with
     Intellectual 1st Qtr. Foundation
(1863 - 1874)

1870 Edison invents the stock ticker.

1870 Tolbert Langston, Ohio inventor, patents a padlock.

1871 Simon Ingersoll, Connecticut farmer, invents a pneumatic drill that uses the power of compressed air to cut through rock.

1873 Andrew Hallidie, California engineer, invents cable cars for use on the hills of San Francisco.

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5. Education  1870s Physical Cycle top    

Physical Low (1873 - 1887)

data

5. Education  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

5. Education  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

Intellectual High (1863 - 1885)

1879 Archeological Inst of Am is founded in Boston by Charles E. Norton, Mass. educator.

1879 Richard Henry Pratt founds the Carlisle Indian School in Pa, one of the most successful schools for Indians in the US.

1879 Radcliffe College is established in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Intellectual 1st Qtr. Foundation (1863 - 1874)

1873 Bellevue Hop in NYC opens the first school of nursing, with instruction based on the teachings of Florence Nightingale.

5. Education  1870s Polyrhythms top    

Emotional 4th Qtr. Alternatives with
     Intellectual 2nd Qtr. Expansion
(1865 - 1874)

11/17/75 A branch of the Theosophical Society is founded in New York by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky or "H. P." as she prefers to be called.  The main objects of the society are: first, to begin to establish the universal brotherhood of humanity, molding public opinion away from strictly national views; second, to promote study of comparative religion and philosophy; third, to take more interest in the realms of "occults."  belief in reincarnation was central to Blavatsky's thinking and the idea was first introduced by her into Am thought.  Madame Blavatsky is a charismatic woman who has a profound effect upon many of her contemporaries.  The poet W. B. Yeats is one of her disciples, as are the famous religious leaders Annie Besant, Krishnamurti, Rudolf Steiner and Alice Bailey.

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1872 Jehovah's Witnesses are org by Charles Taze Russell, a layman member of the Presbyterian Church. Among other names the group is first known as the International Bible Students.

1874 First Chautauqua Assembly meets at Chautauqua Lake, NY. Originally formed to train church workers and Sunday school teachers during summer months, the program eventually includes entertainment and general education.

1876 Society for Ethical Culture est. in NY by Felix Adler.

6. Religion & Spirituality  1870s Physical Cycle top    

Physical Low (1873 - 1887)

data

6. Religion & Spirituality  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

 

Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review (1865 - 1874)

10/2/71 Stepping up pressure on the Mormons and their "special institution."  the Federal Gov arrests leader Brigham Young for practicing polygamy.

1873 Rabbi Isaac Meyer Wise, advocate of Reform Judaism, orgs the Union of Hebrew Congregations in 1873 and the Hebrew Union College in 1875, both in Cincinnati.

1874 National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) is formed in Cleveland to promote prohibition (stopping the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks) by educational, social and political means.

1840-60 Reform and Conservative Judaism. Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise (1819-1900), through "The Israelite," slashed in Cincinnati, advocated the idea of reform. In 1873 he org. the Union of A. Hebrew Congregations, followed (1875) by Hebrew Union college in Cincinnati. (merged with the Jewish Institute of Religion, New York City, 1948) and (1889) the Central Conference of American Rabbis. A conservative movement in opposition was headed by Rabbis Isaac Leeser (1806-68) and Sabato Morais (1823-97) of Philadelphia. The Jewish Theological Seminary (conservative) was founded (1886).

Emotional 4th Qtr. Alternatives (1874 - 1883)

July 1874 The Chautauqua Movement is begun by Lewis Miller and John H. Vincent.  Vincent is a Methodist clergyman, and the movement begins as a summer training of Sunday School teachers. Lewis Miller is an Ohio industrialist who agrees to finance the establishment at Lake Chautauqua, NY.  The movement subsequently changes its emphasis to include subjects of greater interest to a people grappling w the new age and draw nationally known speakers such as Mark Twain to its meetings.

6. Religion & Spirituality  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

6. Religion & Spirituality  1870s Polyrhythms top    

Emotional Low with
     Intellectual High
(1865 - 1883)

1874 The pub. of "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy" by John Fiske (1842-1901), w its attempt to reconcile theism w Darwinian evolution, brought theological liberalism (Advocated by Beecher, Abbott, Gladden, Brooks, Draper & White) into open conflict w orthodoxy.

1875-86 Archbishop John McClosky became the 1st Am. cardinal. Archbishop James Gibbons was elected to the same rank (1886). The Catholic U of Am. was founded at Wash. DC by the 3rd plenary council (1884).

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As early as the 1870's the U.S. architect, H. H. Richardson adopted the Romanesque style, less for its historical associations than for the opportunities it afforded him to express the nature and texture of stone. [p 3rd} In mature examples of his architecture from the mid-1880s, ornament in the older, applied sense had virtually disappeared, and his buildings depend for their aesthetic affect mainly on the inherent qualities of their materials. [p 4th]. The generation following Richardson saw a further international development of this principle. [Enc Brit 1:1109]

1874 Louis Comfort Tiffany opens a factory in which he makes elegant glass objects.

1875 Richardson designs the ornate NY state cap build. in Albany.

1875 Thomas Eakins, important portraitist of the period, paints "The Gross Clinic," which realistically portrays a medical school class.

1870 John F. Kensett, Hudson R School painter, paints "Storm Over Lake George," famous for its minute color gradations.

1870 Homer Martin paints "Lake Sanford" in the typical Hudson R School manner.

7. Arts & Design  1870s Physical Cycle top    

Physical 3rd Qtr. Review (1873 -1880)

The Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 brought to America the "craft" medievalism and a new series of more literal style revivals including that of colonial times. These in turn absorbed the exotic Eastern influence of the Aesthetic movement of the later 19th century.

1872 Henry Hobson Richardson, leading Romanesque revival architect, in the US designs Trinity Church in Boston.

1879 Construction of the state capitol in Hartford, Ct. is completed. The building, a mixture of Gothic and Romanesque arch was designed by Richard Upjohn

Daniel Chester French sculpture whose work is probably more familiar to a wider US audience than that of any other native sculptor. His first important commission, which came from the town of Concord, Mass., was the statue "The Minute Man' (1875), commemorating the Concord flight 100 years earlier. It became the symbol for defense bonds, stamps, and posters of World War II. French's great marble, the seated Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, was dedicated in 1922. In the intervening 50 years he created a vast number of works on American subjects, among them the equestrian statues of Gen US Grant in Phila. and Gen Washington in Paris; three pairs of bronze doors for the Boston Public Library; the "Standing Lincoln," Lincoln, Neb., the statue of Emerson in the public library, Concord, Mass.; the "Alma Mater" at Columbia U; and the "Four Continents" at the NY customhouse.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens generally acknowledged to be the foremost US sculptor of the late 19th century, noted for his imaginatively evocative memorial statues and the subtle modeling of his low reliefs.

After 1875 St. Gaudens became settled in NY and was a recognized sculpture. The most important work of Saint-Gaudens' early maturity was the monument to Admiral Farragut (1880, Madison Square Garden), the base of which was designed by White.

1870 J. Q. A. Ward sculpts "Shakespeare," now in Central Park.

7. Arts & Design  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

7. Arts & Design  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

7. Arts & Design  1870s Polyrhythms top    

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Bret Francis Harte created the local-color school in American fiction. In 1857 he was employed by the "Northern Californian," a weekly paper. There his support of Indians and Mexicans proved unpopular; after a massacre of Indians in 1860, which he editorially deplored, he found it advisable to leave town.

Returning to San Francisco, he married and began to write for the "Golden Era," which published the first of his "Condensed Novels," brilliant parodies of Cooper, Dickens, Hugo and other, which revealed him as a master of that form. He then became a clerk in the US branch mint, a position that allowed freedom for editorship of the "Californian," for which he engaged Mark Twain to write an article a week.

In 1868, after publishing a series of Spanish legends akin to Washington Irving's "Alhambra," he was named editor or the "Overland Monthly." For it he wrote "The Luck of Roaring Camp," and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"; following "The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches (1870), he found himself world famous. His brisk style, picturesque narrative, and artful blending of sentiment and wit won immediate praise. He furthered his reputation with "Plain Language From Truthful James," (1870) better known as "The Heathen Chinee", a poem that attracted national attention. On it he based his best play, "Ah Sin (1877), a collaboration with Twain.

Eastern publishers bid for the brilliant meteor out of the West; flushed with success, Harte in 1871 signed with "The Atlantic Monthly" for $10,000, the highest figure offered an American writer to that time. RAW^

 Joel Chandler Harris, author is the creator of the American folk character Uncle Remus. As apprentice on a weekly plantation paper, "The Countryman," he became familiar with the lore and dialects of the plantation Negro. He established a reputation as a brilliant humorist and writer of dialect while employed on newspapers at Macon, GA, New Orleans, LA, Forsyth and Savannah, GA, and, after 1876, on the staff of the "Atlanta Constitution" for 24 years. In 1879 the "Tar Baby" story, probably inspired by his reading of William Owens' work on Negro folklore, appeared in the "Atlanta Constitution" and created a vogue for a distinctive type of dialect literature.

This and successive Uncle Remus stories won for Harris a secure place in American literature. The pattern was new: Uncle Remus, the wise, genial old Negro, tells stories about Bret Rabbit, Brer Fox, and other animals to the little son of a plantation owner and interweaves his philosophy of the world about him. Harris recorded the speech of the plantation Negro faithfully. Speaking through Uncle Remus, he captured not only what the Negro said but how he said it-the poetic impulse, gift for narrative and condensation, humor, and pictorial language.

Harris' works are among the most striking examples of the local color literature that flourished in the 1870's and '80's. With an unerring instinct for dialect and a firm grasp of character, he depicted the vanishing plantation life with charm and sympathy.

Sidney Lanier musician and poet whose verse, which reflects the social change in the South of his time, often suggest the rhythms and thematic development of music. He published his first book in 1867, The novel "Tiger-Lilies," a mixture of German philosophy, Southern traditional romance, and his own war experiences.

"Corn" (1875), treating industrial agricultural conditions in the South, and "The Symphony" (1875), treating industrial conditions in the North, brought national recognition. Adverse criticism of his "Centennial Meditation" launched him on an investigation of verse technique that he continued until his death, "The Song of the Chattahoochee," a volume of poems, was published in 1877. ...later publishes as "The Science of English Verse" (1880), "Shakespeare and his Forerunners (1902), and "The English Novel (1883 and 1887). The complete edition of his works (ten volumes) appeared in 1945.

1870 "The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches," by Bret Harte brings the author international fame.

1871 Henry James, influential writer of the period, pubs, "A Passionate Pilgrim," telling of an America's first exposure to Eng.

1871 Whitman's essay "Democratic Vistas" deals with his theory of democracy and urges literary freedom.

1871 Alcott pubs "Little Men."

1871 "Atlantic Monthly" pays Harte $10,000, the most yet paid to an Amer. writer, for 12 contributions.

1872 Paul Hamilton Hayne pubs "Legends and Lyrics," which contains the best poetry of the postwar South.

1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner collaborated on "The Gilded Age." The title of this work has become an epithet for the 1870-98 period of economic expansion in the US. [seccession of 2nd qtrs?]

1874 Aldrich pubs "Cloth of Gold," a collection of poems.

1876 Mark Twain pubs the classic novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

1877 Twain and Harte collaborate on the play "Ah Sin"

1878 Henry James pubs "Watch and Ward" and "The Europeans."

1879 James pubs "Daisy Miller"

8. Literature & Publication  1870s Physical Cycle top    

8. Literature & Publication  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

8. Literature & Publication  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

8. Literature & Publication  1870s Polyrhythms top    

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1873 Organist Clarence Eddy gives a recital at the Vienna Exposition.

1876 Centennial Exhibition is held in Philadelphia to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Fifty nations send exhibits that are housed in 180 buildings on 236 acres of land.

1878 Forerunner of the Wild West Show is the exhibition of Dr. W. F. Carver, who returns to New York from California to show his skill in firing a gun while riding a horse.

9. Entertainment  1870s Physical Cycle top    

Physical High (1859 -1873)

1871 Barnum produces the circus, "The Greatest Show on Earth," in Brooklyn, NY.

Physical 3rd Qtr. Review (1873 - 188o)

1878 After their temporary disappearance during the Civil War, showboats are revived and feature vaudeville.

9. Entertainment  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

 

9. Entertainment  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

 

Intellectual High (1863 - 1885)

1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia celebrates electrical progress.

1877 The Philadelphia Conservatory of Music is founded.

1879 Clarence Eddy plays 100 organ recitals in Chicago without repeating a work.

9. Entertainment  1870s Polyrhythms top    

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1875 First Kentucky Derby is held at Churchill Downs. The winner is "Aristides" for a purse of $2850.

1876 First major baseball league, the National League, is founded. There are teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Ohio, Hartford, NYC, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

1876 James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the "New York Herald," introduces polo in NYC from Eng.

4/2/76 National League baseball plays its first official game.  Jim O'Rourke gets the first hit, and Boston beats Philadelphia, six to five.

1878 National Archery Association is formed.

10. Sports  1870s Physical Cycle top    

Physical High (1859 -1873)

1870 Rollers skating spreads throughout the country. By 1863, 4 rollers have been added to "parlor skates" and a young skater, William H. Fuller, develops the art of figure skating, which he displays on a world tour.

1871 First pro baseball ass is formed, National Association of Professional Baseball Players, which replaces the amateur National Association.

1871 Civil War leads to a revival of interest in rifle shooting and to the formation of the National Rifles Association.

1872 First Ski club is founded in Berlin, NH.

1873 Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Rutgers University meet to draw up the first rules for football.

10. Sports  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

10. Sports  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

10. Sports  1870s Polyrhythms top    

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XXX 11. FASHION INTRODUCTION

11. Fashion  1870s Physical Cycle top    

 

11. Fashion  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

11. Fashion  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

11. Fashion  1870s Polyrhythms top    

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pop US 1870 almost 38.6 million

1870 Census shows a pop of 39.8 mil, of whom 4.9 mil are freed Negroes and 2.3 mil immigrants who have arrived since 1860.

 1871 Large portions of the center of Chicago burn to the ground. About 200 people are killed, 90,000 left homeless, and property damage is $196 mil.

1871 Fire in Michigan and Wisconsin burns more than 2 mil acres. About 1000 people die, and 350 homes are destroyed, mostly in Peshtigo, Wisconsin.

1872 Fire in Boston rages for 3 days and destroys more than 800 buildings. Property damaged is $75 mil.

1873 Epidemics of yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox sweep through many southern cities.

1873 Free delivery of mail is provided in all cities with a pop of at least 20,000. The first penny postcard are also issued at this time.

1876 Train is derailed on a bridge over the Ashtabula R in Ohio; 91 people die.

1877 Charles Elmer Hires begins making and distributing a drink called root beer.

1877 Pres. Hayes initiates the Easter egg hunt on the capitol grounds in Wash, DC.

1878 Yellow fever epidemic kills about 14,000 people in the southern US.

12. Lifestyles  1870s Physical Cycle top    

 

Physical High (1859 -1873)

1870 Boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ is completed, the first in Am.

10/24/71 Race riots erupt in Los Angeles, Ca, against the Chinese.  Fifteen laborers are lynched in the ongoing violence which has begun to characterize opposition to Oriental immigration.  Aside from vicious racial antipathy, there is also the fact that the Chinese work harder, better and longer for less money than anyone else.  They are also sober and clean.

12. Lifestyles  1870s Emotional Cycle top    

12. Lifestyles  1870s Intellectual Cycle top    

12. Lifestyles  1870s Polyrhythms top    

Trirhythmic WHATEVER (XXX)

1876 THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION  The Centennial Exposition was opened by Pres Grant in Philadelphia in May 1876.  Congress had appropriated $2,000,000, Pa $1,000,000 and Philadelphia $1,500,000 toward the exposition at Fairmont Park.  There was much in the way of native art and foreign culture to examine, but the focus of the fair was Machinery Hall, a 1402-foot by 360-foot wooden building that covered 13 acres.  In it was a display of Am inventions of the past decades, including the telephone, the typewriter, the mimeograph and the 2500 horsepower Corliss engine later bought by George Pullman for his sleeper-car factory.  Of this astounding piece of machinery William Dean Howells wrote: "The Corliss engine does not lend itself to description. . . It rises loftily in the centre of the huge structure, an athlete of steel an iron w not a superfluous ounce of metal on it; the mightily walking beams plunge their pistons downward, the enormous flywheel revolves w hoarded power that makes all tremble, the hundred life-like details do their office w unerring intelligence.":  Howell worried about the power of machinery over men but, he wrote, "For the present Am is voluble in the strong metals and their infinite uses."  In the six months the Fair was open, just under 10,000,000 people wandered awestruck through the beautiful founds, some 274,000 a day.  They paid $3,800,000 just for admissions.  al 38 States exhibited, and countries as far away as China and Egypt participated in the lavish International section.  It was a fitting celebration marking the end of the first hundred years of the US.

Internal Aberrations  

10/8/71 Fire almost obliterates Chicago.  Damage is estimated at $196,000,000; 250 people are killed in the blaze; 98,000 persons are made moneyless; and 17,450 buildings are consumed.  Among precious objects destroyed is the original of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.  Due to the same conditions prevailing drought, in one of the least publicized and most devastating fires on record, the community of Peshtigo, in northern Wisconsin, is engulfed in flames.  Six hundred people die and over 2000 square miles of virgin forest are turned to charcoal and ashes.

11/9/72 A fire in Boston rages for three days, killing 13 and causing an estimated $75,000,000 in property damage in 65 acres.

May 1878 A massive epidemic of yellow fever sweeps through the South. It is brought to New Orleans from Havana and spread rapidly, the more so as people already infected flee the area and spread the germs far and wide.

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