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.
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11/6/60 Abraham Lincoln is elect
Pres w a clear majority of the electoral college votes but only a plurality of
the popular votes. Although Lincoln has deliberately muffled his message
of attacking slavery, there is no mistaking the fact that for the first time in
its history the US has a president of a party that declares that “the normal
condition of all the territory of the US is that of freedom.” Within days
of Lincoln’s election Southern leaders are speaking of secession as an
inevitable necessity, yet some, such as Alexander H. Stevens, give
anti-secession speeches and urge state legislatures to support the Constitution.
1861 Kansas becomes 34th state.
1861 Congress creates Dakota,
Colorado, and Nevada Territories.
1861 West VA breaks away from VA
it becomes the 35th state in 1863
1861 First fed income tax
of 3% on incomes over $800 is enacted. Increased in the following years, it
supplies about on fifth of the fed government revenues by 1865.
1861 Congress abolishes flogging
in the Army.
1/9/61 A state convention in
Miss votes to secede fr the Union
1/10/61 Florida secedes
from the Union
1/11/61 Alabama secedes
1/19/61 Georgia secedes from the
Union
1/26/61 Louisiana secedes
from the Union
1/29/61 Kansas admitted as a
slave-free state to the Union, becoming the 34th state
2/4/61 At a convention in
Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from the seceding state - currently Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Miss, South Carolina - meet to form the provisional
government of the Confederate States of Am. Meanwhile, in an effort to
forestall hostilities, a peace convention, called by VA, meets in Wash.
The convention fails in its attempts to propose compromise leg.
2/9/61 The Confederate
Provisional Congress elects Jefferson Davis Pres and declares that laws of the
US Constitution not inconsistent w the new Confederate Constitution are to
remain in force.
2/18/61 In Montgomery,
Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated President of the Confederate States of
America. “Dixie,” the unofficial anthem of the South, is played at the
ceremonies.
2/23/61 Texas secedes from the
Union.
3/11/61 Having been
informed by Pres Lincoln that provisions are on the way to Federal Fort Sumter,
South Carolina demands the immediate surrender of the garrison.
3/3/63 The Idaho Territory
is formed from part of the New Mexico Territory.
4/12/61 The war begins
when South Carolina forces, under the direction of Gen Beauregard, fire on Fort
Sumter. The Union commander there, having suffered no casualties but
lacking supplies, surrenders on April 13.
4/17/61 In the wake of
Fort Sumter, other Southern states will secede; this day VA becomes the eighth.
5/6/61 Arkansas
secedes from the Union.
5/20/61 North Carolina
secedes from the Union.
8/5/61 To aid in
financing the war, the US Congress passes the first income tax law. Gov
calls for volunteers increase steadily from three moths to two years.
1863 Congress creates
the Arizona and Idaho Territories.
2/24/63 The Arizona
Territory is formed from part of the New Mexico Territory.
6/20/63 Pro-Union West
VA is admitted as the 35th states, its constitution mandating gradual
emancipation of slaves.
1864 Nevada becomes
26th state.
1864 Montana Territory
formed from part of Idaho Territory.
1864 Cheyenne and
Arapaho warriors, women, and children are massacred at San Creek, Colo.
1864 "In God We
Trust," appears on a US coin, the 2 cent piece, for the first time.
1865 Colorado militia
suppress the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians who have been on the warpath.
4/8/65 Lee surrenders
to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Va. As Lincoln requested, the terms
are generous: Confederate officers and men are free to go home w their own
horses and officers may retain sidearms; all equipment is to be surrendered.
1866 Eighteen hundred
Irish Americans, part of the Fenian movement to free Ireland from Brit, cross
the Niagara R and defeat Canadian militia. They are arrested by US officials but
released. Raids continue to 1871, drawing attention to the Fenian cause.
1866 US government
tries to build road from Fort Laramie to the mines of Montana across the Sioux
Indians' hunting founds. Sioux massacre US troops at Ft. Philip Kearny, Wyo.
1867 US buys Alaska
from Russia for $7.2 mil (less than two cents an acre) through the efforts of
Secretary of State William H. Seward.
1867 Congress sets up
reservations in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) for the Five Civilized Tribes
(Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles).
1860 Sen. John
J. Crittenden proposes resolution for amending the Constitution in order to
conciliate the North and south. The Crittenden Compromise, calling for 36
degrees 30 minutes parallel as the boundary between free and slave states, is
rejected by Lincoln and by congress in 1861.
1860 South Carolina
secedes from the Union, affirming the doctrine of states; rights and condemning
the North's and Lincoln's attack on slavery.
1860 South Carolina
troops capture the US arsenal at Charleston.
1861 Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina,
and Tennessee secede from the Union.
1861 Confederate
States of Am, a new Southern union, is formed in Montgomery, Ala. Jefferson
Davis and Alexander H. Stephens are elected Pres and VP, respectively.
1861 Confederates fire
on Fort Sumter, Charleston, SC, forcing Union troops to evacuate. US Civil War
begins.
1861 Pres Lincoln
proclaims blockade of Confederate ports.
1861 Confederates
defeat Union troops at the First Battle of Bull Run, Manassas, Virginia.
1862 Union forces
capture Forts Henry and Donelson and defeat the Conf army at Pea Ridge,
Arakansas.
1862 Union fleet under
Admiral David G. Farragut defeats Confederate fleet near the mouth of the
Mississippi and captures New Orleans.
1862 Union army of
Tennessee under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant forces Confederates to withdraw at the
Battle of Shiloh, Tenn.
1862 Union forces
under Gen. George B. McClellan and Conf forces under Gen. Robert E. Lee engage
in inconclusive Seven Day's Battles in Virginia
1862 Confederates
under Gen. Stonewall Jackson and Gen. Lee defeat Union forces at the Second
Battle of Bull Run, Va.
1862 Gen. Lee's
invasion of the North is halted by Gen. McClellan at the Battle of Antietam, Md.
Gen. Lee wins the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va.
1863 Conf army under
Gen. Lee defeats Union army at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Va. Gen. Lee
begins invasion of the North.
1863 Union forces
under Gen. George G. Meade defeat Confederate forces under Gen. Lee at the
Battle of Gettysburg. Pa. Gen. Lee retreats into Virginia.
1863 Union forces
under Gen. Grant capture Vicksburg. Miss.
1863 Union forces are
beaten at the Battle of Chickamauga, Ga. but win the Battle of Chattanooga,
Tenn.
1863 Pres.
Lincoln offers amnesty to all Southerners taking Loyalty oath.
1863 First Union
conscription act makes all mew 20 to 35, and unmarried men to 45 years old,
subject to military service. It is easy to avoid actual service, though, by
paying $300 for a substitute to enlist for 3 years.
1864 General Grant is
made Commander-in-Chief of the Union armies.
1864 Armies of Grant
and Lee fight the inconclusive, but destructive, Battles of the Wilderness,
Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor in Va. Union army suffers far greater casualties
than Conf.
1864 Union army under
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman captures and burns Atlanta. Sherman's army marches
through Georgia to the sea, destroying everything in its path, and captures
Savannah.
1864 Union army
defeats Conf army at Nashville, Tenn.
1864 Union Navy under
Admiral Farragut defeats Conf navy at the Battle of Mobile Bay, Ala. Conf
blockade-running is stifled in the Gulf.
1864 Lincoln
(Republican) wins reelection as Pre., defeating Gen. McClellan (Democrat),
Andrew Johnson is elected VP on the Republican ticket.
1865 Gen. Sherman's
army marches northward through South and North Carolina. Ravaging the country.
Confederates evacuate Columbia and Charleston, SC.
1865 Lee is made
General-in-Chief of all Confederate armies.
1865 Deprived of food
and supplies and caught between Sherman in the south and Grant in the north,
Confederates under Lee abandon Petersburg and Richmond and retreat westward.
1865 Union forces
under Grant pursue and surround Lee, who surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Court
House, Va. Other Conf armies follow suit. Civil War ends.
1866 Congress
authorizes the issuance of a 5 cent coin, known as a "nickel." Piece is minted
of copper and nickel with not more than 25% nickel.
6/16/66 Congress
proposes the Fourteenth Amendment. so far the Thirteenth Amendment has
freed the slaves and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 has buttressed civil laws to
protect freed men. But Congress is still uneasy about readmitting the
rebellious states to gull representation. Lurid stories of ugly treatment
of blacks by whites fill the newspapers. The Joint Committee on
Reconstruction, led by the radical Republicans, now brings forth the Fourteenth
Amendment to provide constitutional definitions of civil rights.
1867 Nebraska becomes
37th state.
3/1/67 Nebraska is the
37th state to be admitted to the Union.
1868 Congress readmits
Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Fl, Ala, and La, to the
Union.
1868 Burlingame Treaty
between the US and China encourages Chinese immigration to the West.
1868 Wyoming Territory
is formed out of parts of the Dakota, Utah, and Idaho Territories.
1868 General Ulysses
S. Grant and Indian Representative Schuyler Colfax are elected President and
Vice-President, respectively, on the Republican ticket.
11/3/68 It is a
landslide victory for Gen Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax. They win
by 214 electoral votes over 80 for Seymour and Blair.
2/24/69 Under rising
pressure from industrialists, the Morrill Tariff Act is enacted by congress to
protect US manufacturers even though they are not in a particularly vulnerable
position. More costly imports impose additional burdens on the poor.
5/15/69 Inspired by a
patchwork quilt of political successes across the country in the form of voting
rights and election to public office, women form the National Woman Suffrage
Association. This group will press for voting rights at the federal level.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton is elected pres.
10/10/69 In keeping w
the ever-greater freedom allowed the pioneer women of the West, Wyoming
Territory passes the first law in the US giving women the right to vote.
1/19/69 The Am
Equal Rights Assoc meets in Wash DC. It is the beg of an org women’s
movement. Susan Brownell Anthony is elected pres.
| 1. Political 1860s |
Physical Cycle |
top |
| |
Physical High |
(1859 - 1873) |
4/11/65 In his last pub
address, Pres Lincoln urges reconstruction in the spirit of generous
conciliation. He voices similar sentiments to his Cabinet on the
morning of April 14.
5/29/65 Johnson
begins to put his own reconstruction plan into effect. He prefers to
call I “Restoration.” The essential difference between his plan and
the subsequent one which Congress will devise is the lack of protection for
civil rights for blacks. Johnson sees the Southern states as part of a
federation, whereas the reconstruction plan devised piecemeal by Congress
will attack them as having committed ”state suicide,” as needing to be
punished for their rebellion, and requiring a strong Northern hand to
prevent excesses toward freed blacks. Johnson names a provisional
governor for North Carolina to help reorganize and prepare the state for
re-entry into Congress. It is one of the first acts in the long
struggle for what Johnson calls “restoration” and Congress calls
“reconstruction.”
12/12/65 The Senate
agrees to a joint committee on Reconstruction. Wm P. Fessenden of
Maine will be name chairman of the Senate committee.
3/30/67 The US
purchases Alaska from Russia.
8/28/67 The Midway
Island in the Pacific are annexed by the US. Captain Wm Reynolds of
the “Lacawanna” is put in charge of occupation formalities.
7/13/69 Riots
against the Chinese take place in San Francisco. Chinese laborers have
come into the US in increasing numbers. Not speaking he language, and
willing to work extremely well for the lowest wages, the Chinese call forth
great anger from competing groups of laborers. They are discriminated
against in their social life, beaten up at work and often involved in bloody
riots such as this one in San Francisco.
| 1. Political 1860s |
Emotional Cycle |
top |
| |
Emotional High |
(1847 - 1865) |
3/19/60 Elizabeth Cady
Stanton appears before the NY State leg to promote the cause of women's
suffrage.
8/5/64 With the
famous phrase, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” - or something to
that general effect - Federal Admiral David Farragut leads his flagship into
Mobile Bay, Alabama. On Aug 23 the port is taken and closed to
Southern blockade runner, further choking the South’s critical supply line.
1864 “In God We
Trust” appears on US coins for the first time. In his presidential
campaign. Lincoln coins the phrase, “it was not best to swap horses
while crossing the stream.”
2/27/69
The Fifteenth Amend is proposed by Congress. Increasingly worried
about violence in the South, but reluctant to bring about more stable
conditions by increasing army control, Congress resorts to another
constitutional Amend. these recent amendments will apply to all US
citizens, although they emerge out of the immediate needs of the black
freedmen of the South. The Fifteenth Amendment is in tow sections: “I.
The right of citizens of the US or by any State on account of race, color or
previous condition of servitude. 2. Congress shall have power to
enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”: Despite an already
active agitation on the part of women, the word “sex” is omitted.
| |
Emotional Downward Crossover |
(March 21, 1865- March 21, 1866) |
1865 Pres. Lincoln is shot
and killed by John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theater, Wash DC, Johnson is
inaugurated as Pres.
4/14/65 While
watching a comedy at Ford’s Theater in Wash, Pres Lincoln is mortally
wounded by actor and Sothern patriot John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln dies
early the next morning at the age of 56. He is the first Pres to be
assassinated. Secretary Seward is stabbed by a co-conspirator.
2/19/66 The
authority of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands is
extended and expanded by an Act of Congress. The Freedmen’s Bureau had
been formed by Lincoln in the spring of 1865. Congress has become
increasingly concerned over the condition, treatment and rights of blacks.
Reacting to the nefarious Black Codes with which the South is attempting to
subjugate the blacks, Congress strengthens the powers of the bureau, giving
it jurisdiction over anyone depriving blacks of their civil rights.
The bureau is also to continue to give relief in the form of food, clothing
and shelter to those in need. To northern dismay, including moderate
Johnson supporters, the president vetoes the bill. He explains that it
is unconstitutional , since it expands federal jurisdiction in states which
have not been permitted representation in Congress. In his view the states
have been legitimately restored to the Union and should be seated. If
Johnson had maintained his stance at this constitutional level, he might
have rallied congressional support. Instead he went on to clarify his
position: the freedmen, he explained, should manage “though their own
merits and exertion.” Johnson’s veto is met with boos and hisses.
Congress will override on 10 July 1866.
4/9/66 The Civil
Rights Bill of 1866 is enacted by Congress. Noting the flagrant breach of
the spirit of the Thirteenth Amendment by southerners who have been slowly
forcing blacks back into a condition bordering on slavery, northerners
propose to buttress the amendment w the Civil Rights Bill. It grant full
citizenship to all person born on US soil *Indians, not taxable, excepted).
All citizens are to have equal rights to enforce contracts, to sue, to give
evidence, to buy property - in effect to have all the civil laws a full
citizen is entitled to. It is moderate although precise in tone.
If Johnson accepts it, he might regain some of his lost leadership.
Rutherford G. Hayes, later to become President himself, but now Congressman,
writes: “If he sings, the chances are that a compete rupture will be
avoided. Otherwise, otherwise.” To the dismay of all parties,
Johnson vetoes the bill. Johnson arms himself w some sound
constitutional arguments: it will dim shish the rights of states to make
their own laws, it will weaken the limits to fed power. It will
provide “security for the colored race, safeguards which go infinitely
beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white
race.” Congress, still reluctant to challenge the Pres directly ,
nonetheless overrides the veto by one vote. The galleries erupt in
noisy glee. The executive will now be bypassed in all essential
federal considerations. In an intense power struggle Congress has come
out on top.
2/22/66 A group of
Jonson supporters, called “copperheads” by disgusted radicals, marches to
the White House to show its delight in Johnson’s veto. In the light of
a candle, Johnson puts on such an extraordinary performance that Washington
concludes he must have been drunk. Says John Sherman, Sean from Ohio:
“There is no true friend of Andrew Johnson who would not be willing to wipe
out that speech from the pages of history.” First he reads from a
prepared text, then he ad-libs, vilifying the Rep opponents, calling them
traitors. When egged on by the crowd, he names Thaddeus Stevens and
Charles Sumner as two of the traitors. The crowd loves it, but it is
to be a turning point in Johnson’s fortunes. His behavior this evening
decisively erodes his support in Congress, leaving the field to men who have
neither links nor sympathies with Southern white cause.
| |
Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review |
(1865 - 1874) |
1865 Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution, abolishing slavery, is ratified by 27 states, including
eight formerly Conf states.
1866 Congress
passes Civil Rights Act over Pres. Johnson's veto.
1866 Congress
passes Fourteenth Amendment, which contains the "due process" and equal
protection" clauses securing the civil rights of Negroes.
1866 Congress
passes Freedman's Bureau Bill over Pres. Johnson's veto. Military can try
person accused of depriving newly freed Negroes of their civil rights.
1866 Congress
passes a Civil Rights Act, which treats the same rights to all natural-born
Americans (except Indians), including Negroes, who had been denied such
rights.
1867 Congress
passes tenure of Office Act over Pres. Johnson's veto. It forbids the Pres
to remove any officials without the consent of the Senate.
1868 Pres. Johnson
is impeached by the House of Reps for violating the Tenure of Office Act and
for abusing his veto power. He is tried and acquitted by the Senate.
1868 Fourteenth
Amend ratified by 29 states.
1868 Congress
passes bill providing eight-hour working day for federal employees.
1869 Congress
adopts Fifteenth Amend, stating that the right to vote shall not be denied
or abridged because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
1869 Prohibition
Party is founded in Chicago. It supports the temperance cause-Legislative
prohibition of the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic
beverages.
1869 Wyoming
Territory grants women the right to vote (suffrage) and to hold public
office. National Woman Suffrage Ass, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, and the Am Woman Suffrage Ass, led by Lucy Stone, are
separately org to work for women's voting rights.
It was Susan B.
Anthony who gave direction to the movement. Forming and reforming, always
under her influence, women's groups successfully campaigned for voting
rights at all levels of government. And it was the 19th Amendment, first
broached in 1869, and often called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, which
gave coherence to the movement for 50 years.
| 1. Political 1860s |
Intellectual Cycle |
top |
| |
Intellectual XXXward Crossover |
(March 21, 1863- March 21, 1864) |
7/1-3/63 The Battle of
Gettysburg, one of the most devastating of the confect and the turning point
of the war, sees the Southern Army defeated by the superior numbers and
strong defensive positions of the Union Army. On the third day Lee, in
one of his rare mistakes, orders the disastrous attack on impregnable Union
lines that comes to be known as “Pickett’s Charge” (though that
general does not lead it). The South withdraws having lost nearly
28,000 casualties to the Union’s 23,000. Never again will the South
have the strength to mount an offensive into the North.
7/4/63 Lee’s
defeated army begins its retreat to Virginia.
7/4/63 The siege of
Vicksburg, Miss, ends w Grant coolly demanding “immediate and unconditional
surrender” and getting it (thus acquiring the occasional nickname
“Unconditional Surrender” Grant). Over 29,000 Rebel troops surrender w
the city, giving the Union control of the Miss R and splitting the
Confederacy north to south.
7/8/63 Port Hudson,
Miss, the last major Confederate stronghold on the Miss R, surrenders to the
Union forces after a six-week siege.
7/13-16/63
Resentment of the Union Conscription Act boils over into violence as NY sees
four days of draft riots, a largely Irish-American mob pillaging property
and lynching blacks. The riots are quelled by Federal troops.
| 1. Political 1860s |
Polyrhythms |
top |
| |
Physo-Intellectual
High |
(1863 - 1873) |
1869
Congress enacts Public Credit Act, which provides for payment of US debts in
gold. Greenbacks (paper money) worth $356 million are left in circulation.
| |
Physical High with
Emotional Low |
(1859 - 1865) |
12/21/66 The ongoing war against the Indians leads to
constant skirmishing. Gen Patrick E. Connors, expressing the
exasperation that whites feel over the Indian question, declares that
Indians living north of the Platte R :must be hunted like wolves.”
Organizing a three-column march on the area known as Crazy Woman’s Fork of
the Powder River in the Black Hills of Dakota, his orders are to attack and
kill every male Indian over the age of 12. The Sioux defend their
traditional hunting grounds. On Dec 21 they defeat Colonel William
Judd Fetterman at Fort Kearney on the Bozeman gold trail in Montana
Territory, Eighty whites are killed and settlers are predictably furious.
| |
Physical High with
Emotional
3rd Qtr. Review |
(1865 - 1873) |
1867 Congress passes three
Reconstruction Acts over Pres. Johnson's vetoes. Act divide the South
(except Tenn.) into five military districts in which army commanders control
voter eligibility and registration.
3/5/68 The Senate
chambers are arranged for the awesome trial. The Senate will sit as
the jury; the House will act as the prosecutor; the Supreme Court, in the
person of Chief Justice Chase, will be the judge. Scalpers get
exaggerated amounts for gallery seats. Police roam the tense galls of
the Capitol. All the unhappiness and disappointments relating to
Reconstruction are now projected onto the stolid, well-meaning, though
partisan, pres and much malice is intertwined with the proceedings.
People such as the dying Thaddeus Stevens, who believes blacks will soon be
disenfranchised if something drastic is not done, add vehemence to the
drama. Stevens warns that anyone voting to acquit will be “tortured on
the gibbet of everlasting obloquy.”
3/16/68 The
strategic vote indicating whether the thrust against Johnson will succeed or
fail is scheduled fro this day. (etc. etc. etc.)
5/28/69 The final
vote for acquittal formally ends the impeachment trial of President Andrew
Johnson.
| |
Physo-Intellectual
Dbl. 1st Qtr. Foundation
Emotional High |
(1863 - 1865) |
1/1/63 The Emancipation
Proclamation takes effect. Although historically a monumental step in
ending slavery, it actually frees no slaves at this time, since it applies
only to areas not under Union control, and exempts the four loyal
slave states and areas of the South under Federal occupation. The
Confederacy views the proclamation as confirming its view of Lincoln as a
hypocritical anti-Southern abolitionist.
| |
Trirhythmic High |
(1863 - 1865) |
1863 At dedication
of national cemetery at the Gettysburg battlefield, Pres. Lincoln gives his
"Gettysburg Address."
11/19/63 Pres
Lincoln delivers his Gettysburg Address, dedicating a military cemetery on
the blood-stained Pa battlefield. He prophesies that the “honored
dead” of both sides “shall not have died in vain,” that there will be “a new
birth of freedom’ and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth.” With less accuracy, he also
predicts, “the world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here.”
The Address is to become one of the immortal utterances of human history.
James Russell Lowell poet,
critic, and diplomat, whose major significance probably lies in the interest in
literature he helped develop. His writing up to about 1850 was dominated by
humanitarian interests, notably Abolition. In 1844, he was married to the poet
Maria White, who had helped inspire his poems in "A Year's Life" (1841). After a
three months' editorship (with Robert Carter) in 1843 of the abortive periodical
"The Pioneer," which attracted work by Hawthorne, Poe, and Whittier, Lowell
published "Conversations on Some of the Old Poets" (1845), which included pleas
for Abolition and for the transcendence of nationalism over utopianism. From
1845 to 1850 he wrote about 50 anti-slavery articles for periodicals. Even more
effective were his "Biglow Papers," which he began to serialize June 17, 1846
(first series collected in book form in 1848). Written in New England dialect,
these satirized the Mexican War as an attempt to extend the area of slavery. The
miraculous year" 1848 also saw the publication of the somewhat Tennysonian
"Vision of Sir Launfal" and the witty "Fable for Critics," urging American
reader to glorify native poets such as Whittier.
From 1850 to 1867,
Lowell turned to nationalism, or Unionism. A trip to England in 1851-52 made him
less anti-traditional, as "Leaves from My Italian Journal" (1854) suggests. His
second series of "Biglow Papers" (1867), devoted to Unionism and collected from
periodicals, include, "Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line," which, along with "New
England Two Centuries Ago" (1865), drew upon his native Puritan heritage of
ordered liberty, in contrast to the anarchy of disunion.
From about 1867 to the
end of his life, Lowell was influenced by the corruption of the Grant
administration, which proved that the Union did not automatically beget morally
strong citizens. He now centered his work on making the individual man "sole
sponsor of himself," on self-mastery in the midst of greed and perpetual
temptation. One of the chief means was tradition, the examples of the heroes of
the entire past, especially as embodied in literature. Thus, partly though his
editorship (with Charles Eliot Norton) of the "North American Review"
(1864-1872), Lowell published his critical essays on the great masters. Guided
by Edmund Burke and by Coleridge (the "first of critics"_, Lowell exalted the
Greeks' "sense of proportion, their distaste for the exaggerated"; Dante's sense
of free-willed responsibility in the face of inward conflict between appetite
and aspiration; and Shakespeare's view that this conflict can be resolved on the
human rather than the theological plane.
RAW^ [note: duplicate entry as
paragraphs in 1840s and 18590s[
1860 Emerson pubs "The
Conduct of Life," a series of essays which present the author’s moral and
ethical codes.
1861 Longfellow
translates "Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri" into Eng.
1863 Samuel Langhorne
Clemens, author and humorist, adopts the Mississippi riverboat term "Mark Twain"
as a penname.
1863 Longfellow pubs
"Tales of a Wayside Inn," the first poem of which is the classic "Paul Revere's
Ride."
1864 John Quincy Adams
Ward, sculptor, completes "Indian Hunter," which now stands in NYC's Central
Park.
1865 Mary Mapes Dodge
publishes "Hans Brinker; or The Silver Skates."
1865 In the last issue
of "The Liberator," Garrison declares "my vocation as an abolitionist is ended.
1865 Whitman pubs "Drum
Taps," a collection Civil War poems.
1865 J. Q. A. Ward
sculpts "Freedman" in honor of the freed slaves.
1866 Whittier's best
known poem, "Snowbound," earns him $10,000.
| 8. Literature & Publication 1860s |
Physical Cycle |
top |
| 8. Literature & Publication 1860s |
Emotional Cycle |
top |
| |
Emotional High |
(1847 - 1865) |
1860 Dime novels are first
pub. They quickly become a popular form of entertainment.
1863 Still little
recognized as a poet, Walt Whitman works as a hospital volunteer, writing
heart-rending letters about his experiences. Herman Melville and Wm
Cullen Bryant pub wartime poems.
| |
Emotional 3rd Qtr. Review |
(1865 - 1874) |
1866 Alexander Wheelock
Thayer publishes the first volume of "The Life of Beethoven."
1866 Alexander
Gardner pubs "Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War."
1867 Sidney Lanier
pubs "Tiger-Lilies," a romance interwoven with the author's Civil War
experience.
1868
Adah Isaacs Menken
publishes "Infelicia," a collection of poems dedicated the Charles Dickens.
1869 Mark Twain
pubs "The Innocents Abroad," a collection of letters written during the
author's tour of Europe and the Holy Land.
1869 Louisa May
Alcott pubs "Little Women," one of the most popular girls' books ever
written.
1869 Josh Billings,
humorist, begins publication of "Josh Billings' Farmer's Almanac," a parody
of "The Old Farmer's Almanac."
| 8. Literature & Publication 1860s |
Intellectual Cycle |
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Intellectual 4th Qtr.
Alternatives |
(1852 - 1863) |
Emily Dickinson master of the
short lyric poem whose writing is characterized by passion, wit, and
scrupulous craftsmanship.
She began to write
verse about 1850, apparently inspired by the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson
and Emily Bronte. Her main themes were love, death, and nature. About 1860
she began to experiment with language and prosody. In 1862 she sent four
poems to Thomas W. Higginson, and became Emily's "preceptor" until her
death. Her greatest literary output (some 800 poems) coincided with the
civil war.
The poems of the
1850s are fairly conventional in sentiment and form, but beginning about
1860, they become experimental both in language and prosody, though they owe
much to the meters of the English hymn writer Isaac Watts and to Shakespeare
and the King James Version of the Bible. Emily’s prevailing poetic
form was the quatrain of three iambic feet, a type described in one of the
books by Watts in the family library. She used many other forms as
well, and to even the simpler hymnbook measures she gave complexity by
constantly altering the metrical beat to fit her thought:: now slow, now
fast, now hesitant. She broke new ground in her wide use of
off-rhymes, varying from the true in a variety of ways that also helped to
convey her thought and its tensions. In striving for an epigrammatic
conciseness , she stripped her language of superfluous words and saw to it
that those that remained were vivid and exact. She tampered freely
with syntax and liked to place a familiar word in an extraordinary context,
shocking the reader to attention and discovery
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Intellectual 4th Qtr.
Alternatives |
(1863 - 1874) |
1865 In "From the Earth to
the Moon," Jules Verne, Fr. author, predicts that America will lead the
conquest of space.
1866 The
Metropolitan Museum is founded in NYC.
1867 Horatio Alger
pubs "Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York," the first of many "rags to
riches" stories for boys. [note Physical High and 1st Qtr. also]
| 8. Literature & Publication 1860s |
Polyrhythms |
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Kala. Chart horizontal
1850s