Steamfunkateers

by Balogun Ojetade

  1882George Washington Williams’s History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880 is considered the first history of Blacks that met the standards of professionally written history of that era.

  1882 The US government bans Chinese immigration for the next 10 years.

  1882 Charles Darwin, English Naturalist, dies. This same year his second book On the Origin of Species: The Mythical and Mystical is published posthumously.

  1882 Jesse James, a werewolf living under an assumed name in Missouri, is killed in his own home by U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves.

  1882 Roy Bean is appointed Justice of the Peace for Pecos County. He sets up his part time courtroom in his saloon and dubs himself “The Law West of the Pecos”.

  1883The 50th Congress has no Black members. Intimidation keeps most Black voters from the polls.

  1883On October 16, U. S. Supreme Court in a decision known as the Civil Rights Cases declares invalid the Civil Rights Act of 1875, stating the Federal Government cannot bar corporations or individuals from discriminating on the basis of race.

  1883On November 3, white conservatives in Danville, Virginia, seize control of the local racially integrated and popularly elected government, killing four Blacks in the process.

  1883 Buffalo Bill Cody organizes his Wild West Show, which becomes a world-wide success almost immediately.

  1883 The Orient Express makes its first run from Paris to Istanbul.

  1883 Krakatoa erupts near Java. The effects of this massive volcanic explosion are seen throughout the world over the next several years.

  1883 The Brooklyn Bridge, the architectural wonder of the age, is opened for use. It is the first land crossing between Manhattan and Long Island.

  1884Judy W. Reed of Washington D.C. becomes the first Black woman to receive a patent. She is granted patent number 305,474 on September 23 for her creation of a dough kneader and roller.

  1884Granville Woods founds the Woods Railway Telegraph Company in Columbus, Ohio. The company manufactured and sold telephone and telegraph equipment.

  1884 Grover Cleveland is sworn in as the 22nd President of the United States

  1884 Baas Bello invents the first pistol shrimp-powered steam turbine engine.

  1884 At the Berlin Conference, European nations decide how they will carve up and plunder Africa.

  1885On June 25, Black Priest Samuel David Ferguson is ordained a bishop of the Episcopal Church at a ceremony at Grace Church, New York City.

  1885 The first skyscraper, a stunning 10 stories tall, is erected in Chicago.

  1885 The Vampire King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State as his own personal possession.

  1886The Knights of Labor, founded and headquartered in Philadelphia, reaches it peak membership of 700,000 with approximately 75,000 Black members.

  1886The American Federation of Labor is organized on December 8 in Columbus, Ohio. All major unions of the federation excluded Black workers.

  1886Norris Wright Cuney becomes chairman of the Texas Republican Party. He is the first Black to head a major political party at the state level in U.S. history.

  1886 Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile, which he built in 1885.

  1886 The Haymarket Riots, an escalation of general strikes throughout the United States, causes a great scandal. Over the course of many years to come, this protest eventually leads to the eight hour workday.

  1887On July 14, 1887, the directors of the International League (Major League Baseball) voted to prohibit the signing of additional Black players while allowing those under contract such as Frank Grant of Buffalo and Moses Fleetwood Walker of Syracuse franchise, to remain with their teams through the 1888 season. By 1889 Blacks were no longer players in Major League Baseball.

  1887The National Colored Farmers’ Alliance is formed in Houston County, Texas.

  1888On April 11, Edward Park Duplex is elected mayor of Wheatland, California. He is believed to be the first Black mayor of a predominantly white town in the United States.

  1888Two of America’s first Black-owned banks, the Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of the Reformers, in Richmond, Virginia, and Capital Savings Bank of Washington, D.C, open their doors.

  1888 Jack the Ripper—also known as Spring-Heeled Jack and by his true name, Jek, as taught by Baas Bello and Harriet Tubman—stalks the streets of Whitechapel. Five women of ill repute are horrifically butchered. The city is gripped by the brutality of the crimes, yet the killer is never captured (see The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman: Freedonia, for what Jack the Ripper really is and where he is).

  1889Florida becomes the first state to use the poll tax to disenfranchise Black voters.

  1889Frederick Douglass is appointed Minister to Haiti.

  1889 Oil is discovered in India.

  1889 Benjamin Harrison is sworn in as the 23rd President of the United States.

  1890Census of 1890, U.S. population: 62,947,714, Black population: 7,488,676 (11.9 percent).

  1890The Afro-American League is founded on January 25 in Chicago under the leadership of Timothy Thomas Fortune.

  1890On November 1, the Mississippi Legislature approves a new state Constitution that disenfranchises virtually all of the state’s Black voters. The Mississippi Plan used literacy and understanding tests to prevent Blacks from casting ballots. Similar statutes were adopted by South Carolina (1895), Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901), Virginia (1901), Georgia (1908), and Oklahoma (1910).

  1890William Henry Lewis and William Tecumseh Sherman Jackson were the first known Black players on a white college football team when they played at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Lewis was team captain for the 1891-92 season.

  1890 Idaho (43rd) and Wyoming (44th) are admitted as states in the United States.

  1891Dr. Daniel Hale Williams founds Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first Black-owned hospital in the nation.

  1892On June 15 operatic soprano Sissieretta Jonesbecomes the first Black to perform at Carnegie Hall.

  1892On July 14 three companies of the 24th Infantry occupy the Coeur d’Alene Mining District in northern Idaho which has been declared under martial law following a violent strike by silver miners. They remain for four months.

  1892In October activist Ida B. Wells begins her anti-lynching campaign with the publication of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law and in All Its Phases and a speech in New York City’s Lyric Hall.

  1892The National Medical Association is formed in Atlanta by Black physicians because they are barred from the American Medical Association.

  1892First intercollegiate football game between Black colleges takes place between Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University) and Livingston College.

  1892A record 230 people are lynched in the United States this year, 161 are Black and 69 white. In the period between 1882 and 1951, Tuskegee Institute compiled nationwide lynching statistics. In that 69 year period, 4,730 people were lynched including 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites. Ninety-two women were victims of lynching, 76 were Black and 16 were white. Although southern states accounted for 90 percent of the lynchings, every state in the continental U.S., with the exception of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont, reported lynching deaths sometime during the 69 year period.

  1892The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper is founded by former slave John H. Murphy, Sr.

  1892 Andrew and Abby Borden brutally murdered with a hatchet in their Fall River, Mass., home. It is believed their daughter, Lizzie Borden, is the murderer (read Gunsmoke Blues and find out the truth!).

  1893Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful operation on a human heart in his Chicago hospital. The patient, a victim of a chest stab wound, survives and lives for twenty years after the operation.

  1893 Grover Cleveland is sworn in as the 24th President of the United States and the only man to be elected to two non-consecutive Presidential terms

  1893 The World’s Colombia
n Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, takes place. Among the many things seen there for the first time are the Ferris Wheel, Juicy Fruit Gum, and stunning displays of electrical lights illuminating the White City.

  1893 Herman Webster Mudgett , better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, a sociopath, but also an ingenious tinkerer, lures attendees of the World’s Colombian Festival in Chicago to his murder castle—a capacious house filled with all manner of innovative and deadly traps, secret rooms and passageways and bondage and torture devices. Mudgett ends up murdering at least 27 victims in that “castle;” many believe the death toll is much higher and some suspect H.H. Holmes is actually a sibling of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, or maybe he’s really Sherlock, himself.

  1894The Church of God in Christ is founded in Memphis by Bishop Charles Harrison Mason.

  1895White terrorists attack Black workers in New Orleans on March 11-12. Six blacks are killed.

  1895In June, W.E.B. Du Bois becomes the first Black to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

  1895Booker T. Washington delivers his famous Atlanta Compromise address on September 18 at the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition. He says the Negro problem would be solved by a policy of gradualism and accommodation.

  1895Three Black Baptist organizations, the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention of the United States (1880), the American National Baptist Convention (1886) and the Baptist National Educational Convention (1893) combined at Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta to form the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. The National Baptist Convention is the largest Black religious denomination in the United States.

  1895 Auguste and Louis Lumière display their first moving picture film in Paris.

  1896Plessey v. Ferguson is decided on May 18 when the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Southern segregation laws and practices (Jim Crow) do not conflict with the 13th and 14th Amendments. The Court defends its ruling by articulating the separate but equal doctrine.

  1896On July 21 the National Association of Colored Women is formed in Washington, D.C. Mary Church Terrell is chosen as its first president.

  1896In September George Washington Carver is appointed director of agricultural research at Tuskegee Institute. His work advances peanut, sweet potato, and soybean farming.

  1896John Shippen became the first Black professional golfer when he participated in a tournament in England.

  1896 Baas Bello transmits the first radio signals from his lab in New York City to West Point, a distance of about 30 miles.

  1896 The indigenous people of the Philippines revolt against Spain.

  1896 Gold is discovered in the Yukon Territory. News of the discovery takes almost a year to reach the continental United States, spawning a massive rush to Alaska for gold.

  1897The American Negro Academy is established on March 5 in Washington, D.C. to encourage Black participation in art, literature and philosophy.

  1897The first Phillis Wheatley Home is founded in Detroit. These homes, established in most cities with large Black populations, provide temporary accommodations and social services for single Black women.

  1897 William McKinley is sworn in as the 25th President of the United States.

  1898In January the Louisiana Legislature introduces the Grandfather Clause into the state’s constitution. Only males whose fathers or grandfathers were qualified to vote on January 1, 1867, are automatically registered. Others (Blacks) must comply with educational or property requirements.

  1898The Spanish-American War begins on April 21. Sixteen regiments of Black volunteers are recruited; four see combat in Cuba and the Philippines Five Blacks win Congressional Medals of Honor during the war. A number of Black officers command troops for the first time.

  1898The National Afro-American Council is founded on September 15 in Rochester, New York. The organization elects Bishop Alexander Walters as its first president.

  1898On November 10, in Wilmington, North Carolina, eight Black Americans were killed as white conservative Democrats forcibly removed from power Black and white Republican officeholders in the city. The episode would be known as the Wilmington Riot.

  1898The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Insurance Company of Durham, North Carolina and the National Benefit Life Insurance Company of Washington, D.C. are established.

  1898The U.S. Supreme Court in Williams v. Mississippi upholds the provisions of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 which effectively disfranchises virtually all of the Black voters in the state.

  1898 The sinking of the USS Maine in the Havana Harbor is blamed on a Spanish naval mine. The sinking of the ship is a precipitating cause of the start of the Spanish-American War.

  1899In May, the 24th Infantry returns to occupy the Coeur d’Alene Mining District in northern Idaho after violence again erupts.

  1899The Afro-American Council designates June 4 as a national day of fasting to protest lynching and massacres.

  1899Scott Joplin composes the Maple Leaf Rag, which introduces ragtime music to the United States.

  1899 The Philippine Insurrection begins.

  1899 The Boer War begins.

  1900Census of 1900, U.S. population: 75,994,575, Black population: 8,833,994 (11.6 percent).

  1900In January James Weldon Johnson writes the lyrics and his brother John Rosamond Johnson composes the music for Lift Every Voice and Sing in their hometown of Jacksonville, Florida in celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. The song is eventually adopted as the Black national anthem.

  1900The New Orleans Race Riot (also known as the Robert Charles Riots) erupts on July 23 and lasts four days. Twelve Blacks, 27 whites—all shot by Robert Charles, a former student of Harriet Tubman—are either injured or dead (for the true story of Robert Charles, read Gunsmoke Blues).

  1900On August 23, the National Negro Business League is founded in Boston by Booker T. Washington to promote business enterprise.

  1900In September, Nannie Helen Burroughs leads the founding of the Women’s’ Convention of the National Baptist Convention at its meeting in Richmond, Virginia.

  1900This year marks the beginning of significant West Indian immigration to the United States.

  1900By 1900, nearly two-thirds of the landowners in the Mississippi Delta were Black farmers, most of whom had bought and cleared land after the Civil War.

  1900An estimated 30,000 Black teachers have been trained since the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865. They are a major factor in helping more than half the Black population achieve literacy by this date.

  1900 The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.

  1900 Hawaii becomes an official territory of the United States.

  1900 Carrie Nation begins her temperance crusade to close saloons throughout the US.

  1900 A massive hurricane strikes Galveston, Texas, killing over 8,000.

  1901The last Black congressman elected in the 19th Century, George H. White, Republican of North Carolina, leaves office. No Black will serve in Congress for the next 28 years.

  1901On October 11, when Bert Williams and George Walker record their music for the Victor Talking Machine Company, they become the first Black recording artists.

  1901 Queen Victoria dies. Prince Albert Edward becomes King Edward VII.

  1901 President William McKinley of the United States is assassinated in September.

  1901On October 16, only one month after becoming President, Theodore Roosevelt holds an afternoon meeting at the White House with Booker T. Washington. At the end of the meeting the President informally invites Washington to remain for dinner, making the Tuskegee educator the first Black American to dine at the White House with a president. Roosevelt’s casual act generates a national furor.

  1901Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up From Slavery is published.

  North America

  A land of opportunity and growth, the countries of North America are a focal point for adventure and excitement. Penny-dreadfuls fill y
oung minds with tales of action, mystery, and danger in the western lands of the continent. With influences from all of the great, and not so great powers of Europe, North America can be a hotbed of activity.

  The United States

  The 19th century in the United States was a time of turmoil. The whole century seemed to focus on the build up to, and recovery from, the biggest change in American history—the Civil War. The tensions, both political and economic, that led up to the Civil War influenced the direction of the country throughout the early years of the 1800s. The upheaval caused by this great conflict had repercussions that were felt up to the dawn of the new century. It was not; however, all doom and gloom. The Industrial Revolution was alive and well in the United States. The country was a land of invention, with new technology seeming to appear every day. The westward expansion also brought adventure and new discoveries, making the United States a land of opportunity, a dream of people around the world.

  The California Gold Rush of 1848 brought hundreds of thousands of people to California, with towns springing up literally overnight. Once small communities became bustling cities full of life with the excitement of gold fever. The western expansion brought many people to the west, not all of them honest citizens. Card sharks, con men, snake oil salesmen, cattle rustlers and bank robbers could all be found scattered around the boom towns of the west. Indians roamed, and fought for their very survival, clashing with the teeming Americans spilling into their lands.

  Rail lines slowly made their way west, crisscrossing the newly claimed prairies. Men like John Henry helped to build the railroad, expanding the nation and bringing the raw materials of the west to the industrial lands of the east. Jesse James made the railroads famous by robbing the trains, making the lands seem wild and untamed. Railroads were a vital link throughout the United States. Without trains, much of the growth of western towns would not have been possible, and the western United States would have been a vastly different environment.

  The United States was a land of unique adventure—part uncivilized, but well-developed, nation; part savage wilderness. The country was rife with possibility. Great thriving cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago provided centers of industry, intrigue, and adventure. Booming towns like Denver and San Francisco were full of action, danger, and adventure.