Category: 1850 – 1899

02Feb

February 2, 1897- Alfred L. Cralle

GM – FBF – Knowledge through proper education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Remember – People needed an easier way to deliver Ice Cream to the dish, so I made everyone happy but no one ever said thank you in all these years. – Alfred Louis Cralle

Today in our History – February 2, 1897 – Alfred L. Cralle (1866–1920) was an African American businessman and inventor who was best known for inventing the ice cream scoop in 1897. Cralle was born on September 4, 1866, in Kenbridge, Lunenburg County, Virginia, just after the end of the American Civil War. He attended local schools and worked for his father in the carpentry trade as a young man. During that period, he also became interested in mechanics.

Cralle was sent to Washington D.C. where he attended Wayland Seminary, a branch of the National Theological Institute, one of a number of schools founded by the American Baptist Home Mission Society immediately after the Civil War to help educate newly freed African Americans.

After attending the school for a few years, Cralle moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a porter at a drugstore and at a hotel. While working at the hotel, he developed the idea of the ice cream scoop. It came to him when he noticed ice cream servers having difficulty trying to get the popular confection desired by the customer into the cone they were usually holding. The ice cream tended to stick to spoons and ladles, usually requiring the server to use two hands and at least two separate implements to serve customers.

Cralle responded to that problem by creating a mechanical device now known as the ice cream scoop. He applied for and received a patent on February 2, 1897. The thirty-year-old was granted U.S. Patent #576395.

Cralle’s invention, originally called an Ice Cream Mold and Disher, was designed to be able to keep ice cream and other foods from sticking. It was easy to operate with one hand. Since the Mold and Disher was strong and durable, effective, and inexpensive, it could be constructed in almost any desired shape, such as cone or a mound, with no delicate parts that could break or malfunction.

Cralle was also a successful Pittsburgh business promoter as well. When local black investors created the Afro-American Financial, Accumulating, Merchandise, and Business Association in Pittsburgh, he was selected as assistant manager.

He did not become famous for his inventing of his ice cream scoop. It spread widely so quickly that people soon forgot or never knew Cralle as the inventor. Thus he never profited from his invention.

Married and with three children, Cralle experienced a number of personal tragedies. His wife and one of his daughters died in 1918 of a communicable disease. In 1920 he lost his only son to another disease. With their deaths, Cralle’s only surviving immediate family member was daughter Anna Cralle, born in 1910. Later in 1920, Cralle himself was killed in an automobile accident in Pittsburgh. Research more about this great American and how one of America’s favorite deserts became easier to enjoy and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

29Jan

January 29 1850- The Compromise

GM – FBF – Be careful not to compromise what you want most for what you want now.

Remember – “If we do not compromise, the union will fail to exssist. By issuieing the compromise hopefully we acn avoid a great war of brother againist brother” – Henry Clay (W) KY.

Today in our History – January 29,1850 – The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five bills intended to stave off sectional strife that passed during Millard Fillmore’s presidency. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican-American War, all the Mexican-owned territory between California and Texas was given to the United States. This included parts of New Mexico and Arizona. In addition, portions of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Colorado were ceded to the US.

The question that arose was what to do with slavery in these territories. Should it be allowed or forbidden? The issue was extremely important to both free and slave states because of the balance of power in terms of voting blocs in the US Senate and House of Representatives.

Henry Clay was a Whig Senator from Kentucky. He was nicknamed “The Great Compromiser” due to his efforts at helping bring these bills to fruition along with previous bills such as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise Tariff of 1833. He personally owned slaves which he would later free in his will. However, his motivation in passing these compromises, especially the 1850 compromise, was to avoid Civil War.

Sectional strife was becoming more and more confrontational. With the addition of new territories and the question of whether they would be free or slave territories, the need for a compromise was the only thing that at that time would have averted outright violence.

Realizing this, Clay enlisted the help of Democratic Illinois Senator, Stephen Douglas who would eight years later be involved in a series of debates with Republican opponent Abraham Lincoln.

Clay, backed by Douglas, proposed five resolutions on January 29, 1850 which he hoped would bridge the gap between Southern and Northern interests.

In April of that year, a Committee of Thirteen was created to consider the resolutions. On May 8th, the committee led by Henry Clay, proposed the five resolutions combined into an omnibus bill. The bill did not receive unanimous support. Opponents on both sides were not happy with the compromises including southerner John C. Calhoun and northerner William H. Seward. However, Daniel Webster put his considerable weight and verbal talents behind the bill. Nonetheless, the combined bill failed to win support in the Senate. Thus, the supporters decided to separate the omnibus bill back into five individual bills. These were eventually passed and signed into law by President Fillmore.

The Five Bills of the Compromise of 1850

The goal of the Compromise bills was to deal with the spread of slavery to territories in order to keep northern and southern interests in balance. The five bills included in the Compromises put the following into law:

California was entered as a free state.
New Mexico and Utah were each allowed to use popular sovereignty to decide the issue of slavery. In other words, the people would pick whether the states would be free or slave.
The Republic of Texas gave up lands that it claimed in present day New Mexico and received $10 million to pay its debt to Mexico.
The slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia.
The Fugitive Slave Act made any federal official who did not arrest a runaway slave liable to pay a fine. This was the most controversial part of the Compromise of 1850 and caused many abolitionists to increase their efforts against slavery.
The Compromise of 1850 was key in delaying the start of the Civil War until 1861. It temporarily lessened the rhetoric between northern and southern interests, thereby delaying secession for 11 years. Clay died of tuberculosis in 1852. One wonders what might have happened if he had still been alive in 1861. Research more about this Compromise and tell your baby. Make it a champion day!

27Jan

January 27 1861- Martin R. Delany

GM-FBF – You have to choose your path.
You have to decide what you wish to do.
You are the only person that can determine your destiny.

Remember – “Every people should be originators of their own destiny.” Major Martin Robertson Delany

Today in our History – January 27, 1861 – Martin R. Delany (May 6, 1812 – January 24, 1885) was the first African-American commissioned as a major in the Army. The soldier was also a writer, editor, abolitionist, Harvard medical student, physician and judge.

As the bicentennial birthday of Delany approaches, historians want the nationalist to be recognized as a man who shaped history. Martin Delany believed that ‘every person should be the originator of their own destiny.’ He was so fed up with American slavery and segregation that he negotiated a treaty with rulers in West Africa to allow the creation of a new black settlement.

The Charleston, Virginia native was born to a free mother and slave father who risked their lives to educate their children. With his future ahead of him, Martin Delany studied medicine as an apprentice and opened a medical practice that specialized in cupping and leeching.

In 1839, Delany toured slave country to observe the racism endured by his enslaved brothers and sisters. A few years later, Martin Delany joined the fight of Frederick Douglass through literature by publishing a newspaper in Pittsburgh called “The Mystery” then joined Douglass’ North Star publication in Rochester.

By 1850, Delany successfully entered Harvard Medical School to continue his studies. However, he was booted out of the program after three weeks when white students petitioned for his removal. Angered by the discrimination, Delany recorded his frustration in another publication that insisted blacks immigrate to Africa for justice. In 1859, Martin Delany led a commission on a site visit to West Africa, looking for the best location for a new black nation along the Niger River.

Delany’s next effort would be through the Union Army in the Civil War. In 1861, he returned to the U.S. and recruited thousands of blacks to serve in the Union. Four years later he met with President Lincoln and got approval to create an all-black Corps led by African-American officers. He was commissioned a Major in the 52nd U.S. Colored Troops Regiment and became the first line officer in U.S. Army history. His next stop was to run for Republican office. Delany ran for Lt. Governor against Richard Howell Gleaves. In 1874, Delany lost the election to Gleaves. Research more about this great American and share it with your babies. Make it a champion day!

26Jan

January 26 1863- General Recruitment of African Americans

GM – FBF – The negro served honorably during the Civil War in Arkansas, Illinois, Rode Island and many other areas of the country but The Massachusetts 54th gained early glory.

Remember – “If you men won’t take 1/2 pay as your commander I also will not take pay” – Robert Gould Shaw

Today in our History – January 26, 1863 – General recruitment of African Americans for service in the Union Army was authorized by the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton accordingly instructed the Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, to begin raising regiments including “persons of African descent” on January 26, 1863. Andrew selected Robert Gould Shaw to be the regiment’s colonel and Norwood Penrose “Pen” Hallowell to be its lieutenant colonel. Like many officers of regiments of African-American troops, both Robert Gould Shaw and Hallowell were promoted several grades, both being captains at the time. The rest of the officers were evaluated by Shaw and Hallowell: these officers included Luis Emilio, and Garth Wilkinson “Wilkie” James, brother of Henry James and William James. Many of these officers were of abolitionist families and several were chosen by Governor Andrew himself. Lt. Col. Norwood Hallowell was joined by his younger brother Edward Needles Hallowell who commanded the 54th as a full colonel for the rest of the war after Shaw’s death. Twenty-four of the 29 officers were veterans, but only six had been previously commissioned.

The soldiers were recruited by white abolitionists (including Shaw’s parents). These recruiters included Lieutenant J. Appleton, also the first man commissioned in the regiment, whose recruiting efforts included posting a notice in the Boston Journal. Wendell Phillips and Edward L. Pierce spoke at a Joy Street Church recruiting rally, encouraging free blacks to enlist.[citation needed] About 100 people were actively involved in recruitment, including those from Joy Street Church and a group of individuals appointed by Governor Andrew to enlist black men for the 54th.

The 54th trained at Camp Meigs in Readville near Boston. While there they received considerable moral support from abolitionists in Massachusetts, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Material support included warm clothing items, battle flags and $500 contributed for the equipping and training of a regimental band. As it became evident that many more recruits were coming forward than were needed, the medical exam for the 54th was described as “rigid and thorough” by the Massachusetts Surgeon-General. This resulted in what he described as “a more robust, strong and healthy set of men were never mustered into the service of the United States.” Despite this, as was common in the Civil War, a few men died of disease prior to the 54th’s departure from Camp Meigs.

By most accounts the 54th left Boston with very high morale. This was despite the fact that Jefferson Davis’ proclamation of December 23, 1862, effectively put both African-American enlisted men and white officers under a death sentence if captured. The proclamation was affirmed by the Confederate Congress in January 1863 and turned both enlisted soldiers and their white officers over to the states from which the enlisted soldiers had been slaves. As most Southern states had enacted draconian measures for “servile insurrection” after Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the likely sentence was a capital one.[citation needed]

After muster into federal service on May 13, 1863, the 54th left Boston with fanfare on May 28, and arrived to more celebrations in Beaufort, South Carolina. They were greeted by local blacks and by Northern abolitionists, some of whom had deployed from Boston a year earlier as missionaries to the Port Royal Experiment. In Beaufort, they joined with the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, a unit of South Carolina freedmen led by James Montgomery. After the 2nd Volunteers’ successful Raid at Combahee Ferry, Montgomery led both units in a raid on the town of Darien, Georgia. The population had fled, a and Montgomery ordered the soldiers to loot and burn the empty town. Shaw objected to this activity and complained over Montgomery’s head that burning and looting were not suitable activities for his model regiment. Later on that year the battle of Fort Wagner will make them heroes. Research more about this great American Civil War Unit and all of the Black units that served during The Civil War and tell your babies. Make it a champion day!

19Jan

January 19 1856- Bridget Mason

GM – FBF- For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Remember – It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it is good too check up once and a while that you haven’t loss things that money can’t buy”

Today in our History – January 19, 1856 – Bridget “Biddy” Mason, born a slave in Mississippi in 1818, achieved financial success that enabled her to support her extended family for generations despite the fact that she was illiterate. In a landmark case she sued her master for their freedom, saved her earnings, invested in real estate, and became a well-known philanthropist in Los Angeles, California.

Although born in Mississippi, Mason was owned by slaveholders in Georgia and South Carolina before she was returned to Mississippi. Her last owner, Robert Marion Smith, a Mississippi Mormon convert, followed the call of church leaders to settle in the West. Mason and her children joined other slaves on Smith’s religious pilgrimage to establish a new Mormon community in what would become Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time Utah was still part of Mexico.

In 1848 30-year-old Mason walked 1,700 miles behind a 300-wagon caravan that eventually arrived in the Holladay-Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley. Along the route west Mason’s responsibilities included setting up and breaking camp, cooking the meals, herding the cattle, and serving as a midwife as well as taking care of her three young daughters aged ten, four, and an infant.

In 1851 Smith and his family and slaves set out in a 150-wagon caravan for San Bernardino, California to establish yet another Mormon community. Ignoring Brigham Young’s warning that slavery was illegal in California, Smith brought Mason and other enslaved people to the new community. Along the trek Mason met Charles H. and Elizabeth Flake Rowan, free blacks, who urged her to legally contest her slave status once she reached California, a free state. Mason received additional encouragement by free black friends whom she met in California, Robert and Minnie Owens.

In December 1855 Robert Smith, fearing losing his slaves, decided to move with them to Texas, a slave state. The Owens family had a vested interest in the Mason family as one of their sons was romantically involved with Mason’s 17-year-old daughter. When Robert Owens told the Los Angeles County Sheriff that slaves were being illegally held, he gathered a posse which including Owens and his sons, other cowboys and vaqueros from the Owens ranch. The posse apprehended Smith’s wagon train in Cajon Pass, California en route to Texas and prevented him from leaving the state.

After spending five years enslaved in a “free” state Bridget Mason challenged Robert Smith for her freedom. On January 19, 1856 she petitioned the court for freedom for herself and her extended family of 13 women and children. Los Angeles District Judge Benjamin Hayes took three days before handing down his ruling in favor Mason and her extended family, citing California’s 1850 constitution which prohibited slavery.

Mason and her family moved to Los Angeles where her daughter married the son of Robert and Minnie Owens. Mason worked as midwife and nurse, saved her money and purchased land in the heart of what is now downtown Los Angeles. Mason also organized First A.M.E. Church, the oldest African American church in the city. She educated her children and with her wealth became a philanthropist to the entire Los Angeles community. Bridget “Biddy” Mason died in Los Angeles in 1891. Research more about this great America and tell your babies. Make it a champion day!

18Jan

January 18 1887- Richard Harvey

GM – FBF – I believe every child has the right to a mother and a father. Men and women are not the same. That’s not to say they’re not entitled to equal rights, but they are not the same.

Remember – “All We Ask Is Equal Laws, Equal Legislation And Equal Rights”

Today in our History -January 18, 1887 – Richard Harvey Cain was born a free black in Greenbrier County, Virginia on April 12, 1825. In 1831 his parents moved to Gallipolis, Ohio where he attended school. Seventeen years later, in 1848, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and became a minister in Muscatine, Iowa. Cain moved to South Carolina in 1865 to lead a Charleston AME church and soon became involved in local politics. In 1868, he was elected a member of the South Carolina State Constitutional Convention. Later in the year he was elected to the South Carolina State Senate, a post he held until 1870. Cain was editor and publisher of the South Carolina Leader which eventually became the Missionary Record.

In 1872, Richard Harvey Cain was elected to South Carolina’s at large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cain served on the Agriculture Committee in the 43rd Congress. He is most remembered, however, for his support of a civil rights bill introduced into the House in 1870. Although the bill failed to be enacted, during the debate he spoke eloquently and passionately about his own experiences during a trip to the nation’s capital where he was denied first class accommodations on a train. By 1874, Cain’s at large seat was eliminated and he chose not so seek another office that year. He continued, however, to be actively involved in the South Carolina Republican Party and in 1876 he returned to Congress representing the 2nd district of South Carolina. Cain served one term and then returned to his ministerial duties in Charleston. In 1880 Cain was elected a Bishop in the A.M.E. Church. Soon afterwards he moved to Texas and became one of the founders of Paul Quinn College in Austin. Bishop Cain served as the college’s first president between 1880 and 1884. Three years later on January 18, 1887, Richard Harvey Cain died in Washington, D.C. Research more about this great American and share with your babies. Make it a champion day!

16Jan

January 16 1865- William T. Sherman

GM – FBF – So you think that you know where the term 40 acres and a mule comes from. Read the history of it below.

Remember – “The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns River, Florida.” – General William T. Sherman – (General – U.S. Army)

Today in our History – On January 16, 1865, during the Civil War (1861-65), Union general William T. Sherman
issued Field Order No. 15 in January 1865, calling for the redistribution of confiscated Southern land to freedmen in forty-acre plots. The order was rescinded later that same year, and much of the land was returned to the original white owners.

William T. Sherman issued his Special Field Order No. 15, which confiscated as Union property a strip of coastline stretching from Charleston, South Carolina, to the St. John’s River in Florida, including Georgia’s Sea Islands and the mainland thirty miles in from the coast. The order redistributed the roughly 400,000 acres of land to newly freed black families in forty-acre segments.
Sherman’s order came on the heels of his successful March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah and just prior to his march northward into South Carolina. Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress, like Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, for some time had pushed for land redistribution in order to break the back of Southern slaveholders’ power. Feeling pressure from within his own party, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln sent his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, to Savannah in order to facilitate a conversation with Sherman over what to do with Southern planters’ lands.
On January 12 Sherman and Stanton met with twenty black leaders of the Savannah community, mostly Baptist and Methodist ministers, to discuss the question of emancipation. Lincoln approved Field Order No. 15 before Sherman issued it just four days after meeting with the black leaders. From Sherman’s perspective the most important priority in issuing the directive was military expediency. It served as a means of providing for the thousands of black refugees who had been following his army since its invasion of Georgia. He could not afford to support or protect these refugees while on campaign.
The order explicitly called for the settlement of black families on confiscated land, encouraged freedmen to join the Union army to help sustain their newly won liberty, and designated a general officer to act as inspector of settlements. Inspector General Rufus Saxton would police the land and work to ensure legal title of the property for the black settlers. In a later order, Sherman also authorized the army to loan mules to the newly settled farmers.
Sherman’s
An 1868 sketch by A. R. Waud illustrates the difficulties faced by the Freedmen’s Bureau, caught between white planters on one side (left) and emancipated slaves on the other (right). The bureau was established in 1865 after Union general William T. Sherman issued his Field Order No. 15, which called for the resettlement of freedpeople on confiscated lands.
Freedmen’s Bureau
radical plan for land redistribution in the South was actually a practical response to several issues. Although Sherman had never been a racial egalitarian, his land-redistribution order served the military purpose of punishing Confederate planters along the rice coast of the South for their role in starting the Civil War, while simultaneously solving what he and Radical Republicans viewed as a major new American problem: what to do with a new class of free Southern laborers. Congressional leaders convinced President Lincoln to establish the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands on March 3, 1865, shortly after Sherman issued his order. The Freedmen’s Bureau, as it came to be called, was authorized to give legal title for forty-acre plots of land to freedmen and white Southern Unionists.
The immediate effect of Sherman’s order provided for the settlement of roughly 40,000 blacks (both refugees and local slaves who had been under Union army administration in the Sea Islands since 1861). This lifted the burden of supporting the freedpeople from Sherman’s army as it turned north into South Carolina. But the order was a short-lived promise for blacks. Despite the objections of General Oliver O. Howard, the Freedmen’s Bureau chief, U.S. president Andrew Johnson overturned Sherman’s directive in the fall of 1865, after the war had ended, and returned most of the land along the South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida coasts to the planters who had originally owned it.
Although Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 had no tangible benefit for blacks after President Johnson’s revocation, the present-day movement supporting slave reparations has pointed to it as the U.S. government’s promise to make restitution to African Americans for enslavement. The order is also the likely origin of the phrase “forty acres and a mule,” which spread throughout the South in the weeks and months following Sherman’s march. Research more about this event in history and tell your babies. Make it a champion day!