Street Sweepers &   Alderman Mud Harper's Magazine   Touching position of the New York Alderman who prefers being smothered in mud and slush to conceding an iota of his imaginary dignity.   (See the official Report on the Reasons why the Board of Aldermen won't confirm any Street Inspector the Mayor may name.)                           Streetsweeper  in Operation      Keeping streets clean, particularly in large cities has always been a challenge.   In a pre-mechanical world when nearly every conveyance depended on horse power, horse shit was more than just a political problem.       Moreover, cows and pigs were kept in the city before zoning laws. Feral cats and dogs roamed the streets. Dead animals and animal waste added to whatever humans contributed throwing out food scraps and emptying chamber pots.      Crossing a street a...

Coal Gas--The Original Gaslighting Rembrandt Peale      One of America's leading painters of the early 1800s was the first to use gas lighting. Rembrandt Peale opened the first American museum of any sort in Baltimore in 1806.  Trained in natural science as well as fine arts, Peale sought a way to illuminate his paintings using methods beyond candles and sunlight.  Candles and oil lamps were dim and expensive; sunlight was unpredictable. Peale had studied in Europe and was aware of early experiments in England using coal gas lamps to illuminate several streets and a town square.               Coal gas--later called town gas-- is produced by burning crushed lumps of coal in an oxygen starved atmosphere to produce methane and hydrogen, both of which burned brightly, as well as small amounts of nonflammable but poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen.   ...

  Amalgamationist & Abolitionists "Amalgamation"--the code word for sexual relations between the races--was feared.  "Amalgamationists vs Abolitionists"      Anybody liberal enough to publicly espouse the view that Blacks were human and deserved the same legal rights as Whites was labeled "an Amalgamationist." Further, it implied legal inter racial marriages.   It was possible--quite common, in fact--to be an abolitionist and not  an amalgamationist.        Abolitionists were considered a Northern fringe group of eccentrics demanding the impossible.  Abolitionists existed before the founding of the republic, but the movement stirred the South's ire starting in the 1830s.      In modern terms they were a bit like PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.) For example, most people do not think animals should be treated with mindless cruelty--that does not mean most people think chickens should h...

    A DUCK OF A WIFE Litchfield CT April 7, 1859             A duck of a wife, whose husband went for a day or two on a bit of a lark, thus advertises him:             LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN—An individual whom I, in an unguarded moment of loneliness, was thoughtless enough to adopt as my husband. He is a good looking and feeble individual, knowing enough to go in when it rains, unless some good looking girl offers her umbrella. Answers to the name of John. Was last seen in the company of Julia Harris, walking, his arm around her waist, up the plank road, looking more like a fool, if possible, than ever. Anybody who will catch the poor fellow and bring him carefully back so that I can chastise him for running away, will be asked to stay for tea. —HENRIETTA A. SMITH A Runaway Woman? RUNAWAY WIVES AND RAILROADS Jan 14, 1860 NY Times    ...

  We Were Warned A Long Time Ago             In 1856,  an American woman,  Mrs. Eunice Foote,  performed a series of experiments demonstrating that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would significantly raise the temperature of the climate. Moreover, she showed it would be very slow to cool back to normal--much slower than unpolluted air. The results were published in a scientific journal in November 1856.          Of course she could not be admitted to the professional scientific organizations. No women were allowed. On the other hand, she was married to a respected judge and inventor. And her paper was only 557 words long, about the length of a short news story or slightly longer than usual letter to the editor.          Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the Sun’s Rays: By Eunice Foote From the American Journal of Science and Arts   Nov 1856 Pages 382, ...

  By chance, an artist for Leslie's Illustrated Weekly was on hand at the beginning of the riot and continued to make sketches as it progressed Riots were commonplace in ante bellum urban areas. There were several spectacular riots in New York City. One was a clash over whether a British stage star was better than the American one. Others happened when police attempted to help slave catchers seize runaway slaves or free Blacks. Often though, riots were simply gang warfare. Five Points was the epicenter of squalid poverty in ante bellum NY City and a flash point between the two largest criminal gangs in the city--the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits. Below is an account of a riot in July 1857 by Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Dead Rabbits Riot Frank Leslie’s Weekly July 18, 1857      The riot which occurred in the Sixth Ward, on Saturday night, July 4 th between the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys was the most talked of fight among the many which have disgraced our...

  The Slave trade May 19, 1860: Message on the Capture of the Slaver Wildfire An address by   President James Buchanan         On the 26th day of April last Lieutenant Craven, of the United States steamer Mohawk , captured the slaver Wildfire on the coast of Cuba, with 507 African negroes on board. The prize was brought into Key West on the 31st April and the negroes were delivered into the custody of Fernando J. Moreno, marshal of the southern district of Florida.      The question which now demands immediate decision is, What disposition shall be made of these Africans? In the annual message to Congress of December 6, 1858, I expressed my opinion in regard to the construction of the act of the 3d March, 1819, "in addition to the acts prohibiting the slave trade," so far as the same is applicable to the present case. From this I make the following extract:      Under the second section of this act the Pres...