Month: June 2020

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Valley Grant Act, Senate Bill 203, on June 30, 1864. The legislation gave California the Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Big Tree Grove “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation.”

…[T]he wonders of this region of sublimity, have been a source of inspiration to visitors, but none have been able to describe it to the satisfaction of those who followed after them.

Discovery of the Yosemite, and the Indian War of 1851…, by Houghton Bunnell Lafayette. New York: F.H. Revell Company, c1892. 246. The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920

The newly appointed Yosemite Board of Commissioners confronted the dual task of preserving the magnificent landscape while providing for public recreation. With remarkable foresight, board member and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted recognized that these goals could conflict. In his 1865 Draft of Preliminary Report upon the Yosemite and Big Tree Grove, Olmsted warns that “the slight harm which the few hundred visitors of this year might do, if no care were taken to prevent it, would not be slight, if it should be repeated by millions.”

His concern about overuse of the park was ignored by the Board of Commissioners, and the Report never reached the state legislature.

As Olmsted predicted, the Yosemite Valley and the Big Tree Grove quickly became a “must see” vacation destination. In the 1870s, California tourist Mary Cone traveled by ferry, railroad, stagecoach, wagon, and horseback to reach the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. In Two Years In California, she describes eating her lunch “under the shadow and protection of one of these great kings of the forest.”

At about the same time, travel writer Caroline Churchill estimated that a week-to-ten-day trip to Yosemite cost $150 dollars including transportation. Despite the expense, Churchill notes:

It is a subject of much regret among the traveling public, that the question of the quality of food served to the unfortunate traveler cannot be made a matter of special legislation. A race of men must deteriorate when fed upon refuse food…I sincerely believe that this…is half the cause of there being so much intemperance in this State.

Over the Purple Hills, or Sketches of Travel in California, Embracing All the Important Points Usually Visited by Tourists, by Caroline M. Churchill. Denver: Mrs. C.M. Churchill, 1881. p127-28. “California as I Saw It”: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849 to 1900. General Collections

However, cost and discomfort were forgotten when:

… the great Yosemite Valley first breaks upon the vision, with a realizing sense of its grandeur. Here the rocks lift their towering heads so loftily to the sky, and the precipices are so fearfully deep, that mighty streams all turn to tears when rushing by, because of taking such a leap.

Over the Purple Hills…, p133. “California as I Saw It”: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849 to 1900. General Collections

Yet California proved unable to care adequately for these extraordinary lands, and by 1890, public sentiment had begun to demand the return of the park to the federal government. Naturalist John Muir was among Yosemite’s most eloquent and outspoken supporters. His articles and books describing the park’s natural wonders inspired public support for the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1890 and its expansion through the recession of the California parklands in 1905-6. In the highly popular Our National Parks (1901), Muir devoted six chapters to Yosemite. This passage is typical of his reverence for the park:

Nowhere will you see the majestic operations of nature more clearly revealed beside the frailest, most gentle and peaceful things. Nearly all the park is a profound solitude. Yet it is full of charming company, full of God’s thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and eager enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons on life, mountain-building, eternal, invincible, unbreakable order; with sermons in stones, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful of humanity.

Our National Parks, by John Muir. New York: Houghton Mifflin and company, 1901. 78. The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920

Today, Yosemite National Park encompasses nearly 1,200 square miles of the central Sierra Nevada mountain range. With elevations as high as 13,000 feet above sea level, the park preserves alpine wilderness, groves of Giant Sequoias and the Yosemite Valley’s splendid cliffs, waterfalls, wildflowers, and impressive rock formations.

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On June 29, 1852, statesman Henry Clay, known as “the Great Compromiser” for his feats of legislative reconciliation between the North and the South, died at the age of seventy-five at the Old National Hotel in Washington, D.C.

I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me upon earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolution of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle.

“On the Compromise Resolutions,” speech before the U.S. Senate, February 5 and 6, 1850, The Life and Speeches of Henry Clay (Littleton, Colorado: Fred B. Rothman, 1987), 2: 664.

Born on a farm in Virginia on April 12, 1777, Clay practiced law in Virginia and Kentucky before embarking on a political career. He represented Kentucky both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives and was a guiding force in American political life. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives (as a Democratic Republican) from 1811-20 and again from 1823-24. He advocated U.S. entry into the War of 1812 with such nationalistic fervor that he earned himself the sobriquet “War Hawk.” Clay also played a role in the negotiation of that war’s peace as one of five commissioners who drafted the Treaty of Ghent.

Representing the state of Kentucky in the U.S. Congress, Clay eloquently promoted the “American System,” his plan to support domestic industry and agriculture (and reduce dependence on imports) through improved transportation routes, a protective tariff, and a national bank. In 1820, he negotiated the passage of the first of the three pieces of legislation that earned him the titles of the “Great Pacificator” and the “Great Compromiser.” The Missouri Compromise, the first piece of legislation, soothed the anxieties of both Southern and Northern factions by maintaining a balance between the number of states that permitted slavery and those that prohibited slavery.

Clay was unsuccessful in his bid to become the presidential candidate of the Democratic Republican Party in 1824. He then gave his support to John Quincy Adams and when Adams won the election, he appointed Clay secretary of state. Clay again failed in his bids to become the presidential candidate of the National Republican Party in 1832 and of the Whig Party in 1844. His opposition to the annexation of Texas—because the state’s entry into the Union would have upset the balance of slave and free states—cost him the presidential election of 1844. Nonetheless, he remained a guiding force in American political life, exercising leadership in both the House and the Senate.

Currier is known to have produced at least three Whig banners for the 1844 election. This example features oval portraits, framed in laurel, of Whig presidential and vice-presidential candidates Henry Clay (left) and Theodore M. Frelinghuysen (right). “The Nation’s Choice For President & Vice President” is inscribed on a banderole below the portraits. An eagle and several American flags appear in a burst of light above the portraits, as does the campaign slogan “Justice to Harry of the West.”

A Jeffersonian Republican, Clay advocated the gradual abolition of slavery. (In his will, Clay freed the slaves of Ashland, his Kentucky plantation.) He was active in the movement to resettle freed slaves in Liberia, which was led by the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour of the United States (or, American Colonization Society), of which he was a founding member.

Clay’s efforts to balance the rights of free and slave states postponed the outbreak of the Civil War. With South Carolina’s Senator John C. Calhoun, Clay drafted his second piece of compromise legislation that enabled the passage of the 1833 tariff, thus averting the Nullification Crisis.

The third compromise bill to which Clay lent his eloquence was the Compromise of 1850. With orators Daniel Webster and Stephen Douglas, Clay argued for tolerance among factions and for the preservation of the Union. At the end of his famous speech of February 6, 1850, Clay prayed that he would not live to see the nation torn apart by civil war.

In an American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940 interview, Mrs. William Price, a Texas pioneer, recounts stories told by her Kentuckian father about the state’s famous native son:

It was in the year that my father came to Texas that Henry Clay made his last great speech when the Missouri Compromise again was the subject of debate, in this speech he won the name of “The Pacificator.” It was thought to be the cause of his death, the effort he put forth in his failing health. It is enough to tell you that the followers of this man honored and admired him fro [sic] his attempt in the troublesome days before the Civil War to help to hold his state in the Union.

“Mrs. William Price.” Miss Effie Cowan, interviewer; Marlin, Texas, ca. 1936-1939. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1940. Manuscript Division

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June 28, 1969 marks the beginning of the Stonewall Uprising, a series of events between police and LGBTQ+ protesters that stretched over six days. It was not the first time police raided a gay bar, and it was not the first time LGBTQ+ people fought back, but the events that would unfold over the next six days would fundamentally change the nature of LGBTQ+ activism in the United States. We invite you to learn more about the Stonewall Uprising, and LGBTQ+ history in general, through the rich and diverse collections at the Library of Congress.

LGBTQ+ New York in the 1960s

In 1969, the Stonewall Inn was one of the most popular gay bars in New York City.  Throughout the state, it was illegal to serve alcohol to a gay person until 1966External, and in 1969, homosexuality was still considered a criminal offense. This led many gay establishments to operate sans liquor license, providing an open door for raids and police brutality. The Stonewall Inn was owned by the mafia, and as long as they continued to make a profit, they cared very little about what happened to their clientele. The police raids on gay bars and spaces was not isolated to the East and West coasts, but was a phenomenon happening across the U.S. during this time.

June 28, 1969: The Full Moon Rises Over Stonewall 

During the early morning hours (around 1:15-1:20a.m.) on June 28, 1969, plainclothes officers from the New York Police Department arrived at the Stonewall Inn. The police justified the raid with a search warrant, authorizing them to investigate the illegal sale of alcohol at Stonewall. Led by Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, the police entered the establishment and began to interrogate the patrons.  The raid was routine for a bar like Stonewall, but this time,  events did not unfold according to the inspectors plans.

The turning point came when the police had difficulty keeping a dyke in a patrol car. Three times she slid out and tried to walk away. The last time a cop bodily heaved her in. The crowd shrieked, “Police brutality!” “Pigs!” A few coins sailed through the air…escalated to nickels and quarters. A bottle. Another bottle. Pine says, “Let’s get inside. Lock ourselves inside, it’s safer.”

Full Moon Over the Stonewall, by Howard Smith. The Village Voice, (v.XIV) July 3, 1969, p.1+

While locked inside, the interrogation of patrons and employees continued. Those who had identification were slowly released into the gathering crowd outside, while others were kept inside the bar in preparation for their arrest. The employees and those that were “cross-dressing” were the most visible law-breakers, and therefore the most vulnerable to arrest. Inspector Pine ordered all “cross-dressers” detained, and while a few were able to escape in the commotion, several were arrested. The resistance raged on through the night, with most of the crowds dispersing by 4:00a.m. on June 28th.

But the uprising was far from over. Word of the Stonewall raid spread quickly throughout the city.  By that evening (Saturday June 28), thousands of protesters had gathered at the Stonewall and in the surrounding area. The protests continued into the next week, with another outbreak of intense fighting occurring on that following Wednesday.

Who was at Stonewall?

As Stonewall has become mythologized in history, important details have been obscured. For instance, many have decried the erasure of lesbians, drag queens, queer youth, and transgender and gender non-conforming people, and their role in the uprising and the political organizing that led to the moment. These individuals and communities were an easy target for the police, because in New York in 1969, it was illegal to wear fewer than three items of “gender-inappropriate” clothing (See: New York Penal Code 240.35, Subsection 4). In fact, we know according to newspapers and other first-hand accounts that at least two “drag queens” were arrested at Stonewall.

Considered to be one of the most accurate depictions of Stonewall the article entitled “Queen PowerExternal,” described the centrality of drag queens to the events of Stonewall. One can find further accounts of the involvement of drag queens at Stonewall by reading Drag MagazineExternal, the official organ of the Queens Liberation Front. Lee BrewsterExternal co-founded Drag Magazine and the Queens Liberation Front (QLF) in 1970, which worked in tandem to overturn New York laws outlawing cross-dressing.

The Birth of Pride: Commemorating the Christopher Street Uprisings

“Many new activists consider the Stonewall Uprising the birth of the gay liberation movement. Certainly it was the birth of gay pride of a massive scale”

The Gay Crusaders, by Kay Tobin & Randy Wicker. New York: Paperback Library, 1972.

The first Pride march was held on June 28 1970, on the one year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Primary sources provide detailed information about how this first Pride march was planned, and the reasons why activists felt so strongly that it should exist. To get planning underway, activists formed the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee. From the outset, the committee defined it’s aim of holding a massive march at the culmination of Gay Pride Week (June 22-28).

This, the very first U.S. Gay Pride Week and March, was meant to give the community a chance to gather together to, “…commemorate the Christopher Street Uprisings of last summer in which thousands of homosexuals went to the streets to demonstrate against centuries of abuse….from government hostility to employment and housing discrimination, Mafia control of Gay bars, and anti-Homosexual laws” (Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee FliersExternal, University of Connecticut).  Since then, LGBTQ+ people have continued to gather together in June to march with Pride.

The Stonewall Inn has now been designated as a National Monument.

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Paul Laurence Dunbar was born on June 27, 1872, in Dayton, Ohio. Although he died when he was only thirty-three, Dunbar had achieved international acclaim as a poet, short story writer, novelist, dramatist, and lyricist.

Dunbar was the child of former slaves. His father escaped bondage, fled to Canada, and returned to the U.S. to fight in the Civil War as a member of the Massachusetts 55th Regiment. At the time Dunbar’s mother escaped enslavement via the Underground Railroad, emancipation was declared. His parents met years later and married in Dayton, Ohio, where Paul was born. From his mother’s many stories of the South, young Dunbar acquired an understanding of Southern life and came to speak both Southern dialect and standard American English.

The Dayton area was a center of black religious activity. Dunbar attended the Eaker Street A.M.E. Church where he gave his very first poetry recitals. Nearby Wilberforce College boasted prominent African Americans such as W. E. B. DuBois among its faculty members.

Although he was the only African American in his middle and high schools, Dunbar was accepted by his classmates and served as editor of his high school paper and president of the literary club. He counted classmate Orville Wright as one of his best friends. Together, the two boys briefly published a newspaper, the Dayton Tattler External; their money ran out after just three issues.

Dunbar’s parents separated when he was a child and his father lived for years at the Soldiers’ Home. In 1891, Dunbar graduated from Central High School. Central was demolished in 1894 and a new school, Steele, was constructed at the southeast corner of North Main Street and Monument Avenue.

Dunbar worked as an elevator operator in the Callahan Building (spired building, above) on Main Street. In 1892, Dunbar published a volume of his own poetry entitled Oak and Ivy, which he sold to his elevator passengers.

In 1893, Dunbar went to Chicago with plans to write about the World’s Columbian Exposition where he met Frederick Douglass, then commissioner of the fair’s Haitian Pavilion. Douglass invited Dunbar to work as his personal assistant and to share the podium, supporting the young poet’s efforts. During the fair Dunbar met a number of his peers and future literary lights including James Weldon Johnson, Richard B. Harrison, and Will Marion Cook, with whom he later wrote the theatrical piece Clorinda: The Origin of the Cake Walk. (See the two 1903 films Cake Walk and Comedy Cake Walk documenting this dance featuring fancy strutting, named after the prize awarded in the original contests.)

After the publication of Majors and Minors (1895) and Lyrics of a Lowly Life (1896), Dunbar’s name became internationally recognized. During a trip to England, Dunbar met the African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The two men collaborated on a collection of choral pieces entitled Seven African Romances and the opera Dream Lovers.

Returning from abroad, Dunbar settled in Washington, D.C., and accepted a position as a library assistant at the Library of Congress. He found the work tiresome, however, and it is believed that the Library’s dust contributed to his worsening case of tuberculosis. He worked there for only a year before quitting to write and recite from his works full time.

In 1902, Booker T. Washington commissioned Dunbar to write the school song for the Tuskegee Institute. Dunbar wrote lyrics to the tune of “Fair Harvard.” Washington was not pleased with the “Tuskegee Song.” He objected to Dunbar’s emphasis on “the industrial idea,” and the exclusion of biblical references. In this letter to Washington, Dunbar defends his work.

By the turn of the century, Paul Laurence Dunbar was the most celebrated black writer in America. He wrote for the broadest possible audience, yet his reputation rested on his mastery of dialect verse which employed colloquial vocabulary and spellings that were, for the most part, African American. In his use of vernacular speech, Dunbar has been compared to Mark Twain and James Whitcomb Riley.

Dunbar published twenty-two books and numerous articles and poems before his death in 1906—likely the result of a combination of factors including tuberculosis, exhaustion in the wake of pneumonia, and alcoholism.

Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass,
Whah de branch go a-singin’ as to pass;
an’ w’en I’s a-layin’ low,
I kin hyeah it as it go,
Singin’, “Sleep, my honey; tek yo res’ at las’.”

Inscription on the grave of Paul Laurence Dunbar

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On June 26, 1870, the first section of the Atlantic City Boardwalk opened along the New Jersey beach. Dr. Jonathan Pitney and civil engineer Richard Osborne began developing the area on Absecon Island in the early 1850s. Long before this time, members of the Lenni-Lenape tribe were the first seasonal visitors to enjoy the summer splendor of the island.

Beautiful beaches, fresh sea air, luxurious hotels, fine restaurants, alluring shops, and a connecting railroad line from Camden, New Jersey, drew visitors from all over the world. Atlantic City soon became a popular summer resort and winter health spa.

Alexander Boardman, a railroad conductor, and Jacob Keim, a hotelier, conceived of the idea of constructing a boardwalk as a means of keeping sand out of the railroad cars and hotels. The city used its tax revenues to build an eight-foot-wide temporary wooden walkway from the beach into town that could be dismantled during the winter.

The rolling chair, introduced in 1884, was the only vehicle allowed on the boardwalk. The boardwalk was soon extended by an enormous amusement pier, the Steel Pier, visible in the background of the photograph above.

Any consideration of the boardwalk demands at least a nod to salt water taffy, a favorite beachside treat. Taffy, a candy made of corn syrup and white sugar is boiled; the confection is pulled and folded, then rolled into a long strip from which shorter (about two-inch-long) strips are cut, wrapped in stick resistant paper, and sold. Along the Atlantic City Boardwalk folks have purchased the product since at least the early 1880s. In 1925, the Supreme Court ruled that the term “salt water taffy” could not be trademarked, a decision which saved candy manufacturers from paying millions of dollars to John R. Edmiston of Wildwood, New Jersey, who claimed to be the originator of the candy and had applied for registration of the term with the U.S. Patent Office.

Early bathers wore bathing dresses of wool flannel with stockings, canvas shoes, and large straw hats. The more daring bloomer suits and stockings worn by these bathing beauties did not catch on until 1907. Censors roamed the beaches monitoring bathers’ self-exposure and looking for offenders who showed more flesh than the local code allowed.

Originally titled “Atlantic City’s Inter-City Beauty Contest,” and traditionally held in Atlantic City since 1921, the Miss America pageant moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2006. The above photograph captures the 1926 contestants vying for the Golden Mermaid trophy.

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