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Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
Free Home Page Stories & Photos
The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit
Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness

Noel V. Bourasaw, editor

810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp

Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug

National and world timeline 1880-84

For the past ten years we have built a database of notable events not only in the Northwest, but nationwide and worldwide. We feel it is important for readers to have a resource for the context of the frontier years. Among hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, websites and books, our main sources are listed at the bottom of the article.

1880

Affectionately known as His Fraudulency by his opponents, President Rutherford Hayes decided to not run for a second term.
U.S. census counts a population of 50,155,783. Illiteracy in the U.S. estimated at 17 percent, a decrease of three percent from 1870.
This decade is one of unprecedented railroad construction
Alaska: Joe Juneau and Richard Harris make major gold strike on Gold Creek near Juneau
The new millionaires of the Gilded Age became art collectors and art museums began to appear. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was formed in 1870 but opened in 1880 on its present site at Central Park, facing Fifth avenue. The "old money" founders looked down their noses at the nouveau riche, but soon accepted their financial support.
Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace was published, has never been out of print since and has been subject of two Hollywood movies. Other books published: Democracy, a novel by Henry Adams; Ultima Thule, the next-to-last collection of poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; and A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain, his delightful travelogue of Germany, Italy and Switzerland.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers founded.
First successful roll film for cameras patented by George Eastman of Rochester, New York.
House paint manufactured for the first time from standard formulas by Sherwin-Williams Co. of Cleveland, Ohio — an all-purpose wood paint from an unvarying formula.
Salvation Army begins in Pennsylvania, 15 years after it as founded in England by William Booth and his wife Catherine.
Capt. David L. Payne leads first of eight boomers' raids from Kansas into Oklahoma
Reed Waddell from Springfield, Illinois, introduced the gold brick swindle into New York
Cleopatra's Needle, an Egyptian obelisk, brought to New York for erection in Cental Park
Wrestling continued as more popular than boxing. Abe Lincoln was a wrestler. The 1880 heavyweight champion was William Muldoon. In one match he wrestled eight hours to a draw. Toured U.S. with boxing champion John L. Sullivan. World heavyweight bare knuckle boxing championship won by Paddy Ryan in 87-round bout in West Virginia.
Orange Blossom was the pseudonym for Joseph M. Mulholland of Pennsylvania, who wrote outrageous and implausible stories in newspapers, presaging the National Enquirer.
First parcel post in U.S.
Helen Keller born (died 1968).
Railroad mileage in operation: U.S. 87,800 miles; Great Britain 17,900; France 16,400; Russia 12,200.
Worldwide: The Thinker is sculpted by Auguste Rodin in France. Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) resigns as British Prime Minister after second premiership and defeats in the Afghan and Zulu wars in 1878-79; replaced by W.E. Gladstone. France annexes Tahiti. Transvaal declares independent of Britain; Boers under Stephanus Kruger declare a republic. War in South America begins: Chile against Bolivia and Peru. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian writer, publishes his last novel, The Brothers Karamoazov, 35 years after his first; he died the next year. George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans), English novelist, dies after writing realistic portraits of provincial Victorian life in such books as The Mill on the Floss. Emile Zola, French novelist, publishes Nana. Paul Cezanne, French painter, paints Chateu de Medan. Auguste Renoir, French Impressionist painter, paints Place Clichy. Cathedral completed in Cologne, Germany (began construction in 1248). Gilbert & Sullivan compose The Pirates of Penzance. Captain C.C. Boycott, land agent in Mayo, Ireland, is boycotted for refusing to accept rents fixed by his tenants. World Exhibition in Melbourne.
March 1: Strauder v. West Virginia, Supreme Court holds unconstitutional a West Virginia law of March 12, 1863, that excluded blacks from jury duty, citing section five of the Fourteenth Amendment, a precursor of 20th century civil rights decisions.
March 8: President Hayes declares that any Isthmus of Panama canal will be strictly under U.S. jurisdiction
March 31: Cleveland becomes the first U.S. city completely lit by electricity, by Charles F. Brush, who used arc lights instead of incandescent.
April: National Farmers' Alliance organized in Chicago by Milton George, as a forerunner of the People's Party
April: Charles F. Brush lights Wabash, Indiana, his home town, completely by electricity in great public demonstration. Dec. 20: One mile of Broadway in New York City illuminated by Brush arc system. Another source says one square mile lit in on Sept. 4, 1882.
April 3, 1880, Isaac M. Kalloch, a minister like his father — mayor Isaac S. Kalloch, shoots his father's assassin in revenge, killing Charles De Young in his newspaper office. In March 1881, Kalloch is acquitted after claiming self-defense. In December 1883 he is sworn in as an attorney for the Third District Court in Whatcom, Washington territory.
May 6: Republican Anti-Third Term convention meets in St. Louis, opposing nomination of U.S. Grant for president
May 26: Miners strike at Leadville, Colorado for more pay and fewer hours. Managers finally accept 8-hour day
June 2-8: Republican National Convention meets at Chicago. Although Grant was the leading candidate, supported by his fanatic backers called the Stalwarts, James A. Garfield of Ohio is nominated for President on the 36th ballot with 399 votes to Grant's 306. Chester A. Arthur nominated for vice president. Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce of Mississippi was made temporary chairman of the convention, the first black to ever preside over a major-party convention.
June 9-10 Greenback party meets in convention at Chicago. Convention nominates James B. Weaver of Iowa for president and B.J. Chambers of Texas for vice president.
June 17: Prohibition party meets in Cleveland. Convention nominates Neal Dow of Maine for President and A.M. Thompson of Ohio for vice president.
June 22-24: Democratic National Convention meets at Cincinnati and nominates General Winfield Scott Hancock of Pennsylvania for president and William H. English of Indiana for vice president. Hancock was the general who led Union troops at the Battle of Spotsylvania on May 12, 1864, where they captured 4,000 troops. For the first campaign since the Civil War, the Republicans could not claim that they alone saved the Union.
Nov. 2: Presidential election. Garfield and Arthur win in clear cut electoral vote superiority, 214 to 155 for Hancock and English. But popular vote only gives Garfield a plurality of 7,000 votes.
Congressional election: 37-37 tie in the Senate with one seat going to a minor party. Republicans took a 147-135 majority in the house with 11 seats to minor parties.
Nov. 17: Chinese Exclusion Treaty signed with China at Peking [Beijing], gives U.S. power to "regulate, limit or suspend" immigration of Chinese laborers into the country, but not completely exclude them. Senate consents May 5, 1881

Capsule of President James A. Garfield President Garfield was also born in Ohio and like Rutherford Hayes he was fatherless very early, his father dying when he was two. He was also raised by a single mother, as Hayes was, and earned money for his education by driving canal-boat teams. He graduated from Williams College in 1856 and then returned to Ohio, where he became a professor of the classics at Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (later Hiram College) for a year before he was appointed its president. He was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1859 as a Republican and volunteered for the Civil War, where he successfully led a brigade against Confederate troops at Middle Creek, Kentucky. At 31, Garfield became a brigadier general and two years later a major general of volunteers. In 1862, his Ohio district elected him to Congress and, unlike Hayes, he agreed when President Lincoln persuaded him to resign his commission. The president apparently argued that it was easier to find major generals than to obtain effective Republicans for Congress. Garfield won re-election for eight more terms and became the leading Republican in the House.
Garfield proved during the 1880 campaign that he could manipulate even the most hardened politicians when he won by a very narrow margin, largely through the support of a New York machine boss, U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling. Conkling would soon regret his support. Garfield began moving towards civil service reform in his short term of office and carried on the relatively clean government tradition of Hayes. Both Garfield and his wife Lucretia (nicknamed "Crete") were devout members of the Disciple of Christ church and she devoted herself to raising their five children. She dreamed of refurbishing the executive mansion but she caught malaria, which was blamed on the swamps behind the White House, and then her husband was assassinated. She eventually recovered and lived to age 86 and all her children went on to have distinguished careers.

1881

July 8, The first ice cream sundae is served — by accident. Druggist Edward Berner of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, can't serve the desirable, but scandalous flavored soda water that customer George Hallauer wants — because it is Sunday, the Sabbath. Mr. Berner compromised and put ice cream in a dish and poured the syrup on top (chocolate syrup was only used for making flavored and ice-cream sodas, at the time). Voila! An ice cream Sunday! (The spelling was later changed to 'sundae').
From 1881-1900, 23,800 strikes and lockout are recorded in the U.S.
1881 was a year of poor crops and resulting increase in prices across the county.
Persecution of Jews in Russia leads to migration to U.S.
National Divorce Reform League forms after launch in New England
Andrew Carnegie begins his library philanthropy with a gift to Pittsburgh
Wharton School of Finance and Commerce founded by Joseph Wharton as department of University of Pennsylvania. Tuskegee Insititue founded in Alabama by Booker T. Washington.
First pure-food laws passed by legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois
Anaconda opens copper mine near Helena, Montana
Pullman Car Company begins made-to-order company town in Pullman, Illinois
Grover Cleveland elected as "veto" mayor of Buffalo
Diplomatic and commercial treaties signed with Serbia and Rumania, which won independence from Turkey
U.S. government assigns Lt. Adolphus W. Greely to establish scientific observation station in northern Greenland at latitude 83 degrees, 24 minutes, the northernmost point reached thus far
Revised version of New Testament by American and English scholars published to sales of more than 200,000 copies in New York City alone in first week after publication. Old Testament published in 1885. Common Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. published.
Literary magazines became very influential. The Century Illustrated Monthly succeeded the famous Scribner's Monthly in 1880, with Richard Watson Gilder as editor until his death in 1909.
Two American painters excelled: Mary Cassatt, an expatriate in Paris, exhibited her paintings there for the third year in a row. A naturalist who abhorred conventional art, she gained the respect of Edgar Degas and Gustave Courbet and won an international reputation for her paintings of mothers and children, her etchings and her color prints. John Singer Sargent, another American painter living abroad, began to be recognized back here at home.
Helen Hunt Jackson, a writer living in the West, published A Century of Dishonor, a book that exposed the U.S. government's ruthless treatment of Indians. Other books of the year included: Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris, a collection of black folklore in dialect; Dr. Breen's Practice by William Dean Howells, a novel with the previously unusual idea of a society woman as a physician. Henry James wrote his masterpiece of his early novels — Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square about Americans at home in the U.S.
The rich begin building truly palatial homes following William Kissam Vanderbilt who completed his mansion that year on Fifth avenue for $3 million
Electricity in houses and streets for the first time in Britain.
Henry P. Crowell of Ravenna, Ohio, buys a bankrupt mill and starts the production and advertising of "Quaker Oats"
First U.S. Lawn Tennis championship.
Wharton School of Finance and Commerce founded by Joseph Wharton as department of University of Pennsylvania. Tuskegee Insititue founded in Alabama by Booker T. Washington, a former slave.
Worldwide: Richard D'Oyly Carte builds the Savoy Theatre in London, which is lit by electricity and will be home to many Gilbert & Sullivan musicals. After more defeats versus the Boers, Great Britain recognizes the Transvaal Republic. Austro-Serbian treaty of alliance. Charles S. Parnell, Irish Home Rule leader, imprisoned after disrupting House of Commons; released by Gladstone who realizes only Parnell can pacify the Irish. Kemal Ataturk, Turkish statesman, born (died 1938). Le Chat Noir , the first cabaret, opened in Paris by Rodolphe Salis. Thomas Carlyle, English historian, died (born 1795). Vatican archives opened to scholars. Pablo Picasso born (died 1973). Claude Monet, French Impressionist, paints Sunshine and snow. Tales of Hoffman performed posthumously in Paris, a year after opera composer Jacques Offenbach. Canadian Pacific Railway founded. Freedom of the press established in France. Flogging abolished in the British Army and Navy. Russian Tzar Alexander II assasinated, replaced by Alexander III.
Jan. 19: Western Union Telegraph Co. formed by Jay Gould and William H. Vanderbilt, a consolidation of Western Union, American Union and Atlantic and Pacific companies.
Jan. 24: Springer v. United States, Supreme Court declares federal income tax law of 1862 constitutional. This important precedent answered Springer's counsel's argument that the tax was a direct tax, which was forbidden by Article 1, sections 2 and 9 of the constitution. The justices argued that there were only two kinds of direct tax, real property and poll taxes and that the income tax was neither of those.
Feb. 19: Kansas adopts statewide prohibition
Feb. 22: President Hayes issues executive order to Secretary of war Alexander Ramsey that prohibits sale of liquor at military posts
March: Atlantic Monthly publishes The Story of a great Monopoly about Standard Oil Company, by Henry Demarest Lloyd.
March 3: Registration and protection of trademarks authorized by act of Congress
March 4: James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur inaugurated. In the cabinet as Secretary of War was James G. Blaine, who wielded considerable power. His ascendance created a problem with Senator Roscoe Conkling, a leader of the Grant stalwarts. Conkling and Garfield argued often over patronage. Robert T. Lincoln, son of Abe, was Secretary of War.
March 10: Santa Fe Railroad joins Southern Pacific at Deming, New Mexico.
March 23: Garfield appoints Judge William H. Robertson, Conkling's enemy from New York, as collector at of the Port of New York. Confirmed by Senate May 18. May 16: Senators Conkling and Thomas C. Platt from New York resign their seats in protest against Garfield's appointment.
May 21: American Red Ross organizes with Clara Barton as president, modeled after the International Red Cross, which began in Europe in 1863. Barton, a teacher by profession, became famous in the Civil War when she volunteered to nurse wounded Union soldiers and searched for the missing when requested by Presidetn Lincoln. She headed the organization until 1904.
June 24: Blaine sends identical letters to U.S. ministers in Europe, serving notice that any European agreement for a joint guarantee of the De Lesseps canal at Panama would be regarded as unfriendly to the U.S.
July 2: President Garfield is shot and mortally wounded at the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Washington, D.C. by Charles Guiteau. He is usually described as a disappointed office seeker but his motive becomes clearer when you realize that he was heard to shout: "I am a Stalwart and Arthur is president now." Alexander Graham Bell rushes, with Tainter, to develop telephone probe to assist mortally wounded President James Garfield
Sept. 7: Jesse James commits his last holdup (Chicago-Alton train). Governor of Missouri places bounty on brothers Frank and Jesse James.
Sept. 19: Garfield dies at Elberon, N.J. Sept. 20: Arthur takes oath of office at his home in New York
Fall: Arthur shocks his critics who believes that he would continue as a machine-oriented politician. Upon taking office as president, he refuses to reward his former political cronies, much to Conkling's disgust. He vetoes a bill for roads, bridges, rivers and harbors that he considers larded from the pork barrel, then Congress overrides it, but Arthur is considered a hero by the public.
October 19: Centennial of Lord Conrwallis surrender during Revolutionary War celebrated at Yorktown, Virginia.
Nov. 8: Theodore Roosevelt elected to New York assembly.
Nov. 14: Trial of Charles Guiteau opens. Eventually convicted, he was hanged at Washington on June 30, 1882
Nov. 17: Federation of Organized trades and Labor Unions of U.S. and Canada formed at Pittsburgh by Samuel Gompers. Forerunner of AFofL, membership is restricted to white tradesmen.
Nov. 19: Blaine proposes to Great Britain a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, to give U.S. greater authority over any canal at Panama. Nov. 29: Blaine issues invitations to Latin-American states to meeting at Washington, launching Pan-American movement. Dec. 1: Blaine declares Hawaiian islands part of American system and within bounds of 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which in part discouraged European colonizing nations from interfering in the Western hemisphere.
December 12: Arthur replaced Blaine as Secretary of State and gradually replaced most of Garfield's appointments, but retained Lincoln. Blaine's successor, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, withdraws the Latin-American invitations.
National Civil Service Reform League formed with George William Curtis, editor of Harper's Weekly, as president. President Hayes had lent his political weight behind opponents of the old spoils system and Curtis marshaled the forces behind a proposed merit system. The trial of Garfield's assassin revealed the excesses of the spoils system and patronage.

1882

American Forestry Association organized
John Dolbeer's donkey engine enables more efficient logging of the redwood forests. Will soon revolutionize logging. [Ed. note: The 1937 manuscript of the history of Burlington states that the Millett and McKay logging company that started logging there in 1882 was the first such camp to employ a donkey engine, but the year is not given.]
Los Angeles Times founded.
Oscar Wilde visits San Francisco, outrages American audiences, enchants intellectuals and homosexuals.
William Dean Howells wrote A Modern Instance, a novel about the history of a marriage; Henry Adams wrote John Randolph, another of his biographies of the founding fathers; and Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper was published. Frank R. Stockton's short story, The Lady or the Tiger was published in Century magazine and has since appeared in most American anthologies of fiction. Robert Louis Stevenson publishes Treasure Island.
Phil Casey, an Irish immigrant and handball champion back home, popularizes the sport in Brooklyn, New York. U.S. Intercollegiate LaCross Association founded. John L. Sullivan won the world heavyweight bare knuckle boxing championship by defeating champion Paddy Ryan in a nine-round bout in Mississippi City, Mississippi. He followed that with a national tour where he offered $500 to any man who could last four rounds with him, using Marquis of Queensberry rules. He held the championship for ten years.
"The Public be damned!" uttered by William H. Vanderbilt when asked by a reporter if he was running the New York Central railroad for the public or the stockholders.
AAUW, American Association of University Women organized.
Helen Keller's fever takes her sight and hearing
Franklin D. Roosevelt born. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, died (born 1807). Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher, died (born 1803).
Thomas Edison designs a hydroelectric plant for Appleton, Wisconsin.
American Baseball Association founded
Worldwide: Aleksei Tolstoy, Russian novelist, is born (died 1945). Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy is signed (your basic axis of evil). German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche proclaims the death of God in Thus Spake Zarathustra . In Ireland, the Kilmainham agreement signed between Charles S. Parnell and the British government; the year is marked by assassinations there. Three-mile limit for territorial waters agreed upon at Hague Convention. The British occupy Cairo. Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright, publishes An enemy of the people . Virginia Woolf, English novelist, born. James Joyce, Irish novelist, born. Anthony Trollope, Engish novelist, died (born 1815). Charles Darwin, British naturalist, died (born 1809). Paul Cezanne paints Self Portrait . Edouard Manet, French Impressionist, paints The Bar at Folies Bergere . Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer, born (died 1971). Petr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer, pens 1812 Overture . Gilbert & Sullivan publish Iolanthe in England. Richard Wagner's opera Parcifal introduced at Bayreuth. Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra founded. Claude DeBussy, the leading French Impressionist composer, writes his orchestral suite, Le Printemps. Viennese physician Joseph Breuer uses hypnosis to treat hysteria — the beginning of psychoanalyis. English engineer Hiram S. Maxim patents recoil-operated machine gun. World exhibition in Moscow. Robert Koch, German bacteriologist, discovers the tuberculosis bacillus and devised techniques for identifying bacteria under the microscope by the use of dyes.
Jan. 2: John D. Rockefeller's attorney for the Standard Oil Company, Samuel C.T. Dodd, designs the first trust, a means of legally controlling, under one management, several companies owned in more than one state. Trusts soon insured monopolistic control of industries such as sugar and tobacco processing.
March 16: U.S. Senate ratified the Geneva Convention of 1864, which regulated the care of wounded war personnel and was accepted by most European nations. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, lobbied for it.
March 22: Edmunds Act in Congress prohibits polygamists from voting or holding office.
March 29: The Knights of Columbus chartered in New Haven, Connecticut, the first fraternal benefit society of Catholic men.
March 31: Pensions for widows of presidents authorized by Congress. $5,000 per year allowed for Mrs. Polk, Mrs. Tyler and Mrs. Garfield.
April 3: Robert Ford shoots bandit Jesse James after the Missouri governor offers a bounty. After his brother's death, Frank James surrendered and was acquitted of all charges against him; he lived out his long life on his Missouri farm and sold tickets for admission to the site of Jesse's death.
April 4: President Arthur vetoes bill to restrict Chinese labor immigration for 20 years because it is a violation of the Burlingame Treaty. May 6: Chinese Exclusion Act passed to bar Chinese laborers from entering U.S. for ten years; extended for ten more years in 1892 and again in 1902. Ben Ure, who has an island named for him near Deception pass, became famous for smuggling contraband Chinese into Puget sound over the next two decades
May 15: Tariff commission authorized by Congress. Nine men from "civil life" appointed by the president.
May 22: U.S. signs treaty of commerce and friendship with Korea as an independent state. Senate consents Feb. 13, 1883.
August 6: Rivers and Harbors Bill passed by Congress over president's veto, authorizing $18 million for public works, too late to help with the log jams of Mount Vernon, which had been cleared by private subscription and volunteers. A model for pork barrel legislation.
Aug. 3: federal law restricts immigration as Congress passes a bill for a head tax of 50 cents on each immigrant and also excluded convicts, the insane and persons likely to become public charges. States had tried to impose such taxes themselves but the Supreme Court declared such laws unconstitutional in 1876, insisting that only Congress has the right to regulate foreign commerce. More than five million immigrants arrived from 1881-90.
Sept. 4: Thomas Edison constructs the first central electric power plant in the world on Pearl street in New York City with one generator.
Sept. 5: First Labor Day parade held in New York, inaugurated by Knights of Labor.
Sept. 25: First major league baseball double header played between teams of Providence and Worcester.
Nov. 6: Lily Langtree appears in Shakespeare's As you like it in New York City, after her acting debut in London in December 1881. Her scandalous reputation back home sold tickets.
Nov. 7: Congressional elections — Democrats gained 50 seats in the House to take a 197-118 majority, ten seats held by minor parties. Republicans gained one seat in the Senate to take a 38-36 majority, two seats by minority parties.
Nov. 7: Grover Cleveland elected governor of New York as Democrat with plurality of more than 190,000, just a year after being elected as mayor of Buffalo.
Dec. 4: Tariff commission submits surprising report to Congress, recommending substantial reductions. In those years, Democrats were generally supporters of a low tariff that would not restrict imports; Republicans supported a high tariff. Republican President Arthur supported the report, one more contradiction in the assumptions made about him. During that year, Arthur also proposed modernization of the U.S. Navy for the first time since the Civil War.
Dec. 19: San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company — Supreme Court hears Roscoe Conkling arguing that one purpose of the 14th amendment was to protect rights of corporations as persons.

1883

Northern Pacific Railroad sent agents to Europe and British Isles to encourage immigration to the Pacific Northwest. Amos Bowman publishes flyers from Anacortes. Southern Immigration Association formed to encourage European immigration to the south.
Joseph Pulitzer buys the New York World from financier Jay Gould, another of his influential moves that marked his leadership in U.S. newspapers. Ladies Home Journal founded in Philadelphia, Mrs. Cyrus H.K. Curtis, editor
History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War, vol. 1 of 8, by J.B. McMaster, published. Dynamic Sociology by Lester Frank Ward published, marked as beginning of American study of sociology.
Actor and U.S. army scout William "Buffalo Bill" Cody begins production of this Wild West Show.
The Metropolitan Opera House opens in New York City.
Worldwide: Ferdinand de Lesseps began construction of Panama Canal for French Canal Co. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduces illness, accident and old-age insurance. Clement Attlee, British socialist politician, born (died 1967). Benito Mussolini, Italian Fascist dictator, born (died 1945). Britain evacuates the Sudan. Edward FitzGerald died (born 1809); he was most famous for his translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam . Ivan Turgenev, Russian novelist, died (born 1818). Franz Kafka, Austrian novelist, born (died 1924). Guy de Maupassant, French novelist, published Une Vie . Karl Marx died (born 1818). Fabian Society founded in London. Edouard Manet, French Impressionist painter, died (born 1833), painting until near the end, still refused to exhibit with the other Impressionists. Auguste Renoir, French Impressionist painter, paints Umbrellas . Richard Wagner, German opera composer, died (born 1813). William Thomson, British scientist — who later became Lord Kelvin, published On the Size of Atoms . Robert Koch, German bacteriologist, describes a method of preventive inoculation against anthrax. The Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul makes its first run. World Exhibition opens in Amsterdam.
Jan. 16: Pendleton Act passed by Congress, the birth of the modern civil service. Sponsored by Democratic Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio. President Arthur pledged early on to cooperate with the legislative branch to end the practice of granting civil service positions as political rewards. The act provided for the president to appoint a three-member bipartisan commission to administer competitive examinations to determine fitness on a merit basis. The act also prohibited collection of campaign funds from federal employees. Republicans were partially influenced by the success of Democrats in their large gain of House seats in 1882 and thought this might protect their Republican employees should the Democrats score gains again in 1884 [they did not].
March 3: Secretary of Navy authorized by Congress to construct three steel cruisers and one dispatch boat; begins steel navy.
March 3: Letter postage actually reduced to two cents for a half ounce by act of Congress.
March 26: William K. Vanderbilt worships excess with a fancy-dress ball, featuring the most sumptuous entertainment ever.
May 24: New York City celebrates the grand opening of the Brooklyn Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, commissioned in 1867. Washington A. Roebling was the designer, after replacing his late father, John A. Roebling. His father died in 1869 after a barge crushed his foot and John was also felled by nitrogen narcosis, which led him to direct the construction from 1872 on from an apartment overlooking the site. President Arthur and Governor Cleveland attended.
Sept. 8: Northern Pacific Railroad completed with the "last spike" ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana, under Henry Villard, president. Actually it was not yet transcontinental; the Cascade range was still not crossed and would not be for four years.
Sept. 21: Telegraph connection established between U.S. and Brazil.
Oct. 15: Supreme Court declares Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional except as it relates to jury duty and interstate travel. The Act granted equal rights in public places to blacks.
Nov. 8: Standard time established for the whole country, with adoption of four zones by railroads.

1884

In the long-term, the most important cultural event of 1884 was the publication of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, considered Samuel Clemens's finest book.
Congress passes the Organic Act of 1884, providing a civil government for Alaska
The Linotype automatic typesetting machine, which could form an entire line of type as one piece of metal, was patented by Ottmar Mergenthaler, who also patented improvements for it in 1885. His invention revolutionized the publishing industry and increased productivity many fold from the days when all type was set by hand by individual letters.
John Fiske wrote Excursions of an Evolutionist and The Destiny of Man in the Light of His Origin as the foremost defender of Darwinism in the U.S. Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona, which was very widely read as an impassioned plea for justice for the American Indians. Montcalm and Wolfe by Francis Parkman was the fifth of six volumes about French and English relations in North America. Mary Noailles Murfree used the pseudonym Charles Egbert Craddock for the book, In the Tennessee Mountains, the first collection of short stories with a combination of realistic settings and genuine Cumberland mountains dialect. Damon Runyon, American author, born (died 1946).
Long distance telephone service established between New York and Boston with use of double wire of copper
William LeBaron Jenney (1832-1907) designs the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago with use of steel framework, generally known as the world's first skyscraper (built in 1885)
Dr. James Woodrow forced out of Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, for support of doctrine of evolution.
Political cartoons made a feature of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World in support of Grover Cleveland's campaign for president
Severe coal strikes occurred in Pennsylvania and Ohio
79 national and local learned societies were formed in the 1870s and another 121 in the '80s. The American Historical Association was formed in 1884. American Catholic Historical Society organized. American Institute of Electrical Engineers founded.
Following Vanderbilt's lead, other mega-wealthy businessman build castles. Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate, erected a mansion on Fifth avenue in New York City that had gold plumbing fixtures. The Potter Palmers, society leaders in Chicago, built a castle-like mansion with a tower 80 feet high. James C. Flood built the first castle in San Francisco with his mining fortune. It had 42 rooms and a was surrounded by a block-long bronze fence that required the full-time services of a man just to polish it daily.
Moses Walker is the first black player to appear in a professional baseball game
People can now make long distance phone calls
Waterman's fountain pen blots out earlier version
John Singer Sargent, while living abroad, exhibited his painting, Mme. Gautreau, his portrait of a lady in a decollete black dress. Critics decried it for being erotic and provocative. Sargent bowed to the charges and withdrew the portrait to his studio until 1915, renaming it Madame X. Considered one of his masterpieces.
Worldwide: The war in South America that started in 1880 with Chile against Bolivia and Peru ends with annexation by Chile of rich copper fields. France establishes protectorates over Annam (central Vietnam) and Tonkin (northern Vietnam), after colonizing Cochin China (southern Vietnam) in 1867. The first underground railroad is built in London and is called "The Tube." Salon des Independants debuts in Paris for artists. Germans occupy South-West Africa. Berlin Conference of 14 nations on African affairs. French law excludes members of former dynasties from presidency. Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright, publishes The Wild Duck . Divorce reestablished in France. Herbert Spencer, English philosopher, publishes The man versus the state. Oxford English Dictionary begins publication. George Bernard Shaw, English playwright, becomes a member of the Fabian Society. Auguste Rodin sculpts The Burghers of Calais . Amedeo Modigliani, Italian painter, born (died 1920). Johannes Brahms, German composer, introduces Symphony No. 3 in F major, Opus 90 . Arthur Nicolaier, German physicist, discovers tetanus bacillus. Sir Charles Parsons invents first practical steam turbine engine. Le Matin newspaper in Paris begins publication. Gold discovered in the Transvaal, rise of Johannesburg.
Jan. 2: Discriminating duties in trade with Cuba and Puerto Rico removed in executive agreement with Spain.
March 3: Julliard v. Greenman, Supreme Court declares Congress has power to make treasury notes legal tender in peacetime as well as in war.
March 4: Iowa adopts state prohibition, following Kansas.
April 22: The United States formally recognizes King Leopold's Congo regime
May 6: Failure of stock exchange firm of Grant and Ward, New York. Ulysses S. Grant loses fortune after lending his name to the business.
May 14: Financial crisis in New York City. Panic follows and bank failures rise to 10,968 in U.S.
May 14: National Anti-Monopoly party convention meets at Chicago. Nominates Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts for president. May 28: National Greenback party convention meets at Indianapolis. Nominates Gen. Benjamin F. Butler for President and Alanson M. West of Mississippi for vice president.
Butler, an old Grant Stalwart, was famous for two of his rhetorical statements that drew much heat and ire. Back during the Civil War, when Union troops occupied New Orleans, Butler took offense when Confederate women insulted Union soldiers. He issued an order that such persons should be treated "as a woman of the town plying her avocation." Later, as a Republican Representative to Congress from Massachusetts, he displayed before his colleagues the bloodstained shirt of a Union soldier who had been flogged in Mississippi, in order to remind Republicans and readers back home about Southern Democrats' actions. This tactic has become known as "waving the bloody shirt" to diverting attention from politically embarrassing issues.
May 29: Bureau of Animal Industry in Department of Agriculture established by act of Congress.
June 3-6: Republican National Convention meets at Chicago. Nominates James G. Blaine of Maine for President on fourth ballot June 6, and General John A. Logan of Illinois for vice president. This was payback for Blaine against President Arthur, who had replaced him in the cabinet and who openly declared that he wanted to run again. Logan was from the former Stalwart faction, which only lukewarmly campaigned for Blaine. Reformers from within the party announced that they would bolt their party if the Democrats chose a nominee whom they could support. The term Mugwump was applied to those bolters, a derogatory twist on the Algonquin Indian word for "great chief." New York Sun editor Charles Dana coined the term.
June 16: Mugwumps reform wing of Republican Party hold conference in New York City, George William Curtis (civil service) presiding, make overtures to Democrats.
June 27: Bureau of Labor in Department of Interior established by act of Congress.
July 5: Second Chinese Exclusion Act makes more rigid restrictions.
July 8-11: Democratic National Convention meets at Chicago. Nominates Grover Cleveland, governor of New York, for president and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana for vice president. Hendricks was Tilden's running mate in the famous disputed 1876 presidential election.
July 23: Prohibition party meets in convention at Pittsburgh. Nominates John P. St. John of Kansas for President and William Daniel of Maryland for vice president.
July 30: National Labor party meets at Chicago. Nominates Grover Cleveland for president and Thomas A. Hendricks for vice president.
August 5: The cornerstone of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty laid at Bedloe's island (now Liberty island) in New York Harbor.
Summer: A popular taunt of the time went: "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine. As you can see, political nastiness did not start in the Clinton era.
Summer: Blaine is embarrassed by publication of the Mulligan letters in Harper's Weekly during May through September, in which he wrote about how he accepted money in 1869 for securing a land grant for Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad in Arkansas. Originally leaked partially in 1876, some of the letters contained a damning postscript: "burn this letter."
Summer: National Equal Rights Party formed by group of suffragists who nominated Belva A. Lockwood of Washington, D.C. for president, the first woman nominated for the office and the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.
Summer: Republicans countered the attacks on Blaine by accusing Cleveland of having fathered an illegitimate child.
Oct. 9: The final nail in Blaine's political coffin was a speech by the Rev. Samuel D. Burchard to a rally of pro-Blaine clergymen in New York. Called the Burchard Break, his remarks included a reference to the Democratic Party as "the party whose antecedents are rum, Romanism and Rebellion. Instead of repudiating his remarks, Burchard stood by them, infuriating Irish leaders who had been a major base of Blaine votes. After he lost New York by less than 1,200 votes, Blaine called Burchard as "an ass in the shape of a preacher."
Oct. 13: International Prime Meridian conference, meeting at Washington, decides upon Greenwich, England, as the common prime meridian for the world, affecting both time zones and land boundaries in the future.
Nov. 4: Democrats Cleveland and Hendricks elected by the electoral vote of 219 to 182 even though they had a popular plurality of only 63,000 in more than 9.72 million votes. The financial crisis also contributed to Blaine's defeat. In hindsight, Republicans realized that they had bet on the wrong horse and that the incumbent President Arthur might have drawn just enough votes as a real reformer to beat Cleveland.
Congressional election: Republicans gained five seats in the Senate to lead 43-34. They also gained in the House, 22 seats, but the Democrats were still in the majority, 183-140. Robert M. LaFollette, Republican of Wisconsin, was elected to his first term in the House, decades before he became the leading Progressive in the country. One of his best friends later on was Dr. C.C. Harbaugh of Sedro-Woolley.
Nov. 8: A syndicate was founded by Samuel Sidney McClure, an Irish immigrant, to distribute both news and feature material from member newspapers to other papers around the country for a fee. McClure would publish his namesake magazine nine years later.

Capsule of President Chester Arthur Chester A. Arthur was the fifth child of a fervent abolitionist preacher who moved his family from one Baptist parish to the next throughout New York and Vermont. His college days were undistinguished, marked mainly by his political demonstrations. Arthur went on to practice law for one of the most prominent law firms in New York, aiding in some of the most crucial cases of the day including some that death with the rights of African Americans. Arthur worked actively for the political machine of Roscoe Conkling, a New York Republican party boss and U.S. senator who used patronage and party discipline to advance his power in the state. The machine advanced the interests of the vast stream of immigrants in return for their votes, often when they had not established residency or citizenship. Recognizing the administrative genius that Arthur demonstrated as quartermaster general for all of New York during the Civil War,, Conkling helped Arthur get appointed as Collector of the Port of New York under Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. While there is no evidence of blatant corruption on Arthur's part, the New York Customs House under his leadership routinely collected kickbacks of salary from customs house employees to support the Republican party. President Hayes fired him, as noted above.
Conkling assumed that Arthur would stay in his camp after he was elected as vice president, and Arthur did become estranged from Garfield when he refused to join attempts to reform civil service. But when he ascended to President after Garfield's assassination, Arthur surprised everyone by acting independently and defying Conkling. Indeed, one of Arthur's strongest legacies is his role in support of the Pendleton Act, which attempted to counter patronage and cronyism by requiring competitive exams for government office. Specifically, the law banned salary kickbacks and insured that promotion would be based on merit, not connections. He also ran counter to his own Republican Party when he pushed for tariff reduction to relieve indebted farmers and middle-class consumers; Republicans usually supported high tariffs to protect big business and manufacturing. In keeping with Republican and popular opinion, Arthur supported the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, banning Chinese immigration for ten years and forbidding Chinese citizenship. Arthur picked up where Lucretia Garfield left off with a project to refurbish the White House. Known as a man of elegant taste who loved to throw lavish parties, Arthur came to the presidency as "The Gentleman Boss" of New York. Disgusted with the shabby look of the executive mansion, Arthur hired the most famous designer in New York, Louis Comfort Tiffany, to transform it into a showplace befitting the office. Arthur loved to showcase his two children at White House social affairs, but did not care for family life. His wife, Ellen Lewis Herndon, died before he assumed office. He much preferred fishing, feasting with his cronies and administrative work. Because he knew that he suffered from a fatal kidney disease, Arthur did not actively seek reelection for a second term and died two years after leaving office. Arthur's administration marks a period of transition in American politics because he encouraged women to take an active role in politics. His era was marked by groups pressing strongly for women's suffrage and temperance and moves toward addressing social justice issues related to poverty, child labor, government regulation, and immigration. Despite having advanced in his career through managing the New York political machine, Arthur showed tremendous flexibility and a willingness to embrace reform.

Sources

Brun, Bernard, The Timetables of History, New York: Touchstone Books-Simon and Schuster, 1982.
Who did what, Illustrated Biographical Dictionary, New York: Gallery Books, 1985.
Kull, Irving S. and Nell M., A short chronology of American history, 1492-1950, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1952.
Carruth, Gordon, What happened when, a chronology of life & events in America, New York: Signet-Penguin Books, 1991.
Atkins, Robert, Artspoke, a guide to modern ideas, movements and buzzwords, 1848-1944, New York: Abbeville Press, 1993.
Kronenberger, Louis and Emily Morison Beck, ed., Brief Lives, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1971.
Rice, Arnold S. and John A. Krout, United States history from 1865, New York: Harper Collins., 1991.

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