1890
1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890
Kaiser Wilhelm forces Prince von Bismarck to resign as prime minister March 18; he is caricatured for having "dropped the pilot" who united the German states and inaugurated signal reforms in German society.
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by former Naval War College president Alfred T. Mahan, now 50, demonstrates the decisive role of naval strength and will have enormous influence in encouraging the world powers to develop powerful navies. Mahan's objective is to have Congress strengthen the U.S. Navy, which last year launched its first battleship but depends chiefly on its White Squadron of three small cruisers and a dispatch boat. His book is eagerly read in Britain, whose Royal Navy has long controlled the seas, as well as in Russia, Japan, and Germany, where Kaiser Wilhelm II orders a copy placed in the library of every warship and pushes for a strong German Navy (see 1898).
Charles Stewart Parnell denies Captain William O'Shea's charges of adultery (see 1889). Katherine O'Shea files charges of neglect and crulety against her husband in June, claiming that he had an affair with her sister Anna and that he encouraged her to have an affair with Parnell. Katherine's beloved Aunt Ben (Anna Maria Wood) died last year at age 95, leaving a substantial estate to her favorite niece, who has been trying to avoid a scandal that might jeopardize her inheritance; Katherine's siblings are contesting the will. Irish Nationalist Party leaders William O'Brien, 38, and John Dillon, 39, initially expressed support for Parnell (Dillon was Parnell's prison mate at Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol from May 1881 to May 1882) but now decide that he will be a political liability. The case of O'Shea v. O'Shea and Parnell goes to trial November 15. It is grist for the mills of music-hall comedians and cartoonists as well as newspaper reporters worldwide, a special jury finds in the plaintiff's favor, Parnell loses his leadership of the Irish Nationalist Party December 2, and Katie O'Shea comes under attack as "the Political Princess—O'Shea Who Must Be Obeyed," "the were-wolf woman of Irish politics," and the evil genius who has set back the cause of Irish home rule. Newspapers publish letters referring to Mrs. O'Shea as "the Uncrowned Queen of Ireland" (see 1891).
Willem III of the Netherlands dies at Apeldoorn November 23 at age 73 after a 34-year reign in which he has been unable to block Liberal Party control of the government. His second wife, Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont, has served as regent during his final illness and continues in that role as Willem is succeeded by his 10-year-old daughter, who will rule in her own right from 1898 until 1948 as Wilhelmina I.
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg splits from the Netherlands upon the death of Willem III (see 1867). The Luxembourg crown passes to the elder branch of the house of Nassau, whose family will rule into the 21st century.
Britain challenges Portuguese claims to territory in southeastern Africa, issuing an ultimatum January 11 that demands immediate withdrawal of Lisbon's forces from disputed regions, implicitly threatening the use of naval power and, ultimately, an end to the Anglo-Portuguese alliance that has existed since 1386 (see 1885). Lisbon yields, and the backdown produces outrage by imperialists throughout Portugal, strengthening the hand of the republican opposition (see 1891).
An Anglo-German agreement resolves disputes in East Africa July 1: the Germans give up all claims to Uganda and receive the little island of Heligoland in the North Sea, obtained by Britain from Denmark in 1815 (see 1886). Berlin recognizes the protectorate over Zanzibar established by Britain June 14; the pact excludes Lake Albert from German influence, ending the expedition undertaken by former Equatoria governor Mehmed Emin (see 1889; 1891).
Cecil Rhodes becomes prime minister of Africa's Cape Colony July 17 and adds the political post to his position as head of De Beers Mining, Consolidated Gold Fields, and British South African Railway.
Berlin recognizes all the country north of latitude 1° South to be a British sphere of influence, the Imperial East Africa Company agrees to administer the territory on behalf of the British government, and Buganda's deposed ruler Mwanga is restored to power. The company's agent Captain F. D. (Frederick John Dealtry) Lugard, 32, selects the hill town of Kampala (elevation: 3,900 feet) as headquarters and leaves Mombasa in August with a caravan that will take 5 months to cross 800 miles of rough country to Buganda, where Lugard will make a treaty with Mwanga placing the country under the company's protection (see 1892; Mwanga, 1897). The German East Africa Company cedes all of its territorial rights to the German government October 28.
The Sikkim-Tibet Convention concluded between Britain and China redefines China's nominal sovereignty over Tibet and recognizes British rights in Sikkim following clashes in 1888 with British troops in Sikkim. The Tibetans have reportedly displayed a persistently hostile attitude toward their neighbors (see trade agreement, 1893).
Japan holds her first political elections July 11, but suffrage is limited to males over 25 who pay taxes of at least 15 yen per year (1.1 percent of the population), so only 453,474 drop their ballots in the small black lacquer ballot boxes (see 1929). The first Japanese Diet opens November 29 as members elected in July take their seats.
Argentina's president Miguel Juárez Celman resigns under pressure in July following a revolt that has support from the military. Inflation has led to widespread dissatisfaction, the president has been reluctant to take the necessary steps to restore the value of the peso, and he is succeeded by his vice president Carlos Pellegrini, who has the support of former president Roca.
Former California provincial governor Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo dies at his Sonoma farm January 18 at age 81, having lost all his property except 225 acres; soldier and Indian fighter General George Crook dies at Chicago March 21 at age 60; former explorer, soldier, and political leader John C. Frémont on a visit to New York July 13 at age 77; former Union Army general and onetime secretary of war William W. Belknap at St. Louis October 13 at age 61; former Union Army general and Indian fighter Alfred H. Terry at New Haven, Connecticut, December 16 at age 63.
Idaho is admitted to the Union July 3 as the 43rd state, Wyoming July 10 as the 44th. Wyoming has insisted on retaining woman suffrage as a condition of joining.
Mississippi institutes a poll tax, literacy tests, and other measures designed to restrict voting by blacks. Other southern states will impose similar restrictions (see 1898).
Sioux lands in South Dakota that were ceded to the U.S. government last year open to settlement February 10 under terms of a presidential proclamation that makes 11 million acres available to homesteaders.
The Blackfoot chief Crowfoot (Isapo Muxka) dies on his Alberta reservation April 25.
Secretary of the Interior John W. Noble, 57, appoints Albert K. Smiley, now 61, chair of a commission delegated to select reservations for California's Mission Indians (see 1883; Dawes Plan, 1887). The commission establishes St. Mary's mission near Ukiah in Mendocino County. California's tribes have been more diverse than those of any other state (philologists recognize 22 of the 46 linquistic stocks native to what is now the United States as native to California), but although they once numbered about 50,000 the tribesmen (Pomo [or Kulanapan], Yukian, Wintun [or Copehan], Costanoan, Esselen, Yokuts [or Mariposan], Shoshonean, and other groups) have dwindled to a few thousand. Smiley buys about 200 acres of land south of Redlands where he and his twin brother, Alfred, build winter homes.
U.S. troops arrest Sioux chief Sitting Bull of 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn fame after a skirmish December 15 and Indian police shoot him dead at Grand River as Sioux warriors of the Ghost Dance uprising try to rescue him (see 1889). The "Battle" of Wounded Knee December 29 ends the last major Indian resistance to white settlement in America. Nearly 500 well-armed troopers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, some with Hotchkiss artillery, massacre an estimated 300 (out of 350) Sioux men, women, and children in a South Dakota encampment. The army takes only 35 casualties, mostly from stray bullets fired by troopers or from artillery shrapnel.
The National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association merge into the National American Woman Suffrage Association, largely through the efforts of Orange, New Jersey-born suffragist Alice Stone Blackwell, 32, who since 1882 has edited the leading suffragist newspaper, the Woman's Journal. Blackwell is the only child of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell and a niece of feminist leaders Elizabeth Blackwell and Antoinette Brown Blackwell.
An article on "The Right to Privacy" by Louisville, Kentucky-born Boston lawyer Louis D. (Dembitz) Brandeis, 33, and Samuel Warren in the Harvard Law Review broadens the idea of privacy rights beyond protection against intangible intrusions resulting in measurable injury. Federal courts in the next few decades will establish constitutional safeguards influenced by the article (see Supreme Court, 1916).
Salisbury is founded September 12 by the British South Africa Company in the Mashonaland territory that will become Rhodesia in 1893.
The United Mine Workers of America organized January 25 is an affiliate of the 4-year-old American Federation of Labor (AFL).
The U.S. Supreme Court virtually overrules its 1877 decision upholding state regulation of business March 24. The court's decision in Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul Railroad v. Minnesota denies Minnesota's right to control railroad rates and in effect reverses the court's ruling in Munn v. Illinois.
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed by Congress July 2 curtails the powers of U.S. business monopolies: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal." But the new law will have little initial effect; legally or illegally, railroads, petroleum refiners, sugar refiners, meat packers, margarine makers, distillers, and others will continue to make price-fixing agreements and block efforts by newcomers to enter their industries (see Clayton Act, 1914).
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act passed by Congress July 14 supersedes the Bland-Allison Act of 1878 but continues government support of silver prices (see 1893).
The Consumers' League of New York is founded by former State Board of Charities commissioner Josephine Shaw Lowell, now 46, and Maud Nathan, 27, sister of the reformer Annie Nathan who had a major role in founding Barnard College last year. The league is the first organization of its kind (see National Consumers' League, 1900).
New York garment workers win the right to organize July 25 after a 7-month strike, securing agreements for a closed shop and firing of all scabs (see ILGWU, 1896).
The Knights of Labor strike the New York Central Railroad August 8.
The new United Mine Workers (UMW) union issues a strike order September 17 to its 9,000 members, 125,000 anthracite workers are off the job with a week, and 96 percent of coal mine production shuts down (see 1897).
The McKinley Tariff Act passed by Congress October 1 increases the average U.S. import duty to its highest level yet, but while the average is roughly 50 percent, the act does provide for reciprocal tariff-lowering agreements with other countries.
The Bilbao bourse is founded in Spain (see Valencia, 1830). Trading on the exchange will continue for more than 107 years.
Wall Street has a panic in November as the London banking house Baring Brothers fails and English investors dump U.S. securities. Barings will recover and continue for more than a century.
Financier August Belmont dies at New York November 24 at age 73.
The Peruvian government escapes bankruptcy with help from New York financier W. R. Grace, who assumes the debt of two bond issues in return for concessions that give him virtual control of nearly all the country's developed and undeveloped resources, including the rich Cerro de Pasco silver mines, all the Peruvian guano deposits, 5 million acres of oil and mineral lands, and several railroad leases (see Grace, 1865). Peru's treasury has been drained by the War of the Pacific that ended in 1884 and by the costs of financing the railroads built by the late Henry R. Meiggs. Now 58, Grace has twice been elected mayor of New York (1880 and 1884), he will organize the New York & Pacific Steamship Company next year, will later add Grace Steamship, and in 1895 will combine his New York and Peruvian holdings into William R. Grace and Company, which will expand with agricultural, banking, chemical, mercantile, and utility investments in North and South America.
Sun Oil Company of Ohio is founded March 17 by Joseph N. Pew, now 42, who produces, transports, and stores petroleum which he refines into kerosene, lubricating oil, and other products (see 1886). Pew will acquire other companies and market his products under the name Sunoco (see 1901).
Royal Dutch Company for Exploitation of Oil Wells in the Dutch East Indies (N.V. Koninklijke Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Petroelumbronnen in Nederlandsch-Indië) is incorporated at Amsterdam June 16 by Dutch bankers, businessmen, and former colonial administrators. Capitalized initially at 1.3 million guilders, it taps the oil fields found 10 years ago by A. J. Zijlker near Pangkalan Branden, Sumatra, and will develop its first pipeline and refinery there in 1892 (see Shell, 1892; Deterding, 1900). Indonesian petroleum pioneer Aeilko Jans Zijlker leaves Batavia for Delhi in the fall but comes down with a tropical disease and dies at Singapore at age 60 (approximate) (see Kessler, 1891).
Ever Ready batteries are introduced by National Carbon Company. They are the first commercial dry cell batteries (see Leclanche, 1867).
Japan's first factory for the manufacture of incandescent light bulbs opens in Tokyo's Kyobashi section under the name Hakunetsu-sha & Company Ltd. Entrepreneurs Ichisuke Fukoka and Shoichi Miyoshi have started the company, which will produce Japan's first waterwheel power generators (60 kilowatt) in 1894, make Japan's first electric fans, diversify into consumer products, and rename itself Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co.) in 1899 (see 1915).
Scotland's Firth of Forth Bridge opens March 4 just west of Edinburgh, replacing the Firth of Tay Bridge destroyed in 1879. Building the new cantilever span has cost 57 lives; designed by Sir John Fowler, now 72, and Sir Benjamin Baker, 49 it will carry trains across the estuary well into the 21st century.
Nellie Bly boards the S.S. Oceanic at Yokohama January 7 and sails for San Francisco after having crossed the Atlantic, Europe, and Asia in her well-publicized attempt to girdle the earth in less than 80 days (see 1889). Advised at San Francisco that the purser has left the ship's bill of health at Yokohama and that nobody may leave the ship for 2 weeks, the New York World reporter threatens to jump overboard and swim but is put on a tug and taken ashore, her train across the continent detours to avoid blizzards and is almost derailed when it hits a handcar, but she pulls into Jersey City at 3:41 in the afternoon of January 25 after a journey of 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, 14 seconds (see Mears, 1913).
Railroad-related accidents kill 10,000 Americans and seriously injure 80,000.
A law adopted by Congress September 29 requires railroads to forfeit land grants of unusual size.
The United States has 125,000 miles of railroad in operation, Britain 20,073 miles, and Russia 19,000.
The world's first electric underground railway goes into service at London in December, and the coke-burning locomotives that have operated since 1863 are retired. The City & South London Railway runs from King William Street in the City to Stockwell; the long, narrow coaches of its three-carriage trains have high-backed cushioned seats but no windows; and gatemen on platforms at the end of each carriage call out the names of stations and open the doors for passengers. A tube ride to any point on the new Underground costs twopence, but only 96 people can ride at a time, the underpowered locomotives are subject to blackouts, and the venture is not a commercial success (see 1898; Budapest, 1896).
Gottfried Daimler founds Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft at Bad Cannstatt in partnership with engineer Wilhelm Maybach, whose carburetor will be widely used beginning in 1893 (see 1887; 1901; British Daimler, 1896).
Buffalo, New York-born U.S. Patent and Trademark Office engineer Herman Hollerith, 30, pioneers punch-card processing (and modern computers). A former Census Bureau worker, Hollerith may not be familiar with techniques employed in the Jacquard loom of 1801 and the player piano of 1876, but he has devised a system for punching holes in sheets of paper to record U.S. census statistics (see Babbage, Lovelace, 1842), basing it partly on the "punch photographs" used by railroad conductors to punch in passenger information (e.g., color of hair and eyes) and thereby prevent illegal swapping of tickets. He calls it a "national punch photograph," his cards are the size of dollar bills and fit into the storage files and other equipment used by banks, they enable the Census Bureau to total its results in just 6 weeks (the 1880 census of a smaller population took 7 years to count), and machine-counting saves the government $5 million (see Tabulating Machine Co., 1896).
Engineer James Nasmyth dies at London May 7 at age 81, having advanced the Industrial Revolution with his 1839 steam hammer. He retired in 1856 to devote himself to astronomy, which was his consuming hobby; chemist Alexander Parkes dies at West Dulwich outside London June 29 at age 86, having pioneered plastics and made significant contributions to metallurgy.
The discovery of high-grade iron ore deposits close to the surface in Minnesota's Mesabi region November 16 by Chautauqua County, New York-born prospector Leonidas Merritt, 46, and his brother Alfred helps U.S. steelmakers by providing a cheap source of easily available raw materials for their furnaces (see Michigan, 1848). The Merritts have filed claimed on the land and organized the Mountain Iron Company in July to exploit what will prove to be the world's richest iron-ore lode.
Microbiologist Sergei Winogradsky isolates the microorganisms in soil that are responsible for nitrification—the oxidation of ammonium salts to nitrites and of nitrates to nitrates (see 1887). Now at the University of Zürich, Winogradsky calls the nitrite formers Nitrosomonas and the nitrite formers Nitrosococcus (or Nitrobacter), establishing two new genera. He will soon move to the Imperial Institute of Experimental Medicine at St. Petersburg, where he will propose new ways to study soil bacteria, especially those that fix nitrogen symbiotically in legumes (see Haber process, 1908).
Dutch anatomist-geologist (Marie) Eugène (François Thomas) Dubois, 32, goes to the East Indies as a military surgeon and begins excavations in caves on Sumatra in search of early hominid remains (see 1891).
Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann dies at Naples December 26 at age 68. His widow, Sophia, will continue the excavations of what he claimed to be the site of ancient Troy (see Blegen, 1932)
Berlin bacteriologists Emil von Behring, 36, and Shibasaburo Kitasato at Robert Koch's laboratory in Berlin produce the first tetanus antitoxin (see 1889). They immunize animals by injecting minute amounts of toxin and find that the animals produce antibodies. Katasato will return to Japan in 1892 and establish a laboratory that will be incorporated in 1999 as the Imperial Japanese Institute for the Study of Infectious Diseases.
Emil von Behring and Shibasaburo Kitasato produce the first diphtheria antitoxin serum, pioneering rational therapy for infectious diseases (see Roux and Yersin, 1889). Having injected sublethal doses of diphtheria filtrate into animals and produced a serum that is specifically capable of neutralizing the toxin, they have then injected the serum into an uninfected animal to prevent an infection (see 1891; Biggs, 1894).
New York State requires physicians to apply prophylactic drops to the eyes of newborn infants (see Crede, 1884). The state legislature enacts the Howe Law drafted by Buffalo ophthalmologist-legislator Lucien Howe, 42, and most states will enact similar laws to combat blindness caused by gonorrheal infection (see Barnes, 1902).
Guys Hospital physician Sir William Withey Gull dies at London January 29 at age 73, having become the richest English physician yet, thanks to his fashionable private practice in Harley Street (his patients have included Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales); public health reformer Sir Edwin Chadwick dies at East Sheen, Surrey, July 6 at age 90 (he was knighted last year).
Roman Catholic theologian Johann von Döllinger dies at Munich January 10 at age 90; Rabbi Nathan M. Adler at Brighton, East Sussex, January 21 at age 87; Roman Catholic leader John Henry Cardinal Newman at Birmingham, England, August 11 at age 89.
Christmas becomes a U.S. federal holiday as Oklahoma Territory legislators adopt the example set by Alabama in 1836 and followed since then by the other states, but for many it will be something other than a religious holiday.
Chicago merchant Marshall Field donates 10 acres of land on Lake Michigan in January for a University of Chicago, which adopts its charter in May (see 1857; 1888). John D. Rockefeller gives the American Baptist Education Society 1 year beginning June 1 to raise $400,000 to supplement his own initial pledge of $600,000 (see 1891).
Only 3 percent of Americans aged 18 to 21 attend college. The figure will rise to 8 percent by 1930, but male students will still far outnumber females.
Tokyo Imperial University opens. Headed initially by Hiroyuki Kato, now 54, the new university will be Japan's most prestigious institution of higher learning.
The Daily Graphic begins publication at London January 4.
William Randolph Hearst of the San Francisco Examiner scores another coup (see 1887). When the city is unable to rescue five fishermen marooned in a storm on a rock outside the entrance to San Francisco Bay, Hearst and some staff members borrow a tugboat, brave the elements, save the men, and report that fact while the competition continues to run stories about their plight (see New York, 1895).
The Literary Digest begins publication with reprints of comment and opinion from other U.S. periodicals. The new weekly has been started by New York publisher Isaac Kaufmann Funk, 51, who publishes a Standard Dictionary of the English Language with his associate Adam Willis Wagnalls, 47 (see 1937; Reader's Digest, 1922).
Paris physics professor Edouard (Eugène Desiré) Branly, 43, pioneers wireless telegraphy with a demonstration that loose silver and zinc filings cohere (stick together) inside a glass tube when exposed to radiated electric waves (see Hertz, 1887; Loomis, 1872). He has observed a curious change in the resistance of thin metallic films when exposed to electric sparks. Further experiments by Branly will lead to the development of a coherer—a glass or ebonite tube containing metallic filings that connect the two ends of a wire conductor entering the tube: producing a spark between the terminals of an induction coil sharply reduces to hundreds of ohms the resistance of the filings, which regain their resistance to millions of ohms when the tube is tapped (see Lodge, 1894).
Japan gets her first female telephone operators. Ministry of Communication officials put their daughters to work as operators when advertisements fail to produce female applicants, and by next year all operators will be women. As in Western countries, Japanese switchboards will provide a major source of employment for women.
Typewriter inventor Christopher L. Sholes dies of tuberculosis at Milwaukee February 17 at age 71; news agency founder Baron Paul Julius von Reuter at Nice February 25 at age 72.
Nonfiction: How the Other Half Lives by Danish-born New York Evening Sun police reporter Jacob (August) Riis, 41, portrays slum life and the conditions that make for crime, vice, and disease; The Principles of Psychology by New York-born Harvard psychologist-philosopher William James, 48, who has taken 12 years to complete his definitive work on the subject. James last year met Danzig-born German psychologist-philosopher Hugo Münsterberg, now 27, at the First International Congress of Psychology in Paris and has been influenced by Münsterberg's writings; The Golden Bough (first volume) by Scottish anthropologist James (George) Frazer, 36, who will publish 15 further volumes in the next 25 years in a monumental exploration of the cults, legends, myths, and rites of the world and their influence on the development of religion (a one-volume abridged version will appear in 1922).
Orientalist Sir Richard Burton dies at Trieste October 20 at age 69. His widow, Isabel (née Arundell), burns the manuscript containing his full translation of The Perfumed Garden of Cheikh Nefzaoui: A Manual of Arabian Erotology.
Fiction: A Hazard of New Fortunes by William Dean Howells, who moved to New York from Boston 2 years ago and shows the conflict between striking workers and capitalist interests; Hunger (Sult) by Norwegian novelist Knut Hamsun (Knut Pedersen), 31, who returned to Norway last year after two extended visits in America during which he worked as a farmhand, Chicago streetcar conductor, and lecturer; S. G. Myre by Amalie Skram; The Sign of the Four by A. Conan Doyle is a new Sherlock Holmes detective novel.
Poetry: "Danny Deever" by Rudyard Kipling appears in the February 22 issue of the Scots Review, which follows it a week later with Kipling's ballad "Tommy"; Manasi by Calcutta poet Rabindranath Tagore, 29, who uses verse forms new to Bengali and satirizes his fellow Bengalis. A son of the religious reformer Debendranath Tagore, Rabindranath will go to East Bengal next year to manage his family's estates at Shilaidah and Shazadpur, where he will remain until 1900; Poems by Emily Dickinson is published at the urging of Lavinia Dickinson, whose late sister Emily died at her native Amherst, Massachusetts, 4 years ago at age 55 without ever having had any of her work appear under her own name. The book receives a cool reception from critics but has a good enough public response to warrant publication of more Emily Dickinson poems. New volumes will appear in 1891 and 1896, and by 1945 nearly all of her many hundreds of poems will have been published and her reputation as a major poet will be secure: "Because I could not stop for Death,/ He kindly stopped for me;/ The carriage held but just ourselves/ And Immortality"; The Sightless (Les Aveugles) by Maurice Maeterlinck; La Rèino Jano (verse tragedy) by Frédéric Mistral; "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, 25, whose first book of poetry appeared 4 years ago. His new poem begins, "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,/ And a small cabin build there."
Juvenile: Heart of Gold by English author L. T. Meade (Elizabeth Thomasina Smith [née Meade]), 36.
Author C. Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini) of 1881 Pinocchio fame dies at his native Florence October 26 at age 63.
Painting: Poplars by Claude Monet; The Cardplayers by Paul Cézanne; On the Threshold of Eternity, Chestnut Trees in Flower, A Field under a Starry Sky, The Auvers Stairs, Portrait of Doctor Gachet, Portrait of Adeline Ravoux, The Town Hall of Auvers on the Fourteenth of July, and Crows over the Wheat Fields (his last work) by Vincent van Gogh, who has left the sanitarium at Arles and traveled north to the village of Auvers-sur-Oise outside Paris for treatment by homeopathic physician-collector Paul Gachet, 62; A Young Woman Holding a Powder-Puff, Chahut, and The Channel at Gravelines, Evening by Georges Seurat; Sunday and Félix Fénéon by Seurat's Paris-born friend Paul Signac, 26; Mother and Child (Mme. de Fleury and her daughter) by Mary Cassatt; Breaking Home Ties by Irish-born U.S. painter Thomas Hovenden, 49, will be the most widely engraved painting in America. Vincent Van Gogh shoots himself July 27 at Auvers and dies there 2 days later at age 37, having produced more than 2,000 paintings and drawings but sold only one (Dr. Gachet removes any paintings that remain in his room).
French painter and critic Maurice Denis, 19, issues a "Manifesto of Symbolism," stating, "Remember that a painting, before being a battle horse, a nude, or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order." Denis is chief theoretician of a new group that calls itself the Nabi (from a Hebrew word meaning "prophet").
The "Gibson Girl" created by New York illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, 22, makes her first appearance in the humor weekly Life, whose editors have been buying Gibson drawings since 1886, initially for $4 each. Apprenticed briefly to sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Gibson studied at the Art Students League. Millions will share his conception of the ideal American girl, a paradigm that reflects the looks of Southern belle Irene Langhorne, now 17 and at finishing school in New York. She will marry Gibson in 1895 (see 1902).
Theater: Beau Brummel by New York-born playwright (William) Clyde Fitch, 25, 5/17 at New York's Madison Square Garden, with English-born actor Richard Mansfield, 36, who has commissioned the play; The Reconciliation (Das Friedensfest) by Gerhart Hauptmann 6/1 at Berlin's Ostendtheater, 4 performances; Margaret Fleming by James A. Herne 12/9 at Palmer's Theater (previously Wallack's), diagonally across from Daly's Theater at Broadway and 30th Street, New York, with Katharine Corcoran Herne in a pioneering effort at realism.
Playwright-actor Dion Boucicault dies at New York September 18 at age 69 (or 67). London-born actor-director Henry (John) Miller, 30, takes over as principal actor of the Empire Theater Stock Company.
Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty 1/15 at St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater, with music by Petr Ilich Tchaikovsky, choreography by Marius Petipa, 71.
Opera: Cavalleria Rusticana 5/17 at Rome's Teatro Costanzi, with Italian soprano Gemma (Matilda) Bellincioni, 25, in the role of Santuzza, music by Italian composer Pietro Mascagni, 27, libretto from a play by Sicilian novelist Giovanni Verga. Bellincioni's popularity will be eclipsed by that of Emma Calvé (see 1893); Robin Hood 6/11 at the Chicago Opera House, with music by Reginald De Koven, who includes his 1889 song "Oh, Promise Me!" in the work, book and other lyrics by Harry B. Smith; Prince Igor 11/4 at St. Petersburg, with music by the late Aleksandr P. Borodin, who died early in 1887 at age 52 after years of working on the opera for his wife, a singer. Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov and Russian composer Aleksandr Konstantinovich Glazunov, 25, have completed Borodin's score (see ballet, 1909); Les Troyens (The Trojans) 12/5 at Karlsruhe, with music by the late Hector Berlioz. The opera will not be presented in its original French until a U.S. production in 1960; Queen of Spades (Pique Dame, or Pikovaya Dama) 12/19 at St. Petersburg, with music by Petr Ilich Tchaikovsky.
First performances: Lancelot and Elaine by Edward MacDowell 1/10 at Boston.
Rudolph Wurlitzer & Company is incorporated in March (see 1861). Now 59, Wurlitzer will head the company until 1912 and operate it with support from his sons Howard Eugene, now 18, who joined the firm last year; Rudolph Henry, now 16; and Farny Reginald, now 6 (see 1912).
Organ and piano maker Henry Mason of Mason & Hamlin Company dies at his Boston home May 15 at age 58. His son Henry Lowell Mason will take over management of the firm in 1906.
Composer César Franck dies of pleurisy at Paris November 8 at age 67.
Former English heavyweight boxing champion James "Jem" Mace comes out of retirement February 7 to fight contender Charley Mitchell in a bid to regain the title (see 1870). Now nearly 59, he goes three rounds before being defeated.
Halifax, Nova Scotia-born boxer George Dixon, 20, wins the world bantamweight title June 27, knocking out Nunc Wallace at London in the 18th round to become the first black world champion. He resigns the title later in the year to fight as a featherweight (see 1891).
Willoby Hamilton, 25, (Ireland) wins in men's singles at Wimbledon, Helen Bertha Grace "Lena" Rice, 24, (Ireland) in women's singles; Oliver Samuel Campbell, 19, wins in U.S. men's singles, Ellen C. Roosevelt, in women's singles.
Cy Young signs with the Cleveland team of the National League to begin an outstanding career that will continue for nearly 23 years—with Cleveland through 1898, the St. Louis Cardinals through 1900, the Boston Red Sox of the American League through 1908, the Cleveland Indians of the American League through 1911, and the Boston Braves of the National League for part of the 1911 season. Ohio-born pitcher Denton True "Cy" Young, 23, wins both games of a doubleheader in October and will be the first to win 500 games (see 1904).
The first Army-Navy football game begins a long rivalry between West Point and Annapolis; Navy wins 24 to 0.
The Colonial Dames of America is founded May 23 by women who can show that their ancestors came to America before 1776 (see National Society, 1893).
The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is organized at Washington, D.C., by four women who include two government clerks. The Sons of the American Revolution, founded last year, has voted not to admit women's auxiliaries, so Mary Smith Lockwood has written a letter to the Washington Post in July announcing a meeting for the formation of a women's group. Lockwood meets in August with Eugenia Washington and Ellen Hardin Walworth at Walworth's house; they make Walworth secretary general, and they name First Lady Caroline Harrison president of the group, whose membership is based on heredity (see human rights, 1939).
Salem, Massachusetts, game producer George Swinerton Parker and his brother Charles introduce Innocence Abroad, a game they have acquired from a female inventor and redesigned (see 1885). A third brother, Edward H., will make partner in 1898, and the company will be incorporated as Parker Brothers, Inc., in 1901. George S. Parker will head the firm for 60 years (see Ping Pong, 1903; Monopoly, 1935).
The 11-year-old Scott Paper Company of Chester, Pennsylvania, introduces the first toilet paper on a roll but will not put its name on the "unmentionable" product for years, choosing rather to use names such as Waldorf.
English soap maker William H. Lever builds a Sunlight soap factory and establishes the model industrial town of Port Sunlight (see 1885; Lifebuoy, 1897).
Persia's shah Naser-ed-Din grants a 50-year concession on the purchase, sale, and processing of all tobacco in the country. He withdraws the concession after Persians launch a boycott of tobacco products.
Rothman's is founded by a London tobacconist.
American Tobacco Company is founded by James Buchanan "Buck" Duke, now 33, who has been spending 20 percent of his gross sales on advertising and now creates a colossal trust by merging the Durham, North Carolina, company of his father, Washington Duke, with four other major plug tobacco firms (see 1888). Helped by New York and Philadelphia financiers who include Peter A. B. Widener, Grant B. Schley, 45, William C. Whitney, and Thomas Fortune Ryan, Duke will pyramid a group of holdings to include American Snuff, American Cigar, American Stogie, and United Cigar Stores (see Reynolds, 1889; Liggett & Myers, 1899).
New York State introduces the electric chair for capital punishment on the grounds that it is more modern and humane than hanging, but its first application proves anything but humane. Buffalo grocer William Kessler confesses March 29 to having murdered his wife and says he expects to be hanged; George Westinghouse installed an alternating-current (AC) generator at Buffalo in November 1886, and his rival, Thomas Edison, seeing an opportunity to associate executions with alternating current, recommends using a chair wired for alternating current. Kemmler is seated in the chair at Buffalo August 6; his head has been shaved, openings for electrodes have been cut in his shirt and trousers, the executioner closes the circuit, a 1,450-volt current passes through Kemmler's body, but death is not instantaneous, and the current has to be turned on again. While most other states will eventually adopt lethal injection for executions, New York will continue to use electrocution.
Gunmen ambush New Orleans police superintendent David C. Hennesy and assassinate him in the street October 15 as he returns home. The Palermo-born brothers Antonio and Carlo Mastranga have used intimidation to gain a cut of the port's booming fruit trade, Hennessy has vowed to shut down their protection racket, his one-man campaign has made the word Mafia known nationwide, and although the Matrangas have used threats to keep the police from interfering in their extortion activities a grand jury indicts 19 Sicillians on charges of complicity in Hennessy's murder (see 1891).
The Wainwright building completed at St. Louis to designs by Chicago architect Louis H. Sullivan is the first true skyscraper. Now 33, Sullivan finished a new addition to Chicago's Carson Pirie Scott department store at Madison and State Streets last year, his apprentices include Wisconsin-born architect Frank Lloyd Wright, 23, and his Wainwright building has an unbroken sweep of vertical line from base to top (tenth) story, a design that will influence architecture for years to come.
Chicago's 17-story Auditorium Building is completed to designs by Louis H. Sullivan (see auditorium opening, 1889). Built at at a cost of $35 million, the monumental structure incorporates not only a 4,200-seat theater but also a 400-room hotel, and its high-rent tower contains 136 offices. Exterior walls are of solid masonry, nearly devoid of ornamentation.
Chicago's 16-story Manhattan building is completed at 431 South Dearborn Street. Designed by William LeBaron Jenney, it is the world's first tall building with metal skeleton construction throughout.
Starlings released in New York's Central Park March 6 will prey upon the English sparrows that have overrun the park since their introduction in 1854, and there will jubilation when starlings are seen nesting in the eaves of the American Museum of Natural History, but by 1928 they will be seen as far west as the Mississippi, roosting in flocks of up to a million. Eccentric New York drug manufacturer Eugene Schieffelin has failed in efforts to introduce skylarks, song thrushes, and nightingales from his native Germany with the romantic notion of introducing to North America every bird mentioned by Shakespeare; he releases some 60 starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and will release another 20 pairs next year. The omniverous birds with their purple and green iridescent plumage will reach California by 1942, and their consumption of seed, fruit, and potatoes will more than offset their consumption of insects, they will oust bluebirds, woodpeckers, and other species, their droppings will present health hazards to humans, and they will come to be regarded as a nuisance and even a menace.
Washington's Rock Creek Park is set aside after years of congressional opposition. Development begins on an urban green belt in the nation's capital that will be four miles long and up to one mile wide, embracing 2,213 acres.
Yosemite National Park is created October 1 by an act of Congress that also creates Sequoia National Park. Yosemite embraces 761,320 acres on California's Tuolumne River, Sequoia 386,863 acres that include Mt. Whitney in the California Sierra, highest mountain in the continental United States (14,494 feet). Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in North America (2,425 feet), Ribbon Falls is 1,612 feet, Bridalveil Falls 620 feet; Yosemite's 3,593-foot El Capitan is the world's largest exposed granite monolith (nearly twice the height of Gibraltar), Half Dome rises 4,733 feet from the valley floor to a height of 8,842 feet above sea level. Both parks contain groves of giant Sequoia evergreen trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum), whose wood is of almost no commercial value but whose thick bark enables them to survive fires and live for upwards of 3,000 years if not destroyed by man. Wildlife in the park includes ground squirrels that help propagate the giant trees, other kinds of squirrels, black bears, mule deer, foxes, chipmunks, and other small mammals.
Alaska has 38 salmon canneries, up from one or two in 1878, and 4,000 men sail north from San Francisco each summer to catch and can the fish, returning at the end of the 6-week season. Men from San Francisco's Chinatown work from 6 o'clock in the morning until 8 at night to cut, clean, and can the red salmon, chinooks, silversides, and dog salmon caught largely by Italians and Scandinavians (see Smith, 1903).
It now takes 37 man-hours to plant, cultivate, and harvest an acre of wheat in America, down from 148 hours in 1837.
A second Morrill act passed by Congress August 30 supplements the 1862 law, establishing experiment stations, extension services, and agricultural research programs to aid U.S. farmers.
Kansas farmers should "raise less corn and more hell," Populist Party leader Mary Elizabeth Cylens Lease, 36, tells them. From 75 to 90 percent of all Kansas farms are mortgaged at interest rates averaging 9 percent (see 1889); banks have foreclosed on roughly one third of all farm mortgages in the state in the past decade, as drought prevented farmers from producing enough to keep up interest payments on loans taken out to buy farm machinery and seed. Lease began speaking in behalf of Irish home rule in 1885 and makes 161 speeches as she stumps the state; told by "the Kansas Python" that they suffer "from two great robbers, the Santa Fe Railroad and the loan companies," Kansas farmers vote against the Republicans and elect independent-party candidates to Congress.
Third-party platforms begin to call for federal warehouses where farmers may store their crops and receive in return certificates redeemable in currency for 80 percent of the market price, permitting them to hold crops off the market until prices improve.
Cattlemen and sheep herders engage in open conflict as the once "inexhaustible" range of 17 western states and territories becomes fully stocked with 26 million head of cattle and 20 million head of sheep competing for grass on the prairie.
Kern County Land Company is founded by speculators Lloyd Tevis and James Ben Ali Haggin, who have battled Henry Miller and Charles Lux for Kern River water rights in California, won 75 percent of the rights, and seen their 400,000 acres in the lower San Joaquin Valley grow (see 1850; 1877). The company will continue to expand until its lands cover 2,800 square miles, an area more than twice the size of Rhode Island (see oil, 1936).
Massey-Harris Company is created by a merger of the Massey Manufacturing Company with its chief competitor, A. Harris and Son, to become the largest producer of farm equipment in the British Empire (see 1849). H. A. Massey retired to Cleveland in 1871, his son Charles moved the company to Toronto in 1878 and acquired the Toronto Light Binder before dying prematurely in 1884, and Massey is again headed by H. A. Massey, now 67, who effects the merger.
The United States has some 200 million chickens, up from 100 million in 1880, with nearly every farmer's wife feeding at least a dozen. Poultry cannot be raised in large concentrations, and since chicken remains more expensive than beef or pork it is a dish reserved for Sundays and other special occasions.
The Babcock Tester invented by Wisconsin agricultural chemist Stephen Moulton Babcock, 47, accurately measures the butterfat content of milk by dissolving the milk's casein in sulfuric acid. This liberates the butterfat, which is raised by centrifugal force into a glass tube for easy measurement (butterfat content is used as a basis for paying dairy farmers).
Many U.S. communities require that milk be pasteurized despite opposition by some dairy interests and people who call pasteurization "unnatural" (see 1860; Evans, 1917).
Unsweetened condensed milk is introduced commercially by the 5-year-old Helvetia Milk Condensing Company at Highland, Illinois.
The first U.S. company to manufacture tin cans for food preservation is founded by entrepreneur Oliver Willcox Norton, 50.
The first aluminum saucepan is produced at Cleveland by Henry W. Avery, whose wife will use the pan until 1933 (see 1888).
Peanut butter is invented according to some accounts by a St. Louis physician, who has developed the butter as a source of protein for elderly patients who lack teeth, but the name of the physician will never surface and the product is more likely the invention of John Harvey Kellogg at Battle Creek, Michigan (see 1904; Granola, 1881; hydrogenation, 1901).
New England dairyman H. P. Hood begins retail distribution but will not pasteurize his milk until 1896 (see 1854). Now 69, Hood has been joined by his sons George and Gilbert, who will help him consolidate some of the nearly 2,000 competing milk routes in Greater Boston, establish new ones, and set up new receiving stations for milk in various parts of New England (see 1897).
Canada Dry Ginger Ale has its beginnings in a small Toronto plant opened by local pharmacist John J. McLaughlin to manufacture carbonated water for sale to drugstores as a mixer for fruit juices and flavored extracts. McLaughlin will soon start making his own extracts and will develop a beverage he will call McLaughlin Belfast Style Ginger Ale (see 1907).
Thomas Lipton enters the tea business to assure supplies of tea at low cost for his 300 grocery shops (see 1879). He offers "The Finest the World Can Produce" at 1d 7p/lb. when the going price is roughly a shilling higher (see 1893).
Henri Nestlé dies at Montreux, Switzerland, July 7 at age 74 after 15 years in retirement (see 1875). The company that bears his name opens a plant at Payerne to supplement those at Vevey and Berzhar (see 1898).
Knox's Gelatine is introduced at Johnstown, New York, by local entrepreneur Charles B. Knox and his wife Rose (née Rosetta Markward), 33, who have invested their savings of $5,000 to buy a company and initiate packaging of unflavored granulated gelatin in premeasured portions. Consumers and manufacturers have used Irish moss (a red alga), Iceland moss (a lichen), agar-agar (a seaweed), fruits rich in pectin, and isinglas (a gelatin made from fish), mostly to clarify beer, wines, and other liquids, but Knox's Gelatine is easier to use (see Jell-O, 1897).
England and Wales have 100,000 public houses (pubs), one for every 300 people. Major brewers such as Bass, Whitbread, and Worthington compete for the pub trade by signing pubs to exclusive contracts.
The U.S. population reaches 62.9 million, up from 53 million in 1881, with two-thirds of it rural, down from 90 percent rural in 1840. The population of Los Angeles reaches 50,000, up from 11,183 in 1880, despite continuing water shortages.
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