Adventures in Research: Garfield Edition

Immigration statistics, from July of 1881. Other than a (by today’s standards) surprising proportion of Canadians, upwards of 4000, most newcomers were European; Germans in overwhelmingly superior numbers, strong showings from Belgium and Australia, many English, many Irish, many from China (The Chinese Exclusion Act arrived 1882, under the Arthur presidency)…and a fair number of Norwegians, plenty of Swedes. The Russian numbers are low, but 1881 was a year in which the Tsarist regime pursued its slaughter of Jews (the 1890s produced larger waves of immigration from Russia).

Stephens City Star 27 August 1881

A series of gossipy items about celebrities, most still known today. In 1881, Civil War era figures were part of life; they would be the equivalent to 90s celebs for us in 2018.

Catoctin Clarion 7 July 1881

Some of the humor and edification of the era. Newspapers in the 19th century published comic poems regularly; the piece right treats the topic of such poetry itself. (With a nod to Byron’s “The Vision of Judgment”, a condemnation of King George III and satire of Robert Southey, excerpted below:

Verse 192

“He ceased, and drew forth an MS.; and no

Persuasion on the part of devils, saints,

Or angels, now could stop the torrent; no

He read the first three lines of the contents;

But at the fourth, the whole spiritual show

Had vanish’d with variety of scents,

Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang

Like lightning, off from his “melodious twang.”)

Note: rhyming “torrent” with “fourth”, pretty good.

Left, a quote from abolitionist Owen Lovejoy, stand-up words worth reading.

The National Republican 26 February 1881

The Weekly Kansas Chief, September 22, 1881