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Social Science Time Line 1776
Mental Health History Time Line
|
|
| American History Timeline |
From beginning of fifteenth century at latest, Iroquois Confederation formed according to Engels. See "Iroquois Confederacy" in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians. See below 1607 - 1634 - 1675 - 1776 - 1787 - 1791 - 1832 - 1851 -
1492 Columbus's first voyage to America. In December, he visited an island, part of which the Indians called Haiti - the place of the mountains. The Spanish colonised the island and called it Hispaniola. It was the first place occupied by Europeans in the Americas. Spain took what gold it could and the Indians died out. In 1679, the French took the western part of the island and called it Saint Dominigue. Sugar, indigo and black slaves made Saint Dominigue the richest colony in the world by 1789.
1493 Pope Alexander 6th
gave the Americas to
Spain, on condition it converted the natives to Christianity.
22.1.1510 King Ferdinand of Spain authorised a shipment of 50 African slaves to be sent to Santo Domingo. Start of the trans-atlantic slave trade from Africa - In the preceding two decades, native Americans had been shipped to Spain as slaves.
1540:
first of the Indian Wars?
North Atlantic colonies
The thirteen European colonies that combined against the British to form
the United States of America at the end of the 18th century, were mostly
founded by the English and Dutch in the 17th century. The southern
colonies, such as
Virginia, were mainly
founded
by orthodox members of the English church with royalist sympathies. The
northern states (New
England)
were founded by their puritan critics. In between were
New York and New
Jersey, originally settled by the Dutch, and
Pennsylvania, a
Quaker colony
from 1682.
1607
Virginia
The first permanent English colony on mainland America was founded by the
Virginia Company of London and called "Jamestown, Virginia" (External
link:
Wikipedia article). See 1619: legislature and
African slaves -
1749: Augusta Academy -
1773: Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds
-
1774: Virginia Conventions -
1818: University -
1870: Death of Robert Edward Lee
Captain John Smith first encountered
Iroquois in Chesapeake Bay
1614
New Netherlands
The Dutch West India Company explored and began to settle an area north of
Virginia in 1614. Peter Minuit and other Dutch settlers settled an island
which they bought from the local Indians for 60 gilders worth of goods. He
named this New Amsterdam, and the Dutch holdings in the area were
collectively called New Netherlands. New Amsterdam was granted self
government by the Dutch in 1652. It was captured by the English in
1664, given to the king's brother (the Duke of York), and renamed
New York. This name has also been given to the state of the USA in
which
the city stands.
1619
30.7.1619 Virginia established the first legislative assembly in
America.
First
African slaves
in North America brought to Jamestown, Virginia, by a
Dutch ship.
1620
New England
In 1616, Captain John Smith had published A Description of New
England, describing the land that later became the
north-east states of
the USA. On 6.9.1620, the Mayflower sailed from
Plymouth,
England,
with 102 men and women from a calvinist separatist community seeking a
place in the new world to practice their religion. The "Pilgrims" landed on
6.9.1620 and founded Plymouth Colony in
what became Massachusetts, the first New England colony. They remained a
small group. Puritans, from the Church of England, founded a
colony at Massachusetts Bay in 1629/1630. They came in large numbers.
Maine
settlers
came under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1652. A
confederacy,
formed in
1643, of
Connecticut,
New Haven, Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay was called the United Colonies of New England. It
was governed by a theocracy till
1693.
Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay combined to form
Massachusetts in 1691. In
1820,
Maine became
an independent member state of the United States.
| 1627 Captain Henry Powell landed English settlers on the West Indian island of Barbados. The British colony developed a sugar plantation economy using slaves brought in from Africa. |
In 1628, about sixty Puritans under John Endicott migrated to Salem
in what
is now Massachusetts. John Winthrop later led about 1,000 Puritans to
settle in Boston and other towns. They used a commercial charter to
establishe their jurisdiction. Between 1629 and 1639, about
20,000 Puritans came to New England.
1631 The first "General Court" of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
established. Made up of the governor and freemen, it had full legal
authority. The franchise was limited to regenerate church members, and the
church was supported by public taxes. By 1636 the
General Court gave power over the church to the magistrates and, later,
control as to who preached what and where.
1634
27.3.1634 The Werowance (chief) of the Yoacomoco Indians having
agreed
to sell a village to Leonard Calvert in exchange for gifts, trading
guarantees and protection from their enemies, the Susquehannock and
Iroquois
Indians, the village became the English settlement of St Mary's
City. The beginning of
Maryland.
See
Maryland State Archives
1636 Harvard College, the first institute for higher education in a
north American colony, established at Cambridge in Massachusetts -
1637 Boston trial and banishment of Ann Hutchinson at the climax of
the Antinomian Controversy. Anti-nomian is against-law. Ann Hutchinson did not hold
that the redeemed are above the law. She did hold that her own certainty of
salvation was sufficient and that it was not subject to testing by the
Massachusetts' Ministry. The spirit of God speaking directly to her soul
was her authority and she questioned the suitability of all but two of the
Ministers. Given that the Ministers decided who was entitled to vote by
virtue of being truly saved and one of the elect, Ann's religious views
were politically disruptive. [See interpretation: 1966]
1611
Bible: Psalm 76 [note: A declaration of God's majesty in his
church] "In Judah is God known: his name is great in Isreal. In
Salem also is his
tabernacle,
and his dwelling place is Zion". See
theocracy above and
below
"To advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading
to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches." (External
link:
Early history of Harvard University)
by Rachel Buckingham 1995)
|
1639 - Barbados's first parliament, the House of Assembly, held its
first meeting.
|
1643, Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay formed the United Colonies of New England. John
Davenport, the founder of Connecticut, is quoted as saying:
1650
1652 to 1684: One Peter Esprit Radisson journeyed amongst the
Iroquois. His handwritten
journals passed through the hands of Samuel Pepys and others and finally
arrived in the British Museum and Bodleian Libraries.
Gideon Scull transcribed them and they were published in Boston
by the Prince Society in 1885. (Publications of the Prince Society, 16)
(Project Gutenberg Catalogue)
1642
English Civil
War
Notice declaration (1644) of Baptists that men must be allowed to obey
their own conscience and understanding, and the
Quaker following of the
inner light. This spirit was contrary to the New England theocracy where
the church had responsibility for monitoring the beliefs and behaviour of
the people. The church in New England appears to have been aware of the
disruption that Quakers and Ranters had caused in England, and prepared to
repel them if they arrived.
[external link about the Ranters]
"The Theocracy, that is, God's government, is to be established
as the best form of government. Here the people, who choose its civil
rulers, are God's people, in covenant with him, they are members of the
churches; God's laws and God's servants are enquired of for counsel"
1656 Efforts by Quaker missionaries to convert the people of Massachusetts were met with punitive sanctions against them and their converts. The first Quaker missionaries (Mary Fisher and Ann Austin) were stripped and searched for marks of witchcraft and their books burnt in the market place. A law of 1656 prescribed fines or whippings. A law of 1657 increased the punishments for second and subsequent offenses to removing one or both ears and tongue boring with a hot iron. A law of 1658 said Quaker disorders were punishable by banishment "on pain of death". The first executions took place in 1659. [See interpretation: 1966]
Carolina
1663 Charles
2nd
granted a charter to own and exploit the lands
south of
Virginia
and north of Florida to six men who had helped in the
restoration of the monarchy. The territory was called Carolina in honor of
Charles 1st ("Carolus" being the Latin form of "Charles"). The first
permanent European settlements in
these lands had been made about 1650 by people from
Virginia. (external history link)
| 1663 - Barbados was made into a British crown possession. |
1664
Charles
2nd made a grant of land later named New Jersey.
1669
Deborah Wilson, the
Quaker wife of Robert Wilson, had at one time
walked naked through the streets of
Salem as a spiritual
testimony. For this she had been "sentenced to be tied at a cart's tail
with her body naked downward to her waist, and whipped". She was brought
before the court in 1669 for "frequently absenting herself from the
public ordinances", but the case "was dismissed, court being informed that
she is distempered in her head".
(Erikson, K.T. 1966
pages 122
and 132)
1670
English
Madhouses
| 1671 An epistle from the Quakers to the Governor of Barbados |
1672 Two Quakers, Henry and Hannah Phelps, had settled in the Albemarle region of Carolina, but there was no organised Christianity when the Quaker missionaries William Edmundson and (later in 1672) George Fox came to preach the gospel. When Edmundson revisited in 1676, Quakerism was still the only Christian faith in the area and, at this time, this was the only area of the colonial North American coast where Quakers were not persecuted. Two Quakers who arrived there from England were John and Agnes Trueblood, who arrived about 1682. Before they died, in 1692, they acquired land, wealth and a family of four children. All American Truebloods are said to have descended from one of their two sons. (Gordon Trueblood)
|
Piney Woods Friends Church (Meeting House) in Perquimans County, North Carolina is not far from where Edmundson and later Fox preached. Its worshippers include descendants of the first Trueblood settlers. |
1675
At the height of its power, about 1675, Iroquois Confederation conquered wide stretches of the surrounding country. Engels
1676
New Jersey divided into two. The western part was owned by
Quakers,
including
William Penn
1682
Pennsylvania
In 1681, the land now called Pennsylvania (Penn's woodlands)
was granted to the English
Quaker, William Penn, in payment of a debt the
English monarch owed his father. The first Quaker colonists arrived in
1682. The woodlands were, of course, already occupied by the
"Indians", and also by Dutch colonists who had taken it from the Swedish
(in 1655), before it was taken by the British (in 1664) and granted by
Charles 2nd to the Duke of York. Sweden had colonised in 1643. Many
historians say that Penn made fair exchanges with the Indians for their
land. Others that he deceived them and "effectively" stole it. Whatever the
truth, the land was settled peacefully and a "holy experiment" started.
1682 Penn laid out the street plan for Philadelphia: The
City of Brotherly Love
1692 Witch hunts in
Salem, Massachusetts.
19 "witches" hanged.
External chronology. The local trials were
stopped by the Governor of the colony, Phips, who ordered that reliance on
spectral and intangible evidence should not be allowed in trials and
dissolved the local Court of Oyer and Terminer on 29.10.1692. On 25.11.1692
the General Court of
the
colony created the Superior Court to try the
remaining witchcraft cases. There were no convictions when they came to
trial in May 1693. [See interpretation: 1966]
1693:
College of William and Mary, Virginia, Chartered by King William 3rd and
Queen Mary 2nd (external link to history)
1715 Dr Israel How came to Andover (then called South Parish),
Massachusetts. He
was its first physician. When he died in 1740 he was succeeded by his son,
Dr Daniel How. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Daniel How's
practice was especially in treatment of the insane. [The name is also spelt
Howe in some sources]. (Charles
Outwin) See 1761
1718 Collegiate School, Connecticut, (established 1701 and in
New
Haven from 1716, changed its name to Yale College, in honour of a
benefactor, Elihu Yale. (External link
Yale history). Yale College
established a Medical Institution in 1810, Divinity School in
1822, Law School in 1843, Graduate School of Arts and
Sciences
in 1847 and School of Fine Arts in 1869. In
1875 it began the
first sociology course in the USA and in
1887
it became a
University.
1688
English Bloodless
Revolution. The works of
John Locke, published after the revolution,
made
the case for knowledge based on reason and science, the separation of
political and religious authority and a society tolerant of a variety of
religious views.
| 1724-1726 Trainee Philadelphia printer, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1890), working in London |
|
1728
Benjamin Franklin opened his own printing office in Philadelphia, becoming
sole owner in 1729 and publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette
1736
February 1736 John and Charles Wesley arrived in America.
(external link) - See
Methodist
Hymns
1737
Benjamin Franklin appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia
1740
Working-class Methodists in Philadelphia wanted to build a great preaching
hall for the English evangelist, George Whitfield. It was also to be a
charity school. The University of Pennsylvania claims this as its
foundation. A deed of trust was formed, but funding fell through. In
1749, Benjamin Franklin named a board of trustees, with himself as
president. The Academy opened in 1751 and was chartered in
1755. External link
to Wikipedia article.
1745
1747
Benjamin Franklin's first writings on experimenting with electricity. In
1748 he sold the printing office and retired from business
1749
Augusta Academy opened in Lexington, Virginia. Became Washington and Lee
University. (External link to
timeline)
"New York State's first publicly supported institution for
dependent people was opened in New York City in 1736 and was called "The
House of Correction, Workhouse and Poorhouse". It housed the poor who
refused to work, the poor who were unable to work and the poor who were
willing but unable to find work"
(L. Jane Tracy: The Onondaga Hill Poorhouse
Story)
| 1751 Benjamin Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity published in London. In June 1752 he is said to have tried the suggested experiment of attaching a metal key to a kite and flying it in a thunderstorm to see if it picked up an electrical charge. Issue related to his founding fire insurance and fixing lightning conductors. |
|
1752
Pennsylvania Hospital admitted mentally disturbed patients from 1752.
1754
King's College, New York founded. Later Columbia University. "the oldest
institution of higher learning in the state of New York and the fifth
oldest in the United States".
(external history link) - First Ph.D in
1875 - see
following - 1890
1756
Resignation of ten
Quakers from the Philadelphia Assembly put the Quakers
in a political minority in Philadelphia for the first time.
| 29.1.1756 Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia elected a Fellow of the Royal Society |
|
| 1757-1762 Benjamin Franklin in London as representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly |
|
1761
sensory deprivation:
"In 1761, the Reverend John Wiswall (1731-1821) of Falmouth, Maine suffered
what we would probably now call a "nervous breakdown". He
continued out of his mind for nine months, after which he was
referred to
Dr Daniel Howe
(born 1.5.1717, died 1.11.1797), a doctor in
Andover, Massachusetts, who
prescribed confinement to "a dark chamber". Cure was obtained in a few
weeks." (Charles
Outwin)
| 1764 Benjamin Franklin in London |
|
| 1772 |
|
Death of John Woolman (1720-1772), an American (New Jersey) Quaker whose life and writings had a profound effect (inside and outside the Quakers) in Britain, as well as America. There is an online text of his Journal at Bartleby.com John Woolman died of smallpox at York, Yorkshire, England on 7.10.1772.
| 1773 |
|
British passed a Tea Act, which aroused strong opposition in the American colonies.
16.12.1773 "Boston Tea Party". Colonials tip 342 chests of tea into the sea.
Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds, the first in what became the United States, opened at Williamsburg, Virginia. [External link]
| 1774 Benjamin Franklin in London |
|
British closed the port of Boston in response to the tea party
Virginia Conventions began, leading to the First Continental Congress (meetings of the American colonies) which met in Philadelphia from 5.9.1774 to 14.10.1774, when it passed the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress.
| 1775 |
|
April 1775 to 1783: War between the British and their rebellious American colonies. The armed rebellion began at the Lexington and Concord Bridge, and spread. The rebel army was led by George Washington.
14.6.1775: The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts passed the following resolve:
"Whereas the committee are informed that Dr How of Andover is prepared to receive insane patients and is well skilled in such disorders, resolved that Daniel Adams, a lunatic now at Woburn, be carried to the town of Andover and committed to the care of Doctor How and the said Dr How be hereby desired to take proper care of the said lunatic at the expense of this colony."
| 1776 |
|
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers) disowned members who persisted in owning slaves.
January 1776 Common Sense, written by Thomas Paine, published anonymously.
12.6.1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights; written by George Mason
29.6.1776 Virginia State Constitution adopted. This became a model for all the rebel colonies as they formed themselves into states.
11.7.1776 Chiefs of the Iroquois visited and addressed the Continental Congress that was discussing independence from Britain of the colonial states. external link
4.7.1776 Declaration
of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, formally adopted
at the Second Continental Congress by all rebel states. In June, the
Congress had adopted a resolution that:
"these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent
states."
| 1777 |
|
The Continental Congress adopted the thirteen stars and stripes as the flag of the independent states acting in combination. "Articles of Confederation" were drafted, but did not come into operation until 1781 - when Maryland agreed to ratify them.
| 1781 |
|
Articles of Confederation came into operation, providing for the common defence of the states and some pursuit of common aims.
| 1783 |
|
Independence of "these United States" recognised by the Treaty of Paris
The separate states adopted distinct constitutions, allowing for more democracy than under their colonial constitutions.
|
The rebel 13 are only a small part of the present USA. On this Victorian
map, the original thirteen are:
New Hampshire (2)
click on this map for the full
map of the USA
|
| 1787 |
|
25.5.1787 to 17.9.1787: Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
17.9.1787 The Constitution of the United States adopted by the Constitutional Convention
"The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same."
27.10.1787 First of eighty-five anonymous articles (pseudonym
Publius) in New York newspapers. Collected together as a book, in
1788, these became known as The Federalist or The
Federalist
Papers. Their authors were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and
John
Jay.
John Adams' A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United
States includes discussion of
Iroquois forms of government. [See
external link]
The Union as a Safeguard
Against
Domestic Faction and Insurection
Dictionary:
Pluralism
|
Presidency of George Washington 1789 to 1797
|
1791
15.12.1791 First ten Amendments to the Constitution
("The Bill of
Rights") adopted
Printed in London, for the author, John Long (known to be alive 1768-1791)
Voyages and travels of an Indian interpreter and trader: describing the
manners and customs of the North American Indians; with an account of the
posts situated on the river Saint Laurence, Lake Ontario, &c. to which is
added, a vocabulary of the Chippeway language, names of furs and skins, in
English and French, a list of words in the
Iroquois, Mohegan, Shawanee, and
Esquimeaux tongues, and a table, shewing the analogy between the Algonkin
and Chippeway languages (See Durkheim on
totemism)
|
Pacifying native Americans
The new United States of America extended its borders and fought to establish a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in its territory. Native americans, who were tribal rather than territorial, resisted. They were not finally defeated until 1890. After independence, groups of euro-americans moved west. They were protected from Indian tribes by the United States army. Little Turtle led warriors of the Miami, Shawnee, and other tribes against the US army, north of the Ohio River, in 1790 and 1791. The Indians were defeated in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. Shawnee chief Tecumseh tried to forge a grand alliance of tribes west of the mountains, but was defeated at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. He was killed in battle in 1812. Native americans in the south were defeated at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (present-day Alabama) in 1814. In the 1820s the USA Government developed a policy of moving native american tribes away from the east to territories west of the Mississippi River. |
1797
Spring Grove Hospital,
Maryland
1799
| Presidency of Thomas Jefferson 1801 to 1809 |
1804
6.2.1804
Joseph Priestley died Northumberland, Pennsylvania, USA. He was
buried in the
Quakers' burial-ground.
1808 New York Lunatic Asylum, previously in the cellar of the
north wing of New York Hospital, moved to its own building. Renamed
Bloomingdale Asylum in 1821. Moved to White Plains in 1894.
(external link:
archive of old location and
new location)
1810
| Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind, by Benjamin Rush, Professor of medicine in the University of Pennsylvania and physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital, included details of his Tranquilliser, an 1811 picture of which is very well known: |
|
1813
1816
1817
Friend's Asylum, Philadelphia opened. Modeled on
York Retreat
1818
Lewis Henry Morgan born. See
1851
1868
1871
1877
1880
1881
1882
1883
Thomas Jefferson founded what became The University of Virginia.
External
links:
Wikipedia article
- Short
history by Susan Tyler Hitchcock -
details of her book.
"Jefferson, with his friend Joseph Cabell, managed to get the Virginia
Assembly to agree to fund a state university - Virginia is considered
the first of all of them". (Susan Tyler Hitchcock - email)
1819
New York State completed the building of Auburn State Prison, started in
1816.
External link: Auburn
1860
"the Auburn system stressed congregate activities. Inmates slept in
segregated cells but moved into workshops during the day and even outside
the prison walls to work in tightly disciplined gangs, eating together in a
common mess hall. In order to maintain order among this large company of
men, the Auburn officials made liberal use of the whip and enforced a
policy of absolute silence among the convicts." (Erikson, K.T. 1966 p.200)
"Pennsylvania officials worked out the details of a rival plan, the
separate system, applying it to the penitentiary at Pittsburgh in 1826 and
to the prison at Philadelphia in 1829"
Rothman, D. 1971, p.79)
"Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia was a product of
Quaker
thinking and planning. Architecturally, it was a powerful fortress of
stone, gloomy and massive like a medieval castle, but inside a new idea of
prison discipline was being developed: each convict was locked in a
separate call and confined there for the duration of his sentence, working
at useful trades in the privacy of his room and exercising by himself in an
isolated courtyard. The whole arrangement bore the stamp of Quaker
theology, for the stated purpose of this solitary treatment was to give the
inmate a chance to come to terms with his inner self and gain a more
religious outlook for the future" (Erikson, K.T. 1966 p.200)
"In short order, the Connecticut legislature stopped using an abandoned
copper mine to incarcerate offenders, and in 1827 built a new structure at
Wethersfied.
Massachusetts reorganised its state prison at Charleston in
1829; that same year,
Maryland
erected a penitentiary, and one year later
New Jersey followed suit. Ohio and Michigan built penitentiaries
in the
1830s, and so did Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the 1840s."
Rothman, D. 1971, pages 80-81)
1821
Friends Hospital website
The Early Years of Friends Asylum
1817-1820
Isaac Bonsall's Diaries 1817-1823
"The University of Michigan was established in 1817 by the
Michigan Territorial legislature as one of the United States' first public
universities on 1,920 acres (8 kmý) of land ceded by the Chippewa, Ottawa,
and Potawatomi people "_for a college at Detroit." The school moved from
Detroit to Ann Arbor in
1837, only 13 years after the latter city had been
founded."
(Wikipedia)
"In the 1820's New York and Pennsylvania began a movement
that
soon spread through the Northeast, and then over the next decades to many
midwestern states. New York devised the Auburn or congregate system of
penitentiary organisation, establishing it first at the Auburn state prison
between 1819 and 1823, and then in 1825 at the Ossining institution
similarly known as Sing-Sing"
Rothman, D. 1971, p.79)
|
Indian Territory
In the 1820s, the USA government began moving what it called the "Five Civilized Tribes" of South East America (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw) to lands west of the Mississippi River. The 1830 Indian Removal Act gave the President authority to designate specific lands for the Indians (native Americans). The 1834 Indian Intercourse Act called the lands Indian Territory and specified where they were: all of present-day Oklahoma North and East of the Red River, as well as Kansas and Nebraska. But, in 1854 the territory was cut down when Kansas and Nebraska territories were created. White settlers continued to invade the West and half the remaining Indian Territory (West Oklahoma) was opened to whites in 1889. In 1907 Oklahoma became a state of the USA, and Indian Territory was no more. (external link). Gill's Geography map has "Indian Territory" shown east of "Oklahoma".
First nations site has detailed history
of how these issues related to the
Iroquois
|
| Presidency of Andrew Jackson 1829 to 1837 |
1829
23.10.1829 First part of Eastern State Penitentiary Pennsylvania, in
Cherry Hill/Fairmount, opened.
(external link to museum website timeline) -
[See Separate
System]. It replaced the original
Walnut Street Prison -
[External link to illustrated website relating both prisons to
Foucault.]
1829-1833 First publication of Encyclop‘dia Americana: "A
popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and
biography, brought down to the present time; including a copious collection
of original articles in American biography; on the basis of the 7th edition
of the German Conversations-Lexicon
(Wikipedia)
1832 Worcester Insane Asylum, the first in
Massachusetts,
opened.
1836
New York State commission established 1836 to build a lunatic asylum,
purchased land (Utica) in 1837. The asylum opened in
1843.
| Presidency of Martin Van Buren 1837 to 1841 |
1837
1838
Ohio Lunatic Asylum established at Columbus, Central Ohio.
23.9.1838 Brunel's
Great Western Steamship arrived in New York on its first journey
from Bristol, England. It had sailed on 8.4.1838. The return voyage
left from New York on 7.5.1838 and arrived Bristol 22.5.1838.
The vessel ran for nine seasons - lying up in winter.
(external link)
1839
Boston Lunatic Asylum opened at South Boston, County of Suffolk,
Massachusetts,
(taken over by the state in 1908)
New York City Lunatic Asylum on
Blackwell's Island opened. (Architect: A.J. Davis, 1835-1839). It was
designed as a copy of Hanwell. It
was the largest mental hospital in the United States during its time.
As New York City's pauper asylum, it was overcrowded from the start, and
completely overwhelmed by the Irish famine immigration. "Foreign born"
patients generally made up about 75 percent of its population. The
asylum, run by the City's Almshouse Commission, was never adequately
funded, and was mired in political infighting from inception. Alterations
by archtect Joseph M. Dunn in 1879. The asylum was closed in 1895. Part of
the 1839 building survives and is now called the Octagon. (Information
mainly from Diane
Richardson)
Cuban
Slaver ship
Amistad captured by its black cargo (2.7.1839).
Arrested
of New York (26.8.1839). Subsequent trials etc a focus for
anti-slavery
agitation. External link:
The Amistad Revolt
10.9.1839 Charles Sanders Peirce born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
External link to
biography
1840
14.10.1840 Maine State Hospital for the insane opened.
Superintendent Cyrus Knapp. 30 patients by 31.12.1840.
12.6.1840 World
Anti-Slavery Conference opened in
London. British slaves having been
freed in the
1830s, the emphasis of the conference was on the liberation of
United States slaves.
Six delegates from the United
States were women.
| Presidency of William H. Harrison 1841 |
| Presidency of John Tyler 1841 to 1845 |
1841: In 1841 Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802-1887) taught a Sunday school class in the East Cambridge (Massachusetts) jail. She was disturbed that insane people were in the prison. She spent eighteen months touring Massachusetts institutions where the mentally ill were confined, and reported to the Massachusetts legislature in 1843
University of Michigan opened at Ann Arbour (external link)
1842
American
Ethnological Society begun in New York City (External link to
history on its website)
11.1.1842 William James born New York. External link to a
William James website and its
biography.
17.1.1842
Charles Dickens arrived in Newfoundland, and from there
travelled to Halifax and Boston. He left America for England on
7.6.1842 and, on 18.10.1842 published his controversial
American Notes. These included accounts of his visits to
prisons,
asylums and other institutions. Of the
State Hospital for the Insane,
South Boston he wrote:
Saturday 2.4.1842 edition of
The Albion
contained an editorial and
comprehensive report, with statistics about the
Hanwell Pauper Lunatic Asylum", in London. Brad Edmondson is
investigating the possibility that this relates to the establishment of the
New York State Asylum
1842 Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane opened
The Oregon Trail began in 1842 when, for a few years, many
people left the Missouri river
region in large group of horse drawn wagons heading westward,
over the mountains, to Oregon, the land bordering the Pacific in the
Columbia River area. They came into conflict with the British in the
Hudson Bay Company, who shared this area with the United States. In
1846,
this conflict was resolved by drawing a national boundary at the
49th parallel. The first
wagon train arrived in the Puget Sound, the large
inlet of Pacific water into what is now Washington State, in
1845.
It
was led by Michael Simmons and George W. Bush, a free Black. Oregon
Territory (from the 42nd parallel to the 49th) was created in 1848,
but divided into Oregon Territory and Washington Territory in
1853.
Oregon became a state in 1859. Washington became a state in
1889
1843:
Dorothea Dix's
Memorial
to the
Massachusetts
legislature , in which she argued
that the 120 beds in the
Worcester State Asylum
were not enough for all the
lunatics she found in Massachusetts poorhouses and prisons. The asylum was
expanded to 320 beds.
1843
New York State Lunatic Asylum at Utica completed -
external link to history on Rootsweb site,
which describes it as "one of the earliest structures to incorporate
progressive theories on the treatment of mental illness". The first
superintendent was
Amariah Brigham.
An
abstract of a description from the
American Journal of Insanity July 1847
has been made available online by the Disability Museum.
asylums in 1842 England
and
Wales
Dorothea Dix in England and
Scotland (1854)
external links to
a biography,
another
her childhood
"admirably conducted on those enlightened principles of conciliation and
kindness , which twenty years ago would have been worse than heretical, and
which have been acted upon with such success in our own pauper Asylum
at
Hanwell.
'Evince a desire to show some
confidence and repose some trust,
even in mad people' said the resident physician as we walked along the
galleries'"
| Asylum doctors: |
asylum doctors in the
UK
|
|
16.10.1844 A meeting in Philadelphia of the following thirteen, formed the American Association of Medical Superintendents, which later became the American Psychiatric Association:
Samuel White (1777-1850), who inaugurated the Hudson Lunatic Asylum in New York (??) Thomas Kirkbride (1809-1883). Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital from 1840 to 1883. Creator of the Kirkbride model of an asylum which was used throughout the United States.
Amariah Brigham (1798-1849). Superintendent of the
Lunatic Asylum at
Utica, New York State.
Isaac Ray (1807-1881). Superintendent of the State Hospital at Augusta, Maine. Pliny Earle (1809-1892). Superintendent of the Bloomingdale Hospital, New York Luther Bell (1806-1862). Superintendent of the McLean Asylum in Somerville, Massachusetts Wilson Awl (1799-1876). Organiser of the Ohio State Asylum Nehemiah Cutter (1787-1859). Organiser of a private hospital: the Peperell Asylum, Massachusetts. Francis Stribling (1810-1874). Superintendent of the Western Lunatic Asylum of Virginia. John Butler (1803-1890). Superintendent of the Boston Lunatic Asylum and later (after Brigham) of the Hartford Retreat. John Galt (1819-1862). First superintendent of the Williamsburg Asylum. (??) Charles Stedman (1805-1866). Superintendent (after Butler) of the Boston Lunatic Asylum |
|
22.10.1844 Jesus did not return to earth in his second coming as had been predicted by the followers of William Miller. The disappointment is now part of Seventh Day Adventist history. See The Ellen G. White Estate - The official Ellen G. White website (positive) and The Ellen White Research Project (critical). The article on Millerite Insanity is on the critical site.
1843 The first permanent colony in what is now British Columbia was established (in present-day Victoria) by the British in 1843
One of the slogans of the 1844 USA presidential election was "Fifty-four forty or fight", meaning the British should be made to withdraw north of the 54.40"North latitude on the Pacific coast, by force if necessary. The issue was resolved, without war, by dividing the Columbia river region between the USA and British Columbia at the 49th parallel. (map) British Columbia website
| Presidency of James K. Polk 1845 to 1849 |
1845
Dix, D. L. and YA Pamphlet Collection (Library of Congress) (1845). Memorial. To the Honourable the Senate and General Assembly of the state of New Jersey. Trenton,.
Dix, D. L. (1845). Memorial soliciting a state hospital for the insane. Philadelphia, I. Ashmead printer.
1847 Illinois State Hospital for the Insane, Jacksonville, opened
On the Construction, Organisation, and General Arrangements of Hospitals
for the Insane, with some remarks on Insanity and its Treatment by
Thomas Kirkbride.
Dix, D. L. (1847). Memorial soliciting enlarged and improved
accomodations for the insane of the state of Tennessee. Nashville, B.
R. M'Kennie printer.
1848 Indiana Hospital for the Insane opened about three miles west
of Indianapolis. It started with just five patients. Many people moved to
Indiana in the next half-century and, by 1900, the hospital had an average
of 1,800 patients. In the meantime, other Indiana hospitals for the insane
had opened, and this one was renamed Central State Hospital for the
Insane. From 1929 it was just Central State Hospital. It closed
in 1994, but the Pathology Department building was preserved
and now houses the Indiana Medical History Museum. (external
link)
15.5.1848
New Jersey Lunatic Asylum at Trenton opened. The first to
be built on the
Kirkbride plan.
(Rootsweb, which has pictures)
| Presidency of Zacharey Taylor 1849 to 1850 |
1849
Dix, D. L. and Alabama. General assembly. House of representatives 1849. [from old catalog] (1849). Memorial soliciting a state hospital for the insane. Montgomery, Office of the Advertiser and gazette.
| Presidency of Millard Fillmore 1850 to 1853 |
1850
Spring 1850: Convention of Women in Ohio.
1851
Lewis Henry Morgan,
League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or
Iroquois
Rochester; New York: Sage & Brother: M.H. Newman & Co.; and others.
Included a folding map and a "Schedule explanatory of the Indian map,"
arranged in three columns giving the corresponding English and Indian
names of the localities, stream, etc., with their signification.
1852 Second Massachusetts
Hospital for the insane
opened at Taunton.
20.2.1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin (book
form) -
(Wikipedia entry)
23.10.1850 - 24.10.1850 Women's Rights Convention,
Worcester, Massachusetts. Worcester was a centre of anti-slavery agitation,
out of which the Women's Rights Movement in the United States developed.
See
The Enfranchisement of
Women
| Presidency of Franklin Pierce 1853 to 1857 |
1853 Washington Territory was established with Isaac Stevens as its first territorial governor. The medical superintendent of a large English lunatic asylum governed as many people as Isaac Stevens in 1853, but by 1860 the territory's population had multiplied tenfold to 11,500. In 1854 the first session of the territorial legislature adapted a poor law with provision for care of insane. "Counties" were delegated this responsibility and, in 1855, King County presented a bill for $1659 for caring for Edward Moore, a "non-resident lunatic pauper". As the entire annual income of the territory was $1199, the bill was declined, and Edward Moore returned by sea to Boston, his home. (Kathleen Benoun)
1854
Henry David Thoreau's Walden - Or Life in the Woods told the story
of his period of simple living in Massachusetts in 1845.
(external link to a copy). (See Skinner's Walden Two)
Birth of Albion Woodbury Small (died
1926) - External link:
Chicago archives -
biography
14.2.1854 Birth of George Hunt (died September 1933). Worked for
Franz Boas
as informant and translator, supplying artifacts and stories from
1888
(external link)
1855
St Elizabeth's Hospital for the Insane, Washington DC, established.
(external link) -
(external link) - See
1884 -
1886 -
1955
The Age of Fables
by Thomas Bullfinch
| Presidency of James Buchanan 1857 to 1861 |
1857
Gold discovered in the Fraser Valley and thousands of people came in search of instant wealth. To help maintain law and order, the British government established the colony of British Columbia in 1858. The colony of Vancouver Island joined British Columbia in 1866.
1858 Third Massachusetts Hospital for the insane opened at Northampton. - external link to Tom Riddle's website
9.7.1858 Franz Boas born in Germany. Died 21.12.1942. Anthopologist working with native Americans. See 1885: fieldwork - 1889: Clark University - 1892: Field Museum Chicago 1893: Chicago World's Fair - 1895: New York - 1896: Columbia University - (Wikipedia - collections - Columbia)
15.4.1858
Emile Durkheim born.
His last lectures (1913/1914) included a comparison of his sociology with that of pragmatists, such as Dewey.
| 20.10.1859: John Dewey born (died 1.6.1952) | See Chicago timeline 1859-1952 |
1860
Reverend Theophilus Packard committed his wife, Elizabeth Parsons Ware
Packard to the
Illinois State Asylum at
Jacksonville.
| 6.9.1860 Jane Adams born (died 21.5.1935) | See Chicago timeline 1859-1952 |
20.12.1860 South Carolina became first state to secede from Union
| Presidency of Abraham Lincoln 1861 to 1865 |
8.2.1861 Confederate States adopt Provisional Constitution
1.3.1861 Iowa State Hospital for the Insane at Mount Pleasant, Iowa,
finished.
1866
The Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, San Francisco
was opened. For many
years the "inmates" were expected to work in exchange for care. It then
became a we'll-meet-all-your-needs place.
By 2002 it
had become
a 1,000 plus bed long-term care government run hospital. Believed to
be (now) the only large facility of its kind in the United States.
1867
British North American Act created the Dominion of Canada
USA bought Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars
Elizabeth Packard "in the winter of 1867, I came alone, and at my own
expense, from Massachusetts to Illinois ... trying to induce the
Legislature to ... pass ... a Bill for the Protection of Personal
Liberty
1868
Lewis Henry Morgan,
The American beaver and his works. J.B. Lippincott & Co.
| Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant 1869 to 1877 |
Birth of Henry Chandler Cowles' (1869-1939). See 1895 - 1898 - 1901 - 1913 -
12.10.1870 Death of Robert Edward Lee, Confederate General and then (from 1865) the President of Washington University, Virginia. On the work table in his office there was a copy of On the prevention and treatment of mental disorders published in 1859 by George Robinson, MD (1821-1875) the owner of Bensham Asylum, near Gateshead, in the north-east of England. [Source: Jeptha Greer] External links Washington and Lee Chapel - Washington and Lee University Timeline (archive)
26.11.1870 First patient admitted to Nebraska State Asylum at Lincoln.
1870/1871
Lewis Henry Morgan,
Systems of consanguinity and affinity of the human family
Smithsonian contributions to knowledge volume 17. (Smithsonian
Institution, Washington)
1871
| Washington Territory's first Lunatic Asylum established from a closed Army post called Fort Steilacoom. Now Western State Hospital, Washington. The second state hospital was opened in 1888 The picture below shows Western State Hospital in the 1940s, at about the time that the film star Frances Farmer became a patient. Her autobiography Will there really be a morning? generated a lot of unwelcome publicity for the hospital in 1978. (Kathleen Benoun) |
|
1872
Under Elizabeth Packard's influence,
Iowa
passed a similar bill to
Illinois. Other states followed suite.
1873
Birth of Abraham Arden Brill (died 1948), the
first major translator of the works
of
Sigmund Freud from German into English. The New York
Psychonalytic Society was founded under his chairmanship in 1911. In 1920
he was "PH.B., M.D. Clinical assistant, Department of Psychiatry and
Neurology,
Columbia
University; Assistant in Mental Diseases, Bellevue Hospital;
Assistant
Visiting Physician, Hospital for Nervous Diseases"
Birth of Charles Christopher Adams (1873-1955).
"Arriving from Harvard at the University of Chicago in 1899, Adams studied
under
Charles B. Davenport,
Henry C. Cowles, and Charles Otis Whitman. He worked
as a
curator at the University of Michigan's Natural History Museum while
completing
his Ph.D., awarded in 1908. From 1908 to 1914, he served as a professor in
animal ecology at the University of Illinois". 1913 Animal Ecology
"In December 1914, he
participated
in the initial organizational meeting of the Ecological Society of America"
1874
16.9.1874
Frederic Edward Clements born, (died 26.7.1945) See
1905 -
1916 -
1917 -
1925 -
[Wikipedia]. Clements argued that plant
communities develop thorough stages to a climax community.
9.11.1874 Missouri State Lunatic Asylum Number 2 at St
Joseph's. In 1968 George Glore, a worker at the hospital, created models to
illustrate the history of psychiatric treatment in the USA. From this
developed a museum now known as the
Glore Psychiatric Museum. Now in its own
modern building, the museum has outlived its hospital and is a major
tourist attraction. Curator, Scott Clark. -
Museum link -
Roadside America link
Christmas 1874
The Lambs New York formed. A gentleman's club
for actors. It was the twin of the
London Lambs Club.
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, founded
in 1874, claims to be "the world's oldest independent scientific monthly
in the field of human behaviour". It started (1874) as the Chicago
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (first two years). The first
years of the journal balanced neurology and psychiatry. -
See History of Chicago Neurology
1875
14.12.1875: New England Psychological Society formed at
Worcester, Massachusetts. Pliny Earle, superintendent of the Northampton
Lunatic Hospital, elected president. The name was changed to the New
England Society of Psychiatry on 26.3.1907. (see
words)
The first
Columbia PhD was awarded in 1875
1876 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Maryland, opened.
"the first university in the Western Hemisphere founded on the model of the
European research institution, where research and the advancement of
knowledge were integrally linked to teaching".
(external link)
[What did the others do? - Does this mean that John Hopkins was the first
USA institution that a European would have recognised as a university? See
Yale]
See external link:
Darwin's Impact: Social Evolution in America, 1880-1920
(archive)
and
History of Economic Thought Web, which
describes Sumner as a "Social Darwinist, American counterpart of the
British evolutionary theorist, Herbert Spencer. Defended radical laissez-
faire as being justified by laws of evolution".
"Although colleges devoted to the instruction of future
clergymen, other professionals, and members of the upper strata have
flourished in America since the colonial period, the first full-fledged
American university, Johns Hopkins, opened its doors only in 1876.
Four
years later
Columbia College began to develop into a national
university.
The universities of Michigan and Pennsylvania followed soon after. In
1891
large endowments from private benefactors led to the creation of two new
major universities, Stanford and the University of Chicago. Others soon
followed."
(Lewis Coser)
| Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes 1877 to 1881 |
|
Lewis Henry Morgan,
(1818
-1881) Ancient society, or, researches in the
lines of human progress from savagery, through barbarism to
civilization Chicago : C.H. Kerr.
See Marx and Engels Origin Durkheim on totemism Fison and Howitt |
|
Richard L. Dugdale, 1877, The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity, New York, G.P. Putnam. Webster's 1913 Dictionary included the following entry:
"Jukes, The: A pseudonym used to designate the descendants of two sisters, the Jukes sisters, whose husbands were sons of a backwoodsman of Dutch descent. They lived in the State of New York, and their history was investigated by R. L. Dugdale as an example of the inheritance of criminal and immoral tendencies, disease, and pauperism. Sixty per cent of those traced showed, degeneracy, and they are estimated to have cost society $1,308,000 in 75 years."
1878
In 1878, William Welch established the first pathology laboratory in the
United States at Bellevue Hospital in New York and shortly after T. Michell
Prudden started one at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Although
these laboratories were designated as pathology laboratories, bacteriologic
research and teaching were part of the program."
(W. L. Mallmann 1974) -
(archive)
January 1878
Charles S. Peirce
"How to Make Our Ideas Clear" in
Popular Science Monthly 12, pages 286-302.
1879
Bureau of
Ethnology established by an Act of Congress. Later re-named
Bureau of
American Ethnology.
(Wikipedia)
February 1879 The
Anthropological Society of Washington founded,
"government-sponsored anthropology centered in Washington - in the earlier
days largely at the Smithsonian Institution" (External source:
pdf of Records, including history
-
html)
1880
American Journal of Philology founded
25.10.1880 Oregon State Legislature authorised the construction of
the first state lunatic asylum. The State Insane Asylum at Salem,
Oregon was opened in 1883 with 320 patients. Before that, Oregonian
lunatics were cared for in a private asylum in Portland at state expense.
(Rootsweb, which has pictures)
Lewis Henry Morgan,
A Study of the Houses of the American Aborigines; with suggestions
for the exploration of the Ruins in New Mexico, Arizona, the valley of
the San Juan, and in Yucatan and Central America.
"Although there were many
pathology and bacteriology
laboratories in Europe prior to 1875, none existed in the United States.
Why no laboratories were established in the United States before 1875 is
difficult to understand because biologists and teachers in the universities
and medical schools were familiar with the researches of
Pasteur,
Koch and
Lister.
|
Presidency of James A. Garfield (Republican)
1881
Presidency of Chester A. Arthur (Republican) 1881 to 1885 |
1881
Lewis Henry Morgan, Houses and house-life of the American aborigines This was part of the original manuscript of Ancient Society It was published as volume four of Contributions to North American ethnology Department of the Interior. U. S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region.
1882
The life and works of Lewis H. Morgan. An address at his funeral by
Joshua Hall Macilvaine. [Rochester, N.Y.]
1883
The first laboratory of psychology in America is established
at
Johns Hopkins University
Memoir of Lewis H. Morgan of Rochester, N.Y. etc. by
Charles Henry Hart. Philadelphia
Robert Henry Lowie born, Vienna, 1883. Died 1957.
(Wikipedia)
1884
The superintendent of
St Elizabeth's Hospital for the Insane, W.W. Godding, appointed
Isaac W. Blackburn as head of the first
pathology laboratory established in a lunatic asylum in the USA.
In 1884,
John Dewey published "Kant and Philosophic Method" (April), was
awarded his Ph.D by
Johns Hopkins University (June) and was appointed instructor in
philosophy at
University of Michigan (July). One of his students at Michigan
was
Robert E. Park.
[see autobiographical note]
Dewey left Michigan in
1888. Robert Park worked as a journalist from 1887 to
1898
[see autobiographical note]
| Presidency of Grover Cleveland (Democrat) 1885 to 1889 |
1885
Roderick Duncan McKenzie
Roderick Duncan McKenzie born (died 1940). See
1923 -
1925 -
1929 -
1933 -
Boas emigrated to the United States, to "assume an editorial
position with the journal Science"
(source) - "From 1885 to
1896,
Boas conducted fieldwork under the auspices of several museums
on the North Pacific Coast of North America"
(source) - "In 1886, he embarked upon
... what would become his most famous
ethnographic project, working among
the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw) Indians of the Northwest Coast, after which he
secured his first academic position in
1889
(source)
Louis Untermeyer (1885-1977) "Schools used his
Modern American and
British poetry books widely, and they often
formed students' introduction to poetry"
(Wikipedia) - "Louis Untermeyer was most noted for the
anthologies of poetry which he compiled and edited. Some of these works,
first published in the 1920s, continued to be used as high school and
college textbooks well into the 1970s"
(Biographical note, University of Delaware)
1886
Of 1,588
paretic patients
admitted to
St.
Elizabeth's Hospital between 1886 and
1924,
1,198 died in the
hospital.
16.5.1886
Ernest Watson Burgess born. See 1921 -
1925 -
1887
Yale College became Yale University
1888
27.1.1888 National Geographic Society founded in Washington DC. The
National Geographic Magazine started in September/October 1888.
[external link to website]. The
Royal Geographical
Society in Great Britain was founded in 1830.
New York investigative reporter Nellie Bly disguised herself as a mental
patient, then wrote Ten days in a Mad House
In Washington State
there is a lake so full of salts that it is known as
"Medical Lake". The lake was exploited commercially by an English
immigrant, Stanley Hallett (1851- ) who owned much of the land. Hallett
persuaded the legislature, of what was then Washington Territory,
to construct the
second
State Lunatic Asylum there in 1888. It is now Eastern State Hospital
(Washington) (Kathleen Benoun's
timeline says it opened in 1891)
external
link
"The original Kirkbride
building