The Stammering Century by Gilbert Seldes

Author:Gilbert Seldes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59017-595-8
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2012-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

†Until 1834 every citizen of Massachusetts had to contribute to the support of some religious sect. Ministers with unsure livings were afraid to support unpopular causes. †The drift to the cities became marked in the 1830’s and one of the attractions of New York was the Siamese Twins, †People said, “Don’t you take?” in the sense of “get the point?” †Silver forks came in and also the balanced knife handle to keep the blade off the cloth, “a little thing, but very promotive of cleanliness.” †The reaper was perfected and the first horticultural society was founded. †In 1832, Frederick Tudor was sending ice from Massachusetts to the southern states, Brazil, and to Calcutta for Lord William Bentinck and the nabobs of the India Company. †Railroad construction gangs were made up chiefly of Irishmen paid from forty to seventy-five cents a day, with their meals and six drinks of whiskey daily. †In 1836, Love joy was killed by anti-abolitionists at Alton, Illinois. †In the same year there was a mad speculation in building lots in Manhattan, many of them known as “water lots.”

†The city of Lowell, named after a manufacturer of cotton, was built as a complete factory town and, before it was paved, 5,000 young women and a thousand men were already at work. †In Ohio there was an “utter aversion to ministers trading in horse flesh” and settlers there united to do violence to land speculators. †In 1832, a steamer landed troops in Chicago and, eight years later, the first Cunarder, the Britannia, arrived in Boston. †In 1835, Colt’s rotating chambered gun breech was patented. †In 1829, a scandal was caused in New York by the public examination of a girl in the subject of Geometry, “the clergy, as usual, prophesying the dissolution of all family bonds.” †In 1835, was circulated the first petition for property rights for women; the marriage by contract of Robert Dale Owen was sneered at, and the phrase “committed matrimony” was in use. †The “backwoods” were no longer known by that name and “eastern exquisites” visited Lexington and Louisville. The country suffered a flood of European critics. †The American business man was already tired—of making money. †By 1832 “The campaigns against Black Hawk and Madame Trollope are over, and both have ceased to be objects of editorial concern. And there are no new Lions—The steam engine— march of mind—spirit of the age, above all ‘the West’—‘the Far West’—‘the great West,’ those standard topics of newspaper paragraphs, have had their praises exhausted, and ‘delight no more.’” †Mr. Barnum was exhibiting Tom Thumb.

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