continuation from update #12 about why the 1880s are an interesting decade. It’s been a difficult last little while. feeling distant from myself and tried to get back in touch to some things that help steady me. like info dumps. this was gathering dust in my drafts and I decided to tidy her up tonight why not.
Child labour in the U.S. climbing in numbers (all the way until the 1920s!!) a lot in farming, mining, textile industry. In most families, children breadwinners because lots of opportunities for them to be exploited work
By this time already, we got some familiar names and reputations established. Active and/or died 1870s~1880s: Jesse James, Sam Bass, Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill
By late-post Reconstruction era, state penitentiaries unhinged, physically and administratively deteriorating. Summarized as: cruel torture practices, immigration, eugenics, and ‘prisons as laboratories’; incarcerated would rather hurt themselves than be subject to brutal prison punishment
Continuation on the racial violence: the Jim Crow laws that began in the previous decade grew more violent, severe, and widespread. Legalized racial segregation and dodgy enforcement of laws. nadir of American race relations: anti-black violence and racism would he the most prominent than in any period in American history
Continuation on the rise of ragtime via African American musicians: emergence of white minstrel performances that put racist, dehumanizing, derogatory lyrics over the music ☠️
Gilded Age: “Historians saw late 19th-century economic expansion as a time of materialistic excesses marked by widespread political corruption”; Industry boom invents the capitalist barons, wealth disparity, exploitation, labour unions, workers strikes… ✨ socialism
gaelic culture revival in Ireland, continued unrest against the British and revolutionary activities
Texas Rangers already a thing but locales started to organize more of their own “law enforcement” police. Crush political unrest, legalize violence against Indigenous and black populations
1850s through to the start of the turn of the century, “Anglo-Japanese style” in fashion, architecture, art, design. Result of the “opening up” of Japan to Europe, which led to more flow of capital between Japan and Europe. Trade, culture, art moved back and forth. Trendy among elites who could afford the fancy imports. fetishization and commodification and essentializatiom of Japanese culture. Fascination of the “far east”
In the face of scientific discovery and change, spiritualism movement was one of the ways for people to cope and explore their fears, aspirations, fantasies, beliefs. started in the mid 1800s. Grief and mourning culture. Speaking with the dead, ghosts, mediums, publications, séances. Entwined with gender politics and roles. See, The American phantasmagoria: The rise of spiritualism in nineteenth-century America by Daniel Bowlin
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is published in 1883 by America’s Howard Pyle, sparking an interest in literature featuring the heroic rogue
Oscar Wilding out
it’s been some time since the first 1880s world history dump. I forgot I left myself a little (to be continued) list. crossing off what I got here let’s see hmmm
prison industry / spiritualism / opium epidemic / irregular and uneven “modernizations” in rural vs. urban areas / class and poverty gaps / morality scares, checks, comparisons, gaps / new businesses and gadgets, products, tech to help with anything / fascination of the (colonial) Other; side shows, “freak shows” and other human zoos
something about this decade really sings to me. I find in particular, nearing the end of the nineteenth century, so much was happening on around the world in terms of arts, politics, technology, colonization. world events and global news don’t personally reach the day-to-day lives of the everyday folk, but they are an important part in gauging what life, thought, and society was about—what things were important then and now?
basically for myself, reminding me of notable things that occured during the 1880s—some thematic, some of relevance to context and characters, and the rest just ?? interesting and/or wild?
cocaine is a hot new cure for everything and anything. perscribed, sold in foods and more. heroine introduced as a lesser-addictive substitute for morphine…
lots of developments in fields of psychology; many experiments and happenings; Freud starts his work 1886.
1880-1914 had +twenty million immigrants to the United States: Germany, Ireland, England, China had the most arrivals.
William Dorsey Swann, the first self-proclaimed drag queen, organizes a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C. 1880-1890s.
Jack the Ripper claims his “first” victim in 1888 White Chapel, London. big scare.
Sherlock Holmes first appears in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study In Scarlet as part of the British magazine’s Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887.
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is published in 1886. Gothic fiction, drawing from emerging fields of science and psychology. & Treasure Island was published earlier in 1883 by him too!
Mark Twain drops The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889).
Bel-Ami, Guy de Maupassant’s second novel is published in 1885. about a man who seduces and manipulates high society French women in the French colonies for power and wealth. MOVIE WAS ADAPTED IN 2012 STARTING ROBERT PATTINSON LOL
western European art movements very romantic and swirly and pretty: Monet, Debussy xoxo.
meanwhile, African American ragtime music becomes the “pop” music across the pond here.
North Dakota (1889), South Dakota (1889), Montana (1889), Washington (1889) become states.
train segregation laws flag beginning of Jim Crow; Civil Rights Movement of 1875 voided, making discrimination in private is not illegal, and prohibiting state intervention to personal or commercial segregation. l*nching continues throughout the south. slavery may be over on paper, but indentured labour is legal.
1882 infamous O.K Corral gunfight.
Gold Rush continues, all over the world—South Africa, to British Columbia, to California, to Argentina, to Russia-China borders.
centuries of American “Indian” wars continue.
American Dawes Act of 1887 granted American government authorization to regulate indigenous lands, including creating and assigning and enforcing reservations.
Sitting Bull’s 1883 speech of the atrocities experienced at the hands of white American settler colonists.
Canadian Pacific Railway 1881-1885. foreign labourers were hired to do a lot of heavy, dangerous, unwanted work. in America, more than 100,000km of tracks were laid by majority Chinese, Irish, Scandinavian workers.
America’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Canada’s Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 was officiated, enforcing law of a Head Tax to be paid for every Chinese person entering North America. over the course of the next couple of decades, the fee of $1,500 was doubled to $5,000 was increased 500% to $25,000 in today’s currency—per person. this had devastating and lasting impacts on generations and societies of Chinese living both overseas and already in North America. propaganda at this time created many racist myths that persist today: there are too many Asians, they are taking our jobs, (the men) are gross and effeminate and a threat to (white) women, they shady and scheming people. these were the first and only major federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality in American and Canadian history. (I study Asian Canadian history, I can go on about this all day)
Tong Wars (1883-1913) had Chinatown gangs and factions in violent street wars across America, San Fransisco to New York.
large, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting (pogorm) and antisemitism rampant throughout Imperial Russia, 1881-1882 had more than two hundred anti-Jewish events alone. Jews continue to be racialized and othered.
fuck ton of colonization happening in Africa and the Middle East, Southeast Asia. Berlin conference 1884-1885 literally chopped up Africa to distribute to European powers.
Irish nationalist efforts to push forth Home Rule bill of sovereignty is defeated in British Parliament. Irish are not “white”, they are “othered” in Europe and in Americas.
use of photographic film pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing film. his first camera (Kodak) was ready for sale in 1888.
Thomas Edison gets lit in New York 1883 with first electrical power station. next several year sees major cities being lit up with street lamps and public lighting with the science and works of a Nikolas Tesla (1886-1893).
hell of a lot more inventions in the works and patents being claimed. Hertz and radiowaves, Bell for telephone services.
“Between the years of 1850–1900, women were placed in mental institutions for behaving in ways the male society did not agree with”
way too much history to cram, obviously. here are some keywords for further research oki
prison industry / spiritualism / opium epidemic / irregular and uneven “modernizations” in rural vs. urban areas / class and poverty gaps / morality scares, checks, comparisons, gaps / new businesses and gadgets, products, tech to help with anything / fascination of the (colonial) Other; side shows, “freak shows” and other human zoos
"What follows is a reminder of some “cowboy codes,” that were very popular in the late 1940s and ’50s. These creeds and rules are from some of America’s favorite silver screen cowboy heroes, and they seem surprisingly timely."
Bill Reynolds, Cowboy Codes from Western Heroes (2017)
I was researching general slang and colloquial terms and came across Legends of America's webpage for something called "The Code of the West". I know that pirates lived by an unofficial-official code of conduct/creed that helped bring some ordinance at sea (i.e. general principles that were recognized and used during that time period). The idea of the pirate code existing in the past, and used, makes more sense to me than the idea that a "cowboy way of life" was a thing that was used in the past, and still is today.
Now, the American "cowboy" is an identity and idea that has existed from the 1800s, until now. With every year, decade, century that has passed, the "cowboy" is reinvented and takes on a new kind of form that is new and specific to their time, yet still recognizable. The previous forms being lost to fiction or distant memory.
The idea of a Code of the West (as I had guessed) formulated in the 1900s. By then, an extensive, diverse, and turbulent history of the American frontier had been lived — a history that was available for folks to write, re-write, and romanticize about.
I am not suggesting that these "codes" written in the 1900s are incorrect, inaccurate, or insufficient (that 1800s "cowboys" were the "real" ones, the "ogs"). Rather, I am rambling here to muse aloud about the existence of such a "code" at all. The fact that there are so many damn variations just shows that there is a way to neatly define an (American) "cowboy". Should note that the 20th century also saw the rise of the "cowboy" as a character type and static ideal. These codes had and have purpose, whether to help draft an American her, idealize the past, or inspire folks today to pursue an “honourable” way of life and philosophy.
Anyways, super interesting find, fun to learn more about today. My goal is to really stay true to research and development, and in my experience, an important part of this process is to watch out for overarching ideas and generalizations. Again, not that they are "incorrect" but that they must be contextualized, especially when it is from the perspective of the present to the past.
The Code of the West / Zane Grey (1934)
Gene Autry's Cowboy Code of Honor / Gene Autry (1944)
Cowboy Values: Recapturing What America Once Stood For / James P Owen (2008)
Combing through census data and civil war records for ideas for time-period-accurate character names. Stumbled upon the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System database from an official government website. Thanks, public accessibility. The site has information on coloured regiments + an option to browse based on where people served/are from, including territories that were not yet absorbed into the U.S. 1861-1865 + an option to browse people in service based on their units and occupation, including musicians, sailors, sharpshooters.
looking through the Union’s New Mexico Cavalry unit and these are some names that tickled a little part of my brain:
Rogue Aguilar
Perfidia Amaya
Sabino Aquirria
Teodocio Aranda
Ylario Barela
Pilar Bella
Sisto Benevides
there are +3,500 results and I only browsed so far through last names sorted alphabetically A to B ;;;
*Where does this take place? who else is involved? how alone is she? is she a trucker, fatefully happening upon these deals as she travels where she’s destined? does she live in a town that’s just a glorified truck stop with transients and dead dreams? is she a demon?
*What superstition and I leaning on? Leaning toward mixing pot - American Gods feel (reread). Cult of Hecate?
I. Wikipedia: crossroads represent a meeting point of two places; planes of reality, worlds, etc. - a form of liminal space
A. Ancient Religions
Mercury and/or Odin were worshipped at crossroads
B. Hoodoo
to acquire physical skills like music or strength, one must attend a crossroads a number of times near midnight and a black man that “some call the devil” will grant this ability
VooDoo: there are mediaries between mortals and immortals and one guards/is found at crossroads
C. Blues songs
Demons can be summoned by rituals at crossroads
Sold It To the Devil by Black Spider Dumpling
Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson
Common tales of selling one’s soul for musical talent (common theme in rock and metal)
D. Brazilian Myth/Religion
E. Burial
UK tradition of burying criminals and suicides at crossroads; possibly to prevent peaceful afterlife or to bury them outside of the main settlements, or to confuse unhappy spirits attempting to return
F. Crossroad Villages
Colonial America: towns that sprung up at crossroads of frequently travelled roads: tavern, general store, and other resources would establish towns. religious and educational beliefs and practices would soon follow (think small western towns?)
