Category: Pre-Civil War

Mississippi cotton gin at Dahomey

Credit: Library of Congress Media type: photograph Museum Number: LC-USZC4-6134 Annotation: This is a picture of workers in a cotton gin. A cotton gin is a machine that separates the cotton from the seeds. The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney in 1793. Year: 1898

Cyrus McCormick’s Reaper

Credit: Library of Congress Media type: illustration Museum Number: LC-USZ62-44940 Annotation: McCormick who was from Virginia was one of two people to create a reaping machine. The invention of the reaper allowed for farmers to do less back breaking work. Although McCormick was not the first to invent the reaper, he was the one to invent and improve the…

Roll of Honor – Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls

Media type: miscellaneous-image Annotation: A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition of woman, was called by the Women of Seneca County, N.Y. and held at the village of Seneca Falls, in the Wesleyan Chapel, on the 19th and 20th of July, 1848. Year: 1848

Mac-Cut-I-Mish-E-Ca-Cu-Cac or Black Hawk, a Celebrated Sac Chief

Credit: Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas Media type: lithograph Museum Number: 1965.10.56 Annotation: Lewis painted a portrait of Black Hawk in 1833 after the chief was released from Fort Monroe in Virginia. Black Hawk had led an uprising by the Sac people who fought againist resettlement in the West. The Black Hawk War (1832) was fought to recover…

Long-billed Curlew, Numenius longirostris

Credit: Amon Cater Museum, Fort Worth, Texas Media type: engraving Museum Number: 1982.51 Year: 1834

Kansas-Nebraska Act

Media type: treaty-image Annotation: In 1854, a piece of legislation was introduced in Congress that shattered all illusions of sectional peace. The Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the Whig Party, divided the Democratic Party, and created the Republican Party. Ironically, the author of this legislation was Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who had pushed the Compromise of 1850 through Congress…