The 1890s were a turbulent time in America. The growth and expansion of “The Gilded Age” collapsed with the Panic of 1893, and sent the country into a depression. Railroads, the primary long distance transportation of Americans pre-automobile, had been overbuilt with shaky financing and could not earn revenues to exceed their loans and other costs. Just ten days before the second inauguration of Grover Cleveland, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad declared bankruptcy; three large railways went bankrupt soon after. Numerous banks failed and there was a run on gold. New silver mines flooded the market, driving down the price of silver, and the value of the American dollar fell. The United States still had a large portion of the population involved in farming, but prices for agricultural commodities also plummeted, especially for wheat and cotton, and farmers could not afford to put in their next crop, nor pay workers for planting or harvesting. To add to the economic woes, the McKinley Tariff of 1890 had increased the prices of imported goods by almost 50%, thus causing a sharp increase in prices for all.

Over 3,000 Pullman railroad workers decided in 1894 that the only way to deal with layoffs, wage cutbacks, and the high prices of living in the required ‘company town’ was to stop work. Their wildcat strike paralyzed travel of people and goods, including the mail. Unions were still illegal then, but strike sentiment grew across the country. When Pullman strikers were shot and killed, 250,000 workers in twenty-seven states stopped work at the urging of Eugene V. Debs, who led the American Railway Union. The Army was called in to force passage of mail trains and break the strike. More violence and sabotage of the railroads ensued and at least 30 persons were killed, many others wounded in the strike.

President Grover Cleveland knew he had to make peace with the workers and unions or risk more riots and a worsening of the economic depression. Just six days after the strike ended, he rushed a bill through Congress to create Labor Day as a national holiday to honor all those who toil in our nation. It was a unanimous vote for the new federal holiday.

Continued concerns about the economy, however, caused bank runs and thus more panic. Some estimates place unemployment rates as high as 18.4% in 1894; unemployment continued for four more years above 12.4%. Americans were stunned, afraid, out of work, and could not feed their families or pay their rent or mortgage. (Do you sort of know how folks in those days must have felt? It was as bad as the 2008 crash- probably worse.)

Sadly, we have little of the 1890 census available to compare with 1900, so we could look at incomes, home ownership, etc and compare the two decades. Reviewing at the 1900 census, it seems that more people than usual can be found living in one home- parents moved in with their children and grandchildren (or vice versa) to save money. Rural folks were moving to the city in hope of finding a job and boarding houses were full. The disparity between the rich and the poor was more striking than it had ever been in American Society. Social evangelists worked to alleviate the effects of the depression on the poor, and debates on socialism were common in magazines and newspapers, the lecture circuits, parlors, and universities.

Charles Edward Anson Markham (1852-1940), generally known as Edwin Markham after 1895, had grown up poor as he toiled on his family’s farm. He became a teacher in northern California. Markham was influenced by socialists such as Thomas Lake Harris, and Jack and Charmian London (both avowed Socialists) were frequent correspondents and friends. As a poet, after seeing the French painting, “The Man with the Hoe,” Markham was inspired to write about the plight of poor workers.

First presented at a New Year’s Eve party reading in 1898, the poem was published by The San Francisco Examiner on January 15, 1899. It was picked up by newspapers and magazines around the world- over 12,000 reprints in 37 languages before the computer age- and it made him famous. The poem begins:

“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.”

 The entire poem can be found online in a number of places, but was also reprinted in The Arena, Vol. XXII, July 1899, No. 1, pages 15-16. There is an intriguing animation of Markham reading his poem, “The Man with the Hoe,” found on YouTube.

Thursday: our ancestor, Edward B. Payne’s analysis of the poem and its controversy.

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) “L’homme à la houe (The Man with the Hoe)” by Jean-François Millet – The Getty Center, Object 879, Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%27homme_%C3%A0_la_houe_(The_Man_with_the_Hoe).jpg#mediaviewer/File:L%27homme_%C3%A0_la_houe_(The_Man_with_the_Hoe).jpg.

2) The issues involved in the Pullman Strike are much more complex than just lowered wages and layoffs- ‘company towns’ and not lowering rents when wages are lowered,  the railroads refusing to run trains without Pullman cars, government intervention in the private sector when national issues are involved such as mail service, etc. See, among other good sources,  https://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/mmh/1912/content/pullman.cfm and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike.

3) Note population changes with City Directories as well- look for the address, not just the name, and you may find many married children, often with children of their own, living at the same address as parents/grandparents. Remember too, that these were small houses- we have one family group of 11 living in a two-bedroom house in 1900!

4) Panic of 1893: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 and other readings.

5) I wonder who attended that New Year’s Eve reading- Thomas Lake Harris (who later founded a Utopian religious community in New York and later at Fountain Grove, in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California), Jack & Charmian London, possibly Edward Biron Payne (who later founded Altruria, another Utopian community in Sonoma County)? They travelled in the same literary circles and all had socialist leanings, plus Markham was probably living in Oakland, California at that time. (His move to New York occurred the next year.) We still have not found a definitive link to Markham and Edward B. Payne, though it is highly likely that they knew each other due to politics, geography, and social groupings.

6) Sources for the life of Edwin Markham include:

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/edwin-markham https://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/markham/reflections.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Markham

7) See also previous posts about Edward B. Payne, and watch for posts to come on Altruria and the rest of EBP’s life.

8) A good article on Markhams’ poem and the origins of Labor Day: https://westchesterguardian.com/9_9_10/Abady_Cov.%20Markham%20poem.html

9) We like this digital reproduction of “To the Man with the Hoe” in The Arena, because we know it has not been changed like what has been typed into so many websites, especially those calling it “To the Man with a Hoe.” (It was originally ‘the’ hoe, not ‘a’ hoe.) : https://books.google.com/books?id=9S4ZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP7&lpg=PP7&dq=to+the+man+with+hoe+Edward+b+payne&source=bl&ots=Rf8YvFxc1K&sig=BskDJ7PfUUjkXRBiV0KxydrNQRA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Uzb0U_qCHo6oyASOt4KQBQ&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

10) An intriguing animation of Edwin Markham reading his poem (apparently from an image of him and an actual recording, I think.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apHsb5Xou-0

11) Edwin Markham image available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c05934.

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Elsie Janis’ real name was Elsie Bierbower (or Elsie Beerbower), so if you are a Helbling or Bierbower cousin, you may be related to this very-famous-in-her-time comedienne, actress, singer, mimic, and entertainer of our troops in World War I. Those troops gave her the nickname, “Sweetheart of the A.E.F. (American Expeditionary Forces)” and she truly earned the accolade.

Why is this a “Wishful Wednesday” post? It is because Elsie’s 1st cousin once removed, Mary Theresa Helbling, wanted so much to be a singer like Elsie. Mary’s mother, Anna May Bierbower Helbling, was Elsie’s cousin, and talked about her often as Mary grew up. Mary also loved the movie magazines and cut paper dolls from them, when she was allowed to have such expensive and scandalous magazines. By that time Elsie was mostly a writer for the movies- she never transitioned well from the stage to talkies as an actress. Elsie led a glamorous life though, and was often pictured in the magazines. Mary, when young, wished she had a life like that too.

Mary also loved to sing- she had a very beautiful voice. She loved listening to light opera and singing along to it and all the wonderful old movies with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, and the fabulous musicals of the 1950s and 60s. Her voice was good enough to have sung on the radio back in the late 1930s or 1940s- wish I could remember more about that. Later, Mary and the love of her life, Edward A. McMurray, Jr., would sing together around the house, with a beautiful harmony and sometimes mooney-eyed in-love looks at each other even when they knew the kids were watching.

This is also “Wishful Wednesday” because I wished for so many years to be able to hear Elsie’s voice. There was a university in Idaho, IIRC, that had old recordings, including those of Elsie. Back then, I wrote a letter on paper (!) and sent it to them, asking if there was any way they could record Elsie’s voice on reel-to-reel tapes (!!) for me. No answer, despite repeated requests, even once the internet started up and I sent an email. (Maybe because I was not a scholarly researcher?) Many years later, there are now digital recordings of her music available to the public- even on iTunes. Wonder what Elsie would make of that???

Downloading Elsie’s music was my first time for music with ‘Explicit’ material. I was sort of shocked- why would Elsie’s music be labeled as such? I then realized that some of the material was racist, such as that from minstrel shows or musicals that showed the races in the context of their times, the late 1800s-early 1900s, not our times. (Still hard to listen to some of those songs because of that.) I have also been able to buy one of her records on eBay, but no longer have a turntable so have not been able to listen to it.

The internet sure has made the amazing world of the past available to us all in seconds, and even while in our pajamas! It is wonderful to have my wish to hear Elsie come true; sure wish Mary would have had that opportunity.

More to come about Elsie’s interesting life!

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) See the International Movie Database at  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0006059/ for details about the stage musical and movie, “The Slim Princess.”

2) Elsie Janis Find a Grave Memorial # 10334. The bio is inaccurate although I have contacted the person many times. The family links were finally changed but it still erroneously states that she was the daughter of Lou Bierbauer. See also the memorials for her family members on Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10334. A Bierbower researcher had also added a memorial for her: Memorial # 33617289 at https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSvcid=186286&GRid=33617289&.

3) “Sweetheart of the A.E.F.” is the title of the audio CD that contains 20 of her most popular songs. It is available on smile.Amazon.com and iTunes.

4) Remember Mitch Miller and Sing Along with Mitch? It ran from 1961-1966 on NBC. Mitch had a male chorale and also featured other excellent singers, like Leslie Uggmans, on the show. (Bob McGrath was one of those in the chorale; he later went on to be a long-time host of Sesame Street.) Mitch is regarded as the inventor of today’s karaoke, as the program featured the words shown on the screen, so the whole family could sing along. (There was no bouncing ball though.) For more information, see the Archive of American Television– https://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/shows/sing-along-with-mitch. YouTube has videos of some performances: Sing Along with Mitch, Part 1 of 4– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dY9gtYeHhk. (The commercials are wonderful- frozen foods were just becoming popular. I remember the whole family eating frozen TV dinners on the folding metal TV trays while watching Mitch!)

5) Sheet music and photo of Mary Helbling in personal collection of the author.

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

It is fitting to add this post today, on the anniversary of Edward B. Payne’s birthday, July 25, 1847.

Sorry that I haven’t been posting much due to real life, which sometimes interferes with genealogy. 😉

I have also recently had an article about Edward B. Payne (fondly known as EBP in our house) published in The Russian River Recorder, Spring 2014, Issue 124, which is the journal of the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society, Sonoma County, California. The article took a lot of time to write, mostly because I was supposed to distill this complex man and his long life into 1200 words. I just couldn’t do it. I was so happy that they expanded the issue and I was able to use 1500 words. I will be posting the article soon.

The Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society  currently has a wonderful exhibit called “Visionaries, Believers, Seekers, and Schemers: 19th Century Utopian Communities of Sonoma County.” The community founded by Edward B. Payne, “Altruria,” although short-lived, was “… a glorious failure” according to some writers.  The Russian River Recorder has four articles about Altruria, plus numerous articles about the other three Utopian communities founded in Sonoma in the late 1800s. They are a very interesting read.

There were no known images of Altruria, as far as my research or that of others, until I contacted the Huntington Museum a couple of years ago. In some of Charmian London’s scrapbooks, the archivist found two images of Altruria. I requested a copy of the whole page, to get the images in context, and was surprised to see that there was also one image torn from the page- I would love to know more about that missing image! (I would be matching up the torn back of any loose photos with the remains in the scrapbook, but alas, the archivist states there are no loose photos.) These images too will get posted here on the blog, but I do need to get permission from the Huntington first; they did give their kind permission to publish in the journal above. It has been exciting to email back and forth with curators, archivists, and librarians for this research. They are all unsung heroes in my mind.

When Edward B. Payne could no longer preach due to his ‘pulmonary affliction’ (he acquired tuberculosis when he lived in New England), he earned a little income from lectures he provided throughout the Bay Area of California.

Lots more to come on EBP.

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) The Healdsburg Museum has a wonderful exhibit of the four Sonoma County Utopian communities through Aug. 3, 2014, plus their June 2014 The Russian River Recorder details these communities. See https://www.healdsburgmuseum.org for more information. They are planning an online video tour of the exhibit, so watch for that soon.

2) Images from family photo archives.

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

It was July 2, 1776 in hot Philadelphia, and a group of delegates to the Second Continental Congress had just committed a treasonous act- they had declared their thirteen American colonies as sovereign states, independent of Great Britain. That treasonous act included a unanimous vote for independence, using a document that had been drafted by a group of five, including Thomas Jefferson, the primary author.

Most of the delegates to the Continental Congress signed the document that same day, but it was not until July 4th that the remaining delegates approved the document that we now know as the Declaration of Independence. (Some historians believe it was not signed by all until August 2, 1776.)

The Declaration was read to the public on July 8th, 1776, accompanied by a parade of the battalions participating in the Revolutionary War, which had already been going on for over a year. Gun salutes were punctuated by cheers from the crowds who believed in the revolution. (I assume Loyalists were not in attendance… at least, not for long.)

John Adams, one of the instigators of revolution, wanted us to celebrate our independence on July 2nd. In a letter to his wife Abigail Adams, on July 3, 1776, he wrote:

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

A large celebration did not occur until the first anniversary of the signing. In Philadelphia on July 4, 1777, fireworks, bonfires, 13-gun salutes from harbor ships, patriotic music, candles in the windows of houses, and church bells sang of our new country,  and its promise that:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.“

There are many Revolutionary War heroes in our family, and probably many more than we know. Wartime is particularly difficult when it takes place in ALL the areas that people live, as it did during the Revolution- few areas were spared from battles or troop movements. It was a brother vs. brother war as well, because so many of the colonists, including many of our ancestors, were native to England. Following are brief bits of info about three of our Revolutionary War heroes. More details about their lives will be found in upcoming posts.

Daniel-Hemphill (George A. Roberts) Family:

Capt. Audley Paul (1728-1802)- Born in Ireland, he served from 1754 in the French-Indian War through the close of the American Revolution. He was an Ensign in the Virginia Colonial Militia in 1758.

McMurray-Benjamin-Horn Family:

Jonathan Benjamin (1738-1841)- Private, received pension for his service from Licking County, Ohio.

Heinrich Horn (1758-1845)- Born in Germany, Heinrich has a very interesting story that will take a bit to tell in a future post. He did receive a Revolutionary War pension.

I do not know of any portraits of our own Revolutionary War ancestors- any who survived into the 1840s may have had their picture taken.

Time Magazine has a wonderful webpage, Faces of the American Revolution,  that includes some portraits of Revolutionary War soldiers. Additionally, Maureen Taylor, “The Photo Detective,” has written two books that include similar portraits and the stories of these heroes: “The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation” (Vol. 1) and “The Last Muster. Vol. 2  Faces of the American Revolution.” Her article “Ghosts of the Revolution”  about these 80+ year old soldiers was published in the DAR’s American Spirit magazine. She also had a Kickstarter campaign that raised money to make these books into a film, “Revolutionary Voices”: A Last Muster Film.

It is really amazing to see the faces of those who fought and endured so that the United States of America could be a free and democratic country. Two hundred and thirty-eight years later, today is a good day to celebrate, and remember that freedom is never free.

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Declaration_of_Independence. Accessed 7/4/14.

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(United_States). Accessed 7/4/14.

3) See details of the painting “Pulling Down the Statue of King George” at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johannes_Adam_Simon_Oertel_Pulling_Down_the_Statue_of_King_George_III,_N.Y.C._ca._1859.jpg. There is a fair amount of ‘artistic license’ in this painting. Accessed 7/4/14.

4) Time Magazine: Faces of the American Revolution at https://lightbox.time.com/2013/07/03/faces-of-the-american-revolution/#1. Accessed 7/4/14.

5) Maureen Taylor’s website: https://www.maureentaylor.com. Her books are available in bookstores as well.

6) “Ghosts of the Revolution”: https://www.maureentaylor.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ghosts_of_the_revolution.pdf

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Some of this post is repetitious, but it is important to make sure that it is clear as to which Jonathan, etc.

Please see previous posts in this series for greater detail.

From analyzing the bible records, it seems that the bible originally belonged to Hannah E. Ford, who recorded births, marriages, and deaths of her parents, siblings, and grandparents long after the events; she was not present at many of them. The bible may have then been passed on to her daughter Arestine Pricilla Benjamin. Arestine’s daughter Orletta M. Hatch probably inherited the bible from her mother, and that is who had the bible when this record was transcribed and published.

Marriages:

Jonathan Benjamin (1738/9-1841) married Margaret Brown (1742-1837) on 3-10-1760.

Mary Benjamin (1777-1863) married Phineas [Rowlandson] Ford (1772-1839) on 4-5-1797.

Deaths:

Arestine [Pricilla] Benjamin [died] 12-3-1914 [in Newton, Jasper, Iowa. [Daughter of Jonathan N. Benjamin and Hannah E. Ford. She married James Polk Hatch, and their daughter, Orletta, had the bible in her possession when the history was written in 1943.]

Cynthia A. Benjamin [died] ?-20-1829 [month is July. Daughter of Jonathan N. Benjamin and Hannah E. Ford. Has old headstone with name as Syntha, newer stone with Cynthia. She was only 16 months old when she died.]

Jonathan Benjamin [died] 8-26-1841 [Revolutionary War soldier, married Margaret Brown. Died in Licking Co., Ohio.]

Jonathan Benjamin [died] 9-3-1876 [Jonathan N. Benjamin. Son of David Benjamin and Elizabeth__ -maiden name unknown. Married Hannah E. Ford, whose bible records this information.]

Mary Benjamin [died] 10-15-1863 [Daughter of Jonathan Benjamin (1738-1841) and Margaret Brown. Married Phineas Rowlandson Ford and was the mother of Hannah E. Ford, the owner of the bible.]

Margaret Brown [died] 1-12-1836 [Wife of Jonathan Benjamin, maternal grandmother of Hannah E. Ford, bible owner.]

Hannah [E.] Ford [died] 1-15-1891 [Bible’s original owner. Married Jonathan N. Benjamin.]

Phineas [Rowlandson] Ford [died] 4-7-1839 [Husband of Mary Benjamin and father of Hannah E. Ford, bible owner.]

Charles [E.] Hatch [died] 3-23-1937 [Child of Arestine Pricilla Benjamin and James P. Hatch.]

James P. Hatch [died] 11-8-1932 [Son of Alvah Hatch (1817-1884) and Eleanor Eliza McCumsey (1820-1893). Husband of Arestine Pricilla Benjamin and father of Orletta Hatch who owned bible in 1943.]

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) “Notes on the Life and Family of JONATHAN BENJAMIN, 1738-1841,

Frontiersman and Revolutionary War Veteran” edited by Robert Benjamin Kilduff, Chicago, Illinois, 1943.

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.