Q. David Bowers
Harriet Beecher Stowe's narrative of "life among the lowly" (actually its subtitle), Uncle Tom's Cabin, was published in serial form in a magazine in 1851 and in book form in Boston in 1852. The first printing of 5,000 copies sold out in a week, and seven weeks later 50,000 copies had reached buyers. Within a year the total climbed to 300,000. The work persuaded many to join the cause of abolition and also prompted at least 30 other authors to produce books defending slavery. A decade later, Mrs. Stowe visited President Lincoln in the White House. The chief executive asked, "Is this the little woman whose book made such a great war?"
Slavery continued to be the number one social issue in America. The number two social movement, temperance, saw prohibition adopted by Louisiana and Vermont, following Maine's lead. Temperance meetings, newspapers, books, and even medals abounded. In California, the governor sought land grants to induce more Chinese, "among the most worthy of our newly adopted citizens," to come to the Golden State. No one dreamed that years later, Congress would pass the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The National Road (known a century later as Route 40), begun as the Cumberland Road in 1811, stretched from the East to Illinois. Railroads fought among themselves, and the Pennsylvania Railroad used a different track gauge than that employed in New York, so that equipment on the Erie Railroad could not go through Pennsylvania on the way to Ohio. Railroad securities became the darlings of the stock market, and abuses proliferated. The first horse-drawn street railway in the Boston area commenced business with a single car that traveled from Harvard Square in Cambridge to Union Square in Somerville.
In South Bend, Indiana, the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company was established and would evolve into the world's largest maker of carriages and wagons. In the twentieth century it would make automobiles.
In Chicago, Potter Palmer opened a shop that would evolve into the city's largest department store and, still later, to the ownership of the Palmer House Hotel. At the time Chicago was becoming increasingly important as a grain and cattle center and as the prime focus of trade in the Midwest. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer would later spend much time in society matters, and in 1893 Mrs. Palmer would head the Board of Lady Managers at the World's Columbian Exposition, the group that issued the 1893 Isabella commemorative quarter.
Among technological innovations, coal oil, as a petroleum derivative was called, began to be used in lamps, but whale oil was still the main fuel for illumination. In New York, Elisha G. Otis invented the safety elevator, which used ratchets to prevent free fall.
Discouraged by the lack of customers, Otis resolved to head for the California gold fields, but was deterred from doing so when two orders arrived at the last minute.
Among popular songs of the time was Stephen Collins Foster's Massa's In de Cold Cold Ground, which quickly became a national favorite, to be forgotten in later years (by 1992 not a single recording group included the melody on a disc or cassette). However, other Foster tunes such as Old Folks at Home and Oh. Susanna were still popular.
In 1852, $45,506,177 worth of gold was sent by steamer from San Francisco. Of this amount, $39,007,367 was destined for New York City, $470,783 for New Orleans, $6,020,027 for London, $46,000 for Panama, and $15,000 for San Juan.
Large quantities of American gold coins were exported. The Bankers' Magazine and Statistical Register quoted this letter from George Peabody & Company, London, to the Bank of England, February 19, 1852, which stated in part: "We have received and sent in to your institution, subject to our further orders, a parcel of gold bullion, melted from $250,000 American eagles, and by next steamer expect another large shipment. ... " This may explain the scarcity of many dates of $10 gold coins of this era.