Q. David Bowers
The Year 1875 in History
President U.S. Grant vetoed a bill that would have saved bison from virtual extinction on the plains. A demonstration by John Warne Gates in San Antonio, Texas, showed the efficacy and economy of barbed wire, thus ending many open ranges (several years later in 1879, barbed wire was first offered for sale in large quantities).
Alexander Graham Bell conducted experiments which led to the creation of the telephone. On March 1st, Congress passed a civil rights act that guaranteed blacks equal rights in public places and forbade their exclusion from juries, but for the next 80 years in many areas of the South, black people still had to use separate restrooms, drinking fountains, bus seating sections, waiting rooms, educational facilities, etc.
The New York City Court House was finished for a total cost of $13 million, as compared to a pre-construction estimate of $250,000, thanks to the padding of bills by William Marcy "Boss" Tweed of Tammany Hall, the city's political ring. Among the charges was one for $361,000 for a month's work by one carpenter. Cartoonist Thomas Nast produced many nasty cartoons, at least from-Tweed's viewpoint; many pictured him as a monster. (An especially famous one showed Tweed as head of a family of vultures, saying "Let us prey.") Tweed later blamed his downfall and imprisonment on Nast's cartoons.
On the public accommodations scene, the United States Hotel opened at Saratoga Springs, with nearly 1,000 rooms; the Palace Hotel started business in San Francisco with 755 rooms; and in Chicago the new Palmer House Hotel, owned by Potter Palmer, took the place of the hostelry by the same name that was reduced to ashes in the 1871 Chicago fire.
In London, the world's first roller-skating rink opened for business. Within a quarter century, roller skating would become a national pastime in the United States, and during the decade 1900-1910 it would be a national craze. Years later, noted American numismatic bibliophile Armand Champa would be president of the Roller Skating Rink Owners of America and would own several rinks. On November 12th, the first Harvard-Yale football game was held, thus setting off one of America's best-known gridiron rivalries.
In Vevey, Switzerland (where American film comedian Charlie Chaplin would spend the last of his days nearly a century later), the Nestle Company (formally Societe Anonyme Lactec Henri Nestle), working with Daniel Peter's chocolate factory (which it later acquired), created the first milk chocolate candy. In America in the next century, noted numismatist Bill Fivaz would be the third generation of his family to work with Nestle.
The Anaconda Company was formed in Butte, a largely abandoned town in Montana Territory, and would go on to become one of the world's greatest producers of copper. Silver continued to be a glut on the world markets, due to abundant sales by European countries and the continued production in Nevada. The Prudential Friendly Society, later known as the Prudential Insurance Company ("as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar"), was established in Newark, New Jersey. The Kentucky Derby horse race was run for the first time.
At the Philadelphia Mint it was a slow year for gold coinage, and with the exception of the double eagle, mintages were small. In particular, the 1875 $3 gold, minted only with Proof finish and to the extent of just 20 pieces, would become a famous rarity. At the same mint, James Pollock and his fellow officers were busy creating rare "patterns" for Mint Director Henry R. Linderman and other insiders. Included among such coins were new varieties of 1875-dated trade dollars including examples made by resurrecting the old Commercial Dollar reverse of 1872 and the pre-1866 Liberty Seated dollar die without motto. (Tom DeLorey points out that, technically speaking, the Without-Motto dollar reverse would have been appropriate for a few die pairings in which the obverse die bore the motto. "However, I agree that they are contrivances." (Letter to the author, June 24, 1992.) Should anyone in first grade still be skeptical that these are anything else than contrived fancy pieces, one needs to do no more than to point out that some (J-1426-9, for example) were made in unnecessary metals as well; in copper, aluminum, and white metal in addition to silver. If anyone were ever to write a book on U.S. pattern coins made for the true intended purpose of being patterns, the listings for the 1860s and 1870s would include just a tiny percentage of the coins now listed in the Judd book! Carson City mintages of dimes, quarters, and half dollars increased greatly from former years, and through 1877 such denominations would be made in large numbers. Congress on January 14, 1875 passed an act providing for the redemption of Fractional Currency with silver coins of denominations from the dime to the half dollar, such to take place "as rapidly as practicable." However, few new coins reached circulation. Immense quantities of newly-minted silver pieces piled up in Treasury vaults.