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Black journalist Philip Alexander Bell was born in 1808 in New York City and cut his political teeth in early abolitionist politics in the Northeast.  Bell attended Colored Citizens Conventions as early as 1830 and established his first newspaper, the Weekly Advocate, in 1837 after working for William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator.  After migrating to San Francisco, California in 1860, Bell maintained his connections with important abolition leaders such as Garrison and Frederick Douglass by reporting on black political and economic opportunities in the West.  (Source: Bell, Philip Alexander (1808-1889) – The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed)

We are happy to have the full series of  the Weekly Advocate and its successor, The Colored American in our African American Newspapers Collection.

Weekly Advocate Masthead

The Weekly Advocate’s motto was Established for, and devoted to the moral, mental, and political improvement of the people of color and when it became The Colored American its motto became Righteousness Exalteth a Nation and the paper was “…designed to be the organ of Colored Americans—to be looked on as their own, and devoted to their interests—through which they can make known their views to the public—can communicate with each other and their friends, and their friends with them; and to maintain their well-known sentiments on the subjects of Abolition and Colonization, viz.—emancipation without expatriation—the extirpation of prejudice—the enactment of equal laws, and a full and free investiture of their rights as men and citizens...”

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One of our newest collections is The Civil War Part VI: Northeast Regimental Histories.  These volumes were written while many of the members of the various regiments were still alive and able to recall specific events, stories, and places that shaped their lives during the war years.

While these books contain many somber passages, including lists of the dead and wounded, they also record stories like the one below that sheds some light on an individual member of the 12th Regiment – New Hampshire Volunteers.

Experiences, Anecdotes, and Incidents

One of the sergeants of Company H, whose first name is Alma, was a great lover of doughnuts, and different from most of young husbands he thought his wife could make quite as good or better doughnuts than his mother. So he wrote home to her from Point Lookout for a recipe how to make them. (more…)

From Health Department – By Jno. Stainback Wilson, M.D. in the November 1861 issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book.

Godey’s Lady’s Book was one of the most popular lady’s books of the 19th century. Each issue contained poetry, beautiful engraving and articles by some of the most well known authors in America.

The magazine was intended to entertain, inform and educate the women of America. In addition to extensive fashion descriptions and plates, the early issues included biographical sketches, articles about mineralogy, handcrafts, female costume, the dance, equestrienne procedures, health and hygiene, recipes and remedies and the like.

Health Department

A distinguished physician who died some years since in Paris declared:—

“I believe that during the twenty-six years I have practised my profession in this city twenty thousand children have been carried to the cemeteries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of exposing their arms naked.∞ I have thought, if a mother were anxious to show the soft, white skin of her baby, and would cut out a round hole in the little thing’s dress, just over the heart, and then carry it about for observation by the company, it would do very little harm; but to expose the baby’s arms, members so far removed from the heart, and with such feeble circulation at best, is a most pernicious practice.

“Put the bulb of a thermometer to a baby’s mouth; the mercury rises to 99 degrees. Now, carry the same bulb to its little hand; if the arms be bare and the evening cool, the mercury will sink to 40 degrees. Of course all the blood which flows through these arms and hands must fall from 20 to 40 degrees below the temperature of the heart. Need I say that when these cold currents of blood flow back into the chest the child’s general vitality must be more or less compromised? And need I add that we ought not to be surprised at its frequently-recurring affections of the lungs, throat, and stomach? I have seen more than one child with habitual cough and hoarseness, or choking with mucus, entirely, permanently relieved by simply keeping its arms and hands warm.” (more…)

The chief American poets, like the true poets of all ages, are on the side of freedom and heartily opposed to Slavery. They whose voice will be familiar to our posterity when the “great speeches” of many an eloquent orator of the day are forgotten, are known to be Free Soilers; and some of them among the most active and zealous members of the party. In this connection, we may venture to name Bryant, Dana, Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Pierpont and Whittier; all of whom vote with the Free Soilers, while two or three of them are, or have been, editors of Free Soil papers.

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One of the most useful vegetables in hygiene is red pepper. Especially in warm countries has it been considered invaluable as a stimulant and auxilary in digestion. Among the French and Spanish races it is used in the largest quantities, and they invariably enjoy most excellent health.

Of late, particularly since the cholera visited our State, our planters have begun to discover the advantages of this vegetable, and mingle large quantities of it with the food of their negroes.

Col. Maunsel White

Considerable attention has been drawn to the selection and cultivation of the best kinds of pepper. Among those who have appreciated the importance of this vegetable is that admirable planter and exceedingly practical gentleman, Col. Maunsel White, the proprietor of “Deer Range,” commonly known as the model sugar plantation. Col. White has introduced the celebrated tobasco red pepper, the very strongest of all peppers, of which he has cultivated a large quantity with the view of supplying his neighbors, and diffusing it through the State.

The tobasco pepper yields a small red pod less than an inch in length, and longitudinal shape. It is exceedingly hot, and a small quantity of it is sufficient to season a large dish of any food. Owing to its oleaginous character, Col. White found it impossible to preserve it by drying; but by pouring strong vinegar on it after boiling, he has made a sauce or pepper decoction of it, which possesses in a most concentrated form, all the qualities of the vegetable. A single drop of the sauce will flavor a whole plate of soup or other food.

The use of decoction like this, particularly in preparing the food for laboring persons, would be found exceedingly beneficial in a relaxing climate like this. Col. White has not had a single case of cholera among his large gang of negroes since that disease appeared in the South. He attributes this to the free use of this valuable agent.

– New Orleans Daily Delta

Notes

Although White never marketed this pepper sauce, his heirs advertised it for sale beginning in 1864, a year after White’s death (as “Maunsel White’s Concentrated Essence of Tobasco [sic] Pepper”). The White family apparently ceased production of this sauce in the late nineteenth-century. (McIlhenny Company, maker of world-famous Tabasco brand pepper sauce, denies persistent claims that its founder, E. McIlhenny, obtained his peppers and pepper sauce recipe from Maunsel White.)