“On Saturday night last the police of Albany were engaged in the investigation of an odd case. A woman named M’Garshan, was charged with imposing herself upon another woman as a man, and actually marrying her. Other enormities are also laid to her account.--The fact of the marriage was clearly proved, and the ‘female husband’ was committed for further examination.” ~Carroll free press. (Carrollton, [Ohio]), 09 Dec. 1842. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
“A young lady of Clarkesville, Tenn., recently became insane from reading novels. She fled from her home, not with a man, as young ladies devoted to such studies usually do, but in the garb of one of the masculine gender, and obtained employment as a journeyman tailor in a neighborhood town, where her friends found her and transported to Lunatic a Asylum.” ~From The Columbia Democrat. (Bloomsburg, Pa.), 28 June 1845. Chronicling America. Lib. of Congress.
“The Machine for Sewing Seams, recently reported to have been invented in Massachusetts, turns out to be something more than a fiction, contrary to our suspicions. It was exhibited at the late National Fair at Washington City, and is well spoken of by those who examined it. A Washington paper says--’with this machine, coats, pantaloons, and every thing which requires the needle can be made with very little trouble. The tailors will have to give up their business.’”
~From The Texas Democrat (Austin, Tex.), July 22, 1846
“Indulgence in reading works of fiction is assigned by the intelligent Physician of the Mount Hope Institution, Boston, as one of the causes of insanity. The perusal of works of fiction, by the young, particularly females, is hurtful and dangerous to a degree little dreamed of. Parents owe a stern and solemn duty to their children, to watch their reading, and to preserve their opening minds and hearts from the vitiating influence of what is called popular literature. The opinion below is worth pondering: ‘Another fertile source of this species of derangement has appeared to be an undue indulgence in the perusal of the numerous works of fiction, with which the press is so prolific of late years, which are sown broadcast over the land, with the effect of vitiating the taste and corrupting the morals of the young. Persons cannot too cautiously guard their young daughters against this pernicious practice. We have had several cases of moral insanity, for which no other cause could be assigned than excessive novel reading.--And nothing is more likely to induce this disease than the education which fosters sentiment instead of cherishing real feeling--such as results from the performance of benevolence and the sacred duties of ordinary life, and of religious obligations.”
~From The Texas Union.(San Augustine, Tex.), Saturday, May 6, 1848
"It is too often the case that children, provided they spend half a dozen hours a day at school, are permitted to spend the rest as they please. The daughter, probably, becomes that pitiable, helpless object, a novel reading girl. No man or woman is fully educated if not accustomed to manual labor.--Whatever accomplishments they possess, whatever their mental training, a deduction must be made for ignorance of that important branch."
~From Texas Presbyterian. (Houston, Tex.), January 1, 1848
"The papers bring us accounts of the arrival in this country of Mlle. Jagello, who participated in the late calamitous war in Hungary, and who bore the rank of Lieut. Colonel in a regiment of Hungarian cavalry. This woman, fresh from the field of carnage, was received in New York with the highest honors. At the Irving House she created a great sensation. When she appeared in the dining saloon, she was of course the observed of all observers. When the confectionary was placed on the table, there appeared before her a quadrangular tower composed of confection materials, and presenting a combination of appropriate devices, including a figure of the heroine herself. At sight of this tears streamed from her eyes, and, grasping the hands of the host, she poured forth a most impassioned expression of her gratitude for this mark of sympathy and respect. The whole company—ladies and gentlemen—rose to their feet, and the most intense enthusiasm prevailed. Afterwards, in the drawing room, the garments worn by her in the war were exhibited, and all the guests of the house and many distinguished citizens of the city vied with each other in rendering her the highest honors. Now we venture to say, that among the crowd who greeted this Hungarian woman and applauded her for the heroism she exhibited on the battle-field, there were very few who would not have treated Abby Foster, Elizabeth Jones, or Lucy Stone with utter contempt for the noble courage which they have displayed in lifting up their voices to remonstrate against a system of oppression compared with which that imposed upon the Hungarians was lighter than feather. Mlle. Jagello wielded the weapons of death, and while doing so was sustained by the plaudits of a mighty people; while the women who have stood forth to plead the cause of the American slaves have employed no other weapons than those of truth and love, and yet have encountered sneers and reproaches from almost the whole community. Nobody thinks of charging the Hungarian woman with the sin of leaving her ‘appropriate sphere,’ or with a lack of modesty in mingling with a crowd of men; but how have presses and politicians sought to overwhelm with popular odium those brave American women who have used the noble gift of speech in defense of millions of their countrymen! How much sympathy, think you, would the Hungarians be able to get in the United States if they were black?”
~From Anti-slavery bugle. (New-Lisbon, Ohio), 29 Dec. 1849. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
I’ve found several references to Apollonia Jagello visiting New York in contemporary papers, which is how I found her full name, but unfortunately I haven’t found much else yet. Here are links to wikipedia pages about abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster and Lucy Stone. Elizabeth Jones wrote articles for the Anti-Slavery Bugle without signing her name, and there isn’t very much about her life online, but you can read a little more about her here.
Jagello later married Gaspar Tochman, a Polish immigrant who helped slave-owners, in 1851, who joined the Confederate Army as a Colonel when the Civil War broke out. She’s often referred to simply as Mrs. Tochman after that point.
One report (the Lincoln’s Hungarian Heroes link below) suggests she didn’t share her husband’s beliefs, though, and most of the other 48ers (exiles of the Hungarian revolution of 1848) in the US fought for the Union in the Civil War.
There’s an image of and story about her in Woman’s Record: Or, Sketches of All Distinguished Women, from the Creation to A.D. 1868. Arranged in Four Eras, with Selections from Authoresses of Each Era, page 705.
Thank you for the information!
"The papers bring us accounts of the arrival in this country of Mlle. Jagello, who participated in the late calamitous war in Hungary, and who bore the rank of Lieut. Colonel in a regiment of Hungarian cavalry. This woman, fresh from the field of carnage, was received in New York with the highest honors. At the Irving House she created a great sensation. When she appeared in the dining saloon, she was of course the observed of all observers. When the confectionary was placed on the table, there appeared before her a quadrangular tower composed of confection materials, and presenting a combination of appropriate devices, including a figure of the heroine herself. At sight of this tears streamed from her eyes, and, grasping the hands of the host, she poured forth a most impassioned expression of her gratitude for this mark of sympathy and respect. The whole company--ladies and gentlemen--rose to their feet, and the most intense enthusiasm prevailed. Afterwards, in the drawing room, the garments worn by her in the war were exhibited, and all the guests of the house and many distinguished citizens of the city vied with each other in rendering her the highest honors. Now we venture to say, that among the crowd who greeted this Hungarian woman and applauded her for the heroism she exhibited on the battle-field, there were very few who would not have treated Abby Foster, Elizabeth Jones, or Lucy Stone with utter contempt for the noble courage which they have displayed in lifting up their voices to remonstrate against a system of oppression compared with which that imposed upon the Hungarians was lighter than feather. Mlle. Jagello wielded the weapons of death, and while doing so was sustained by the plaudits of a mighty people; while the women who have stood forth to plead the cause of the American slaves have employed no other weapons than those of truth and love, and yet have encountered sneers and reproaches from almost the whole community. Nobody thinks of charging the Hungarian woman with the sin of leaving her 'appropriate sphere,' or with a lack of modesty in mingling with a crowd of men; but how have presses and politicians sought to overwhelm with popular odium those brave American women who have used the noble gift of speech in defense of millions of their countrymen! How much sympathy, think you, would the Hungarians be able to get in the United States if they were black?"
~From Anti-slavery bugle. (New-Lisbon, Ohio), 29 Dec. 1849. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
I've found several references to Apollonia Jagello visiting New York in contemporary papers, which is how I found her full name, but unfortunately I haven't found much else yet. Here are links to wikipedia pages about abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster and Lucy Stone. Elizabeth Jones wrote articles for the Anti-Slavery Bugle without signing her name, and there isn't very much about her life online, but you can read a little more about her here.
"Terrible Combat between a Woman and a Panther in Nacogdoches County!-- We are informed by a gentleman recently from Nacogdoches, that a lady by the name of White, while grinding coffee in the evening, was attacked at the door by a Panther. For a while it was doubtful as to who would be the conqueror, when the woman succeeded in seizing the panther by the throat, and held him down upon the floor! She then sang out to her little son, the only person then on the place, to run and bring the axe--but the axe he could not find. She then told him to bring the smoothing iron, which he did; and with it she mashed the panther's head, and killed him! -- Her screams, with those of the panther's, called the neighbors, when they found the woman standing over the dead panther, while the blood was streaming from her hands and body. The animal measured seven feet, from the end of his nose to the tip of his tail. This woman is indeed a heroine, and should be looked upon by her sex as a bright and living monument of modern chivalry."
~From Telegraph and Texas Register (Houston, Tex.), November 20, 1844
"A spoonful of horse-radish put into a pan of milk, will keep it sweet many days above the ordinary period."
~From Democratic Telegraph and Texas Register (Houston, Tex.), Nov 4, 1847
"This singular substance, which has as yet defied all the efforts of chemists to analyze it, inasmuch as it will neither melt with fire nor dissolve in water, and is entirely free from taste or smell, is found in considerable abundance in Pennsylvania, at no great distance from the borough of York. We have been shown specimens of this article, constantly used by Mr. John Scott, of this city, in the manufacture of his patent fire-proof chests, which will, to those who have never examined it, doubtless appear to be quite a curiosity. -- We learn that experiments are now making of the application of Asbestos to other articles which are required to resist a powerful heat. -- Balt. Am."
~From The Northern Standard. (Clarksville, Tex.), November 4, 1843
"Caution -- Never enter a sick room in a state of perspiration, as the moment you become cold your pores absorb. Do not approach contagious disorders with an empty stomach, nor sit between the sick and the fire, because the heat attracts the thin vapor."
~From Democratic Telegraph and Texas Register (Houston, Tex.), June 28, 1847
“We want no better proof, that a community is infested with blackguards and knaves, than to know that its members are in the habit of wearing weapons. Robbers, pirates, and assassins, wear weapons constantly, as much for the purpose of defending themselves from each other, as for that of conducting their criminal avocations. These wretches have no confidence in each other, and, knowing that the same propensities that induce them to murder the innocent unoffending traveler, would induce them to murder a comrade when expedient or convenient; they live together in a state of constant suspicion and dread. Gamblers, also, whose sole business is to cheat and defraud, knowing that they deserve the severest chastisements foo their villainies, and suspecting that all around them are knaves like themselves, wear weapons for a similar reason. The pistol and bowie knife, therefore, when worn in times of peace, may justly be considered as the best evidences of a depraved and villainous society. True gentlemen must ever look upon them with abhorrence and contempt, and will as readily shun those who wear them as they would shun the dirty drunken loafer, when bedaubed with filth.
Let us visit the fashionable circles of Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, or any other city of the United States, noted for good society, and we find no weapons exhibited; the individual who should venture to attend a respectable party in those cities with a dagger or pistol in his bosom or pocket, would be regarded as an intruding blackguard, and treated with that cutting and cold contempt which the well-bred, only know how to accord to the vulgar and base. The man who appears in the crowded streets of a peaceful city or village with weapons, tacitly insults every respectable individual he meets, for by wearing these, he intimates as plainly as language can express, that he distrusts everybody around him.
There was a time when it was not only proper, but a duty for our citizens to wear weapons; and we well recollect when we felt a pleasure at seeing almost every individual we met, armed and ready to repel at a moments warning, the incursions of the invader; but that day has long since gone by, and truly brave men have cast their weapons aside as now useless; blackguards and villains, however, who dared not show their faces when danger threatened, have crept in since, and wear weapons, not to defend their country against the enemy, but to redden our streets or grog shops with the blood of their fellow citizens! Wherever these cowardly miscreants appear, they should be frowned down by every respectable citizen as the pest and bane of society."
~From Telegraph and Texas Register (Houston, Tex.), June 24, 1840
Turns out the open carry debate isn't a very new thing.
"The reader will indulge me with a few words upon the effects of novel reading, deduced from experience. While other men are gifted with minds clear and lucid, and with thoughts that flow free and limpetuous as the mountain current, mine is a chaotic mass, composed of a thousand incongruous ingredients, without order or arrangement, and my thoughts run wild, unconnected and uncontrollable. But the fault is almost exclusively my own. Passionately fond of reading, from the time I was capable of connecting sentences, I was unfortunately permitted to prescribe my own course, and naturally chose the one which most nearly coincided with my youthful feelings--thus demonstrating clearly the indiscretion parents are often guilty of in allowing their children to judge for themselves.
"An injudicious course of reading has rendered me almost unfit for any useful or profitable employment. An incessant perusal of light and fictitious works has given a tone and a bent to my mind, which, in every respect partakes of the character of those works; and their influence is inseparable. A parent should never permit his child to peruse a work of fiction, as long as he has any regard for his mind, his morals, or his happiness. Novels, in my opinion, are the most fruitful source of unhappiness and discontent in the world. Even drunkenness, with all its sickness and loathsome horrors, does not engender more pure and unmitigated misery. They portray and inspire wishes in our bosoms which can never be realized. Consequently, we are disappointed and uneasy. They clothe vice and immorality in the hues of the rain-bow, which strike the youthful imagination with force and power, while the garb of their opposite, virture, is often made plain and unattractive, with nothing to recommend it but its own innate worth. Finally, they create a distempered fancy, and morbid sensibility, which renders us totally unfit for collision with the cold and uncharitable world. The minds of youth should be impressed with something more substantial and more useful."
~From Texas National Register. (Washington, Tex.), May 1, 1845 This has been a Public Service Announcement from the Association of Former Novel Addicts.
"We are informed by a gentleman from Fort Towson, that two or three weeks since, a Citizen of the United States, at the head of eight or ten men, had occasion to go into Texas, for some purpose, where he came across a party of Cherokee Indians, on the borders of Texas, who kept in sight of him for two or three days, without manifesting any hostility. One night after the Cherokees had encamped, the whites stole upon them and killed seven or eight of their number, when the Indians returned the fire, killing one or two of the whites, and then fled. The cause assigned by the commander of the whites, for attacking the Indians, was that he was afraid they intended to attack him, and therefore took the start of them. If this is the true state of the case, we think the U. States should punish the aggressor, and prevent, if possible, any further outrages of the kind. Our informant states that the officers and agents at Fort Towson consider it an outrageous and unprovoked murder. Will they not have the matter investigated, and justice rendered to the Indians."
~From Brazos Courier. (Brazoria, Tex.), April 7, 1840
Sharing because of how rarely I come across articles in which outrages against Native Americans were actually viewed as outrages.
"The editor of the Lafourche Patriot wants a wife. He says he wants 'a handsome, young, witty, accomplished and rich lady, without father, mother, or other incumbrances, and no poor relations or country cuisine."
~From The Civilian and Galveston City Gazette. (Galveston, Tex.), April 5, 1843
I'll bet he does.
"There are few points which seem less generally understood, or more clearly proved, than the fact that exposure to the sun, without exercise sufficient to create free perspiration, will produce illness; and that the same exposure to the sun, with sufficient exercise, will not produce illness. Let any man sleep in the sun, he will wake perspiring and very ill; perhaps he will die.--Let the same man dig in the sun for the same length of time, and he will perspire ten times as much, and be quite well. The fact is, that not only the direct rays of the sun, but the heat of the atmosphere produce abundance of bile, and powerful exercise alone will carry off that bile."
~From Texas Presbyterian. (Houston, Tex.), March 11, 1848
“Thom and Byron have written poems about this indecent species of saltatory exercise, which should of themselves be enough to deter any modest female from indulging in it, except with her brother or one of her own sex for a partner. It is irrequisite to prove that there is any abstracted wrong in waltzing; it is enough that with it are associated in men’s minds ideas of a debasing and sensual nature. The poems, to which we allude, are quite familiar to the general reader; and we appeal to all gentlemen in the habit of frequenting balls and parties, whether, the moment a waltz commences, these poems and their filthy ideas do not involuntarily occur?
Custom cannot excuse guilt, nor can fashion sanctify indelicacy. We beg leave to ask, if it can be proper for a young lady to do that which is grossly improper for a married lady? Do married ladies waltz? Do husbands stand by and quietly see their wives dragged around a room in the embraces of a strange gentleman? Perhaps they do, and we in our ignorance are ‘behind the age;’ but if husbands do suffer their wives to waltz, let them blame nobody but themselves if, on returning home some day, after the fatigues of business, they find the partners of their bosom eloped, jewels and money, with Count Schreknororski, the unpronounceable Pole, or the ami-Russian Prince, Kutyournosernizoff.
Turn up your lovely nose, fashionable young Miss, at this paragraph, and wither the very paper with a disdainful glance; keep on waltzing, do—that’s a dear! Continue to be hugged—and the let the hot breath of passion fan your blushing cheek—do, we beg of you; for so shall you excite the ribald jest and the nasty joke; so shall you lose the esteem of high [words missing] with mustachios, whom you mistook for a Marquis—why? ‘because he waltzed so divinely.’”
~From The Civilian and Galveston City Gazette. (Galveston, Tex.), February 11, 1843
I hope the author of this article lived long enough to be horrified by the tango.
