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Authors: Janet Wallach
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Louisville Courier
, was Wall Street: “Their houses are dens of iniquity. Their aim is financial ruin. Their code of laws is that of the gambler, the sharper, the impostor, the cheat and the swindler.” The bubbles continue to burst; the words continue to echo.
A few places remained untouched. California prospered with its gold mines. In the South, plantation owners profited as European orders for cotton increased and prices rose. The country’s largest export, cotton was king. Southerners looked for more land to plant their crops and more slaves to work them. They turned their attention to the territories out west where they could also grow more sugar, rice, and tobacco. Textile manufacturers in New England and merchant shippers in New York, who exported the goods and benefited from the increased production, supported them. Some New York bankers even accepted receipts from slave purchases as collateral.
Southerners rejoiced at the Dred Scott Decision, in which the Supreme Court declared that slaves were property and could be legally transported either to the North or into the western states. That 1857 decision, along with the deep recession, shook the country to its foundations. Southerners clamored for slaves in Kentucky, Kansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other states, while Northerners argued against it. In Massachusetts, freed slaves and slaves who had escaped through the Underground Railroad convened in New Bedford to protest.
In that same city the flour mill expanded, and a new candle and oil company was established. The paper money issued by the Mechanics Bank featured a whale, and whaling reached its peak, with more ships, more capital, and more sailors than ever, making New Bedford the richest city per capita in the world. But at the end of 1857, as people switched to kerosene, the price of whale oil seeped down, and the New Bedford Bank went under. Edward Robinson, who made it a practice never to borrow, kept his business buoyant; he even won a bid for election to the town council.
Some of the time Hetty lived with her father as they followed their old routine. Days were spent down at the wharfs and countinghouses, where he watched his pennies with a miser’s eye. Evenings Hetty read him the news. It was hard to ignore the papers’ reports of the Illinois senatorial debates taking place in the summer of 1858 between the Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas and the Republican upstart Abraham Lincoln. The Howlands, the Grinnells, and Robinson had long supported Lincoln, who, like the Quakers, saw slavery as a moral wrong.
From physical shackles to emotional chains, slavery comes inmany forms. Abby Robinson, enslaved by her psyche, suffered bodily pain and mental anguish. Depressed, she lived for years as an invalid, but when the agony became unbearable, she escaped from Edward’s house and entered her sister’s world. Sometimes Hetty stayed with them too, in the room set aside for her over the kitchen, and heard the angry accusations hurled at her father by her mother and her aunt.
Tortured by fears of her husband, tormented by her own sense of failure, on February 21, 1860, at the age of fifty-one, Abby Howland Robinson died. The motherless woman had never known how to be a mother herself. Her death seemed to mean little to her daughter, who had nothing to mourn but the loss of love she never received. Abby’s only way to express affection was through her money. Yet she died without a will; her entire estate of more than $100,000 went to her husband.
Hurt and angry and urged on by her aunt, Hetty appealed to her father for her share in the inheritance: the Howland fortune, which had gone from her great-grandfather Isaac Howland to her grandfather Gideon Howland to her mother, Abby Howland, should now go to her, the only direct living heir. But Edward insisted he knew how to invest the money and make it grow. Not only that, he had the responsibility to increase it until his death. Then, he
Louisville Courier
, was Wall Street: “Their houses are dens of iniquity. Their aim is financial ruin. Their code of laws is that of the gambler, the sharper, the impostor, the cheat and the swindler.” The bubbles continue to burst; the words continue to echo.
A few places remained untouched. California prospered with its gold mines. In the South, plantation owners profited as European orders for cotton increased and prices rose. The country’s largest export, cotton was king. Southerners looked for more land to plant their crops and more slaves to work them. They turned their attention to the territories out west where they could also grow more sugar, rice, and tobacco. Textile manufacturers in New England and merchant shippers in New York, who exported the goods and benefited from the increased production, supported them. Some New York bankers even accepted receipts from slave purchases as collateral.
Southerners rejoiced at the Dred Scott Decision, in which the Supreme Court declared that slaves were property and could be legally transported either to the North or into the western states. That 1857 decision, along with the deep recession, shook the country to its foundations. Southerners clamored for slaves in Kentucky, Kansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other states, while Northerners argued against it. In Massachusetts, freed slaves and slaves who had escaped through the Underground Railroad convened in New Bedford to protest.
In that same city the flour mill expanded, and a new candle and oil company was established. The paper money issued by the Mechanics Bank featured a whale, and whaling reached its peak, with more ships, more capital, and more sailors than ever, making New Bedford the richest city per capita in the world. But at the end of 1857, as people switched to kerosene, the price of whale oil seeped down, and the New Bedford Bank went under. Edward Robinson, who made it a practice never to borrow, kept his business buoyant; he even won a bid for election to the town council.
Some of the time Hetty lived with her father as they followed their old routine. Days were spent down at the wharfs and countinghouses, where he watched his pennies with a miser’s eye. Evenings Hetty read him the news. It was hard to ignore the papers’ reports of the Illinois senatorial debates taking place in the summer of 1858 between the Democratic incumbent Stephen Douglas and the Republican upstart Abraham Lincoln. The Howlands, the Grinnells, and Robinson had long supported Lincoln, who, like the Quakers, saw slavery as a moral wrong.
From physical shackles to emotional chains, slavery comes inmany forms. Abby Robinson, enslaved by her psyche, suffered bodily pain and mental anguish. Depressed, she lived for years as an invalid, but when the agony became unbearable, she escaped from Edward’s house and entered her sister’s world. Sometimes Hetty stayed with them too, in the room set aside for her over the kitchen, and heard the angry accusations hurled at her father by her mother and her aunt.
Tortured by fears of her husband, tormented by her own sense of failure, on February 21, 1860, at the age of fifty-one, Abby Howland Robinson died. The motherless woman had never known how to be a mother herself. Her death seemed to mean little to her daughter, who had nothing to mourn but the loss of love she never received. Abby’s only way to express affection was through her money. Yet she died without a will; her entire estate of more than $100,000 went to her husband.
Hurt and angry and urged on by her aunt, Hetty appealed to her father for her share in the inheritance: the Howland fortune, which had gone from her great-grandfather Isaac Howland to her grandfather Gideon Howland to her mother, Abby Howland, should now go to her, the only direct living heir. But Edward insisted he knew how to invest the money and make it grow. Not only that, he had the responsibility to increase it until his death. Then, he
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