The Year Was 1895

Booker T. WashingtonThe year was 1895 and it marked the beginning of a very dry spell in Australia with a drought that would last until 1903.

In the UK and much of Europe the year was off to a cold start. In February a record cold temperature of -27.2C (about -17F) was recorded in Braemer. The cold continued for several weeks, industries were closed putting people out of work and many suffered from hypothermia.

That same February, New Orleans, Louisiana, also saw unusually wintry conditions as eight inches of snow blanketed the city.

On another snowy day in 1895, a group of men and their “horseless-carriages” gathered in Chicago for the first ever automobile race in America. The race took more than ten hours on a fifty-five mile course, averaging around seven miles per hour. Bicycle mechanic turned inventor, Frank Duryea won the $2,000 prize, sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald.

In his “Atlanta Compromise” address at the Cotton States and International Exposition, Booker T. Washington appealed to whites and blacks in America to work together to do something about the poor social and economic conditions of blacks in the South.  

In Utah, strides were taken for women’s rights as suffrage was granted to women for the second time. It had originally been granted by the territorial legislature in 1870, but Congress revoked that right with the Edmunds-Tucker anti-polygamy Act in 1887. The Utah State Constitution restored women’s suffrage in Utah on 5 November 1895 with the provision that “the rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.”

Click here for a printer friendly version of this article.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *