On This Day: October 03
Today's History Show Notes - Episode 2
October 3, 1922 — First Woman Senator Appointed
Rebecca Latimer Felton from Georgia was appointed to fill a Senate vacancy on October 3, 1922. Felton was a Democrat. It was just 10 years earlier that the 17th Amendment passed Congress (ratified in 1913) whereby Senators were elected by the popular election rather than previously by the state legislatures.
From Senate.gov:
“She took the oath of office on November 21, 1922, and served only 24 hours while the Senate was in session. The 87-year-old Felton's largely symbolic Senate service capped a long career in Georgia politics and journalism. When her husband, William Harrell Felton, served in the state legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives, she worked as his campaign manager, press secretary, and often his political surrogate. As she fought for temperance, populist agrarian reforms, and woman suffrage, fully embracing equality of the sexes, she was also an outspoken white supremacist and advocate of segregation.
“Beginning in 1899 and continuing for more than 20 years, Felton wrote a popular column for the Atlanta Semi-Weekly Journal, dispensing advice on everything from child-rearing to farming to voting. In her only Senate speech, delivered to a large audience in the Senate Chamber, Felton concluded with the following prediction: ‘When the women of the country come in and sit with you…you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness.’”
This bit of history is particularly interesting since now, 101 years and three days later, the first black lesbian has been appointed by a Democrat governor to fill the vacancy of Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein.
Are we better off for the women’s suffrage movement?
On this Day in US History
1789: George Washington proclaims Thursday November 26, 1789 a Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving lore has evolved over the centuries, and the origin of its designation as a national holiday spans three centuries and involves three US Presidents. From Mt. Vernon:
“On October 3, 1789, George Washington issued his Thanksgiving proclamation, designating for ‘The People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving’ to be held on ‘Thursday the 26th day of November,’ 1789…While subsequent presidents failed to maintain this tradition, it was Washington’s original proclamation that guided Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation. In fact, Lincoln issued his proclamation on the same day, October 3, and marked the same Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 26, as Washington, setting Thanksgiving as the last Thursday of November after our first president’s example.”
It wasn’t until 1941 that Thanksgiving was made a legal holiday, when the people rose up over President Roosevelt's attempt to move Thanksgiving to up a week to prolong the Christmas shopping season. The public outcry led Congress to name the fourth Thursday in November as our national day of thanks.
1899: The First Motor Driven Vacuum Cleaner
This is a bit controversial. If you google who invented the motorized vacuum cleaner, you will find British Engineer Hubert Cecil Booth whose invention was patented on August 30, 1901. But American John S. Thurman filed his patent on October 3, 1899 (patent #634,042). From ThoughtCo.com:
“John Thurman invented a gasoline-powered vacuum cleaner in 1899 and some historians consider it the first motorized vacuum cleaner…Soon after, he started a horse-drawn vacuum system with door to door service in St Louis. His vacuuming services were priced at $4 per visit in 1903.”
The controversy comes as Thurman’s machine blew the dust into the receptacle rather than sucking it in. Technicality!
1904: Mary McLeod Bethune Opens the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute
Mary McLeod Bethune’s name adorns many colleges, but the story of the first school she founded in 1904 gives me chills. From Bethune-Cookman University:
“Dr. Bethune famously started the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training Institute for Negro Girls on October 3, 1904 with $1.50, vision, an entrepreneurial mindset, resilience and faith in God. She created ‘pencils’ from charred wood, ink from elderberries, and mattresses from moss-stuffed corn sacks. Her first students were five little girls and her five-year-old son, Albert Jr. In less than two years, the school grew to 250 students.
In a 1946 letter to Josephine T. Washington Bethune wrote:
“My philosophy of education is the basic principle upon which my life has been built – that is the three-fold training of head, hand, heart. I believe in a rounded education with a belief in the dignity and refinement of labor - in doing well whatever task is assigned to me. A belief in a spiritual undergirting [sic] of all my efforts and a clear, sane mental development.”
Letter from Mary McLeod Bethune to Josephine T. Washington, 1946
1942: US Launches Scrap Days
I remember my grandparents talking about the Second Great War, and the sacrifices they made as my grandfather was an Army Colonel in the Pacific Theatre. Here’s a glimpse into the past from People’s History:
“A new war effort has started across the country with the new initiative of "scrap days" encouraging every American to help the war effort by giving scrap consisting of metal and old clothing to the nearest scrap merchant who will then be able to provide much needed raw materials for the war effort. As part of the effort people are encouraged to donate old keys that are no longer used in a ‘Keyhole For Victory’ effort so they can be turned into tanks, guns and ships.”
And from Janet Olmstead (1932) in Scrap Day, No School!:
“I’m glad to talk about a memory I have of those years. We were all so patriotic back then. My special memory is about the day my town, Springfield, closed all the schools and told the kids to go collect scrap for the war effort. First we cleaned out our own houses and farms. But then we started going alongside the roads and found so much stuff like tires, cans and even old stoves. We had so much fun yelling to each other about what we found. Adults helped us haul stuff to the central collection place. We stayed out all day until dark. We wanted to do it again the next day, but we had to go back to school. Besides, we had collected a mountain of scrap. I only remember doing it once.”
1955: Captain Kangaroo and the Mickey Mouse Club Debut on TV
They don’t make programming like they used to, and on this day in 1955 two classic children’s showed debuted on the idiot box (as my great grandmother used to call it):
Mickey Mouse Club First Episode
1993: Black Hawk Down – The Battle of Mogadishu
The film Black Hawk Down captivated the nation. Here is a quick summary:
More from Harvard Divinity School:
“Black Hawk Down or the Battle of Mogadishu was a military incident that took place on October 3-4, 1993 between United States and African Union (UNISOM) forces and Somali militias under the leadership of General Mohammad Aideed. The battle was named for the two American Black Hawk helicopters shot down by Aideed’s militia men. The military operation to rescue the downed servicemen led to the death of 18 American troops, one Pakistani and one Malaysian soldier, as well as hundreds of Somalis, both combatants and noncombatants. Public reception to the incident in the United States was negative; the subsequent loss of support for military intervention in Somalia led to the decision by President Bill Clinton, elected in November 1993, to pull American troops.”
1995: OJ Simpson Acquitted
The trial that captivated the nation ended in dramatic fashion on October 3, 1995 when OJ was acquitted. Watch America react:
October 3 Birthdays
1941: Chubby Checker (Musician)
1951: Kathryn D. Sullivan (Astronaut)
1954: Al Sharpton (Political Activist)
1954: Stevie Ray Vaughan (Musician)
1969: Gwen Stefani (Musician)
October 3 Obituaries
42 BC: Gaius Cassius Longinus (Roman Senator)
1226: Francis of Assisi (Italian Catholic)
1867: Elias Howe (Invented the Sewing Machine)
1936: John Heisman (Football Coach)
2004: Janet Leigh (Actress)
On This Day is published Monday through Friday. Watch the Today’s History podcast weekdays at 12PM ET! Don’t forget to visit bootlegproducts.com and use coupon code ASHE1776!
Looking forward to the first wind turbine powered vacuum cleaner...
Very informative THANK you :)