[timeline_event category=”Social & Urban History” title=”Ida B Wells” layout=”true” images=”2537″]Ida B. Wells, editor of the Memphis African American newspaper Free Speech and Headlight, uses journalism as a weapon against lynching and racial bigotry. In her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases she writes, “Nothing is more definitely settled than he must act for himself … The gods help those who help themselves.”
Wells’ philosophy is summarized in an editorial (1892) as “save our money and leave our town.” She advocates the West as a place of opportunity. Always taking controversial stands she is celebrated in the African American community as the Princess of the Press. The office of her Memphis newspaper is destroyed by an angry mob and Wells never returns to the city.[/timeline_event]
[timeline_event category=”American Architecture” title=”Frisco Bridge across Mississippi River at Memphis” layout=”true” images=”1130,1263,1264,1404,1405″]On May 12, 1892, the Frisco Bridge in Memphis, Tennessee opens one year before Chester and Lila Williams move to Los Angeles. It is the first bridge to span the lower Mississippi River and the crowning achievement for chief engineer George S. Morison. Hundreds attend the opening ceremonies to watch the first locomotive cross the bridge. The railroad bridge links commerce from eastern markets to the west.
When constructed, steel is a new material for large projects. The cantilevered bridge features a 790-foot span with two smaller 600-foot spans. At 65 feet above the river, the Frisco Bridge has the highest clearance of any bridge in the United States. The piers are 100 feet below the surface of the river.[/timeline_event]
[timeline_event category=”American Architecture” title=”US Post Office, Washington, D.C.” layout=”true” images=”2539″]
[/timeline_event]