1851 Timeline

1851 Castle & Cooke Partnership is Formed
Castle & Cooke was started in 1851 by two former mission secular agents, Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke. They had both arrived in the Islands in 1837 as part of the Eighth Co...
1851 Elizabeth Blackwell returns to New York
Blackwell returned to New York in 1851 but was unable to practice medicine for several years because no institution would hire her. During this period she adopted an orphan, Katharine (Ki...
1851 Harriet Tubman helps brother Moses and two others escape slavery
The following spring, she headed back into Maryland to help guide away other family members. On this, her second trip, she brought back her brother Moses, and two other unidentified men.[...
1851 Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin Publicly Demonstrates Light Bulbs at Estate
In 1851, Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin publicly demonstrated incandescent light bulbs on his estate in Blois, France. His light bulbs are on permanent display in the museum of the Chateau of ...
1851 Mark Twain Takes Work as Printer
The next year, he became a printer's apprentice. In 1851, he began working as a typesetter and contributor of articles and humorous sketches for the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper owned b...
1851 Merger Creates "Frederick Douglass' Paper"
Merges North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper (printed until 1860). Agrees with Smith that the Constitution is an antislavery document, rever...
1851 Jan 27 John James Audubon Dies
John James Audubon, naturalist and artist famous for his drawings and paintings of North American birds, died on January 27, 1851, in New York City. He was sixty-five years old. Audubo...
1851 May 28
to 1851 May 29
 Ohio Woman's Rights Convention Meets in Akron
"Are not the natural wants and emotions of humanity common too, and shared equally by both sexes? Does man hunger and thirst, suffer cold and heat more than woman? Does he love and hate, h..." —Opening Address of the Convention
1851 Jun 5 First Installment Of Uncle Tom's Cabin Is Published
On June 5, 1851, Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly began to appear in serial form in the Washington National Era, an abolitionist weekly. Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery st...
1851 Aug Thomas J. Jackson Accepts Teaching Position at the Virginia Military Institute
The class of 1842 graduated 16 cadets. Living conditions were poor until 1850 when the cornerstone of the new barracks was laid. In 1851 Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson became a member of the ...
1851 Sep 18 New York Times Founded
The New York Times was founded on September 18, 1851, by journalist and politician Henry Jarvis Raymond, the second chairman of the Republican National Committee, and former banker George...
1851 Oct 18 'Moby Dick' is Published
Its reputation invariably preceding it, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is a novel like no other. Whether readers expect a subtle work of art, a rollicking adventure story, or a ponderous, in...
1851 Dec Harriet Tubman guides eleven slave fugitives to Canada
Because the Fugitive Slave Law had made the northern United States more dangerous for escaped slaves, many began migrating further north to Canada. In December 1851, Tubman guided an unid...
1851 Dec Lincoln Represents the Alton & Sangamon Railroad
In 1851, he represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret. Barret had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to that corporation o...
1851 Dec 31 Gadsden Secures Land To Serve As The Dividing Line For The Two Californias
Gadsden had supported nullification in 1831, and he advocated secession by South Carolina in 1850 when California was admitted to the Union as a free state. Gadsden considered slavery “a ...