24. Centennial 1876

In In Emma’s May 1876 letter to her brother Lon, she included her visit to the 1876 Centennial, in Philadelphia, along with discussion of their family’s financial and other problems.

May 1876
Dear Brother Lonnie,
…At the opening exercises of the Centennial, the line of people was half a mile in length and a portion of the exercises could not be heard more than 20 feet from the stage. There must have been great satisfaction in it to those at the end of the line…

How I wished for you at the Centennial. It is wonderful. Lon just to see the buildings alone, that have been erected on the grounds in so short a time and one would think twenty years a little time to have made the immense collections of curiosities exhibited there.

If I could only have spent a week instead of a day, I should have been better satisfied and then I could not have seen the half of what there was to be seen…Yours ever affectionately,
Emma

(Chester had said he didn’t think he would go to the Centennial.)

Note: It was fun to discover so many images of the 1876 Centennial at the Library of Congress site.

Previous Posts
1. Is that the New Teacher?
2. The Math Tutor
3. Chester Beers to Friend Emma, Correspondence Continues
4. What is the News? October 29, 1869
5. The Merry Laugh of the Village School
6. Teaching Advice in a Poem
7. I Would Not Wait for Erie’s Train
8. 1870 Highland
9. Mrs. Prindle’s Soliloquy
10. February 28, 1870, What Is the News?
11. Who Teaches in the Village, April 1870
12. Fair Hagan’s Pool, June 1870
13. Shades of Night, 1870
14. Deposit, New York, 1871
15. Dear Father, January 1872
16. Emma Attends Albany Normal, March 1872
17. Lumberland Schoolhouse, 1872
18. Verdant Meadows, June 1, 1873
19. I Have Been Very Busy, August 30, 1873
20. 1874–1875
21. 1876, A Challenging Year
22. Impossible To Be Your Friend, 1876
23. The Old Schoolhouse, May 1876