The 1876 Centennial: Different or Similar?

I am old enough to remember the American Bicentennial, as I’m sure many of you are.  To make some comparisons, I looked back at the Centennial, the celebration of our 100th birthday in 1876.  The Centennial took place in a different world, one without instantaneous communication, nor plastic memorabilia.  Does a retrograde examination show how much things have changed, or is our country still recognizable?  What sources survive to tell us about 1876?

             The local newspaper, the Westerville Banner, does not survive for July of 1876, but we can gather some fragments of what was going on that day.  Lucinda Cornell, ever faithful reporter of Westerville doings, noted in her diary:

             John & children out to fair ground to celebrate the 4th[1]

  Fortunately, a copy of a speech given at the “Fair ground” survives.  Given by M. C. Howard, a descendant of an early Blendon Township family, the speech was a lengthy screed on the pioneers of Westerville. Otterbein University got plentiful mentions, as did local magnate Timothy Lee.  Like many nineteenth-century speeches, the asides were sometimes more interesting than the speech.  He told a story about a girl who planted a willow stick near where the Cornell house stands.  Eight years later came a twist of fate:

             A week ago last Friday afternoon [June 23] . . . as I laid down my pen, at the conclusion of the last sentence [of his speech draft], I was startled by a severe clap of thunder.  I subsequently learned that this same willow tree had been struck by lightning and destroyed…

               Howard marveled that the willow had died at the same moment he was writing its

story!  

             Otterbein University, whose newspaper The Otterbein Dial does survive from 1876, also was low key in its coverage.  The Dial for June 1876 reported:

  The formal opening of the Philadelphia Exposition, May 10th, was celebrated here by running up the Stars and Stripes on the south tower of the central building, and by cheers of the more patriotic of the students. 

   Possibly because of lack of communication, some Otterbein students seem to have had a "take it or leave it” attitude toward the Centennial.  Students may have been more excited about Commencement Day, or at least did not want one event to crowd out the other.  A line in the same issue read:

  Somebody is wondering how many speeches there will be on "The Centennial ", on Commencement Day, Come and see.[2] 

Otterbein President Henry A. Thompson prepared a text, but not a speech, for the Philadelphia exhibition.  Titled “A Brief History of ‘The Otterbein University of Ohio,’” the nineteen-page essay told the story of Otterbein University’s founding, planning, and its [then] new Administration building.  The new college building, only five years old, was celebrated as a major accomplishment.  Thompson, however, concluded his essay with a warning:

 As we push out upon this second century. . . . .we will strive to continue the work already commenced.  With brazen-faced demagogues ruling in high places; with vice and crime running rampant in our streets; bribery and corruption holding high carnival in our Legislative halls . . . .we hopefully enter upon the second century of our national existence.[3]

  Thompson’s essay was written and printed for distribution at the Centennial Exhibition.  In the March 1876 issue of the Otterbein Dial, the editor confirmed that the essay was distributed, not spoken.  It was, he claimed, the “first essay toward a systematic history of the institution,” and that future historians would be grateful for the “unpretending pamphlet” and its information.4

   Not everyone was paying close attention to the Centennial.  Otterbein students being students, there were plenty of other activities of interest

 The latest joke of the season was conceived by the Sophomore class. . . . .It was to climb the outside of the college building [Towers Hall] hand over hand and wrap a piece of brass around the bell's tongue, and thus prevent it from sounding. They are highly elated at this new scheme.5

   There were several mentions of visits to and observations on “The Centennial,” the extravaganza held in Philadelphia, but Otterbein seems to have been low-key.  Of course, the students were graduated and/or gone by July 4, but even the list of student orations showed no obvious Centennial-themed offerings.6

             As celebrated in Westerville, the 1876 Centennial had some similarities with the Bicentennial in 1976, Patriots celebrated, but this was not universal.  The main difference that I can see?  Changes in communication/advertising.  1876 saw a country, and a town, with little communication.  The Cornell family went to the Centennial oration because, I suspect, it was a chance to see and talk to neighbors, and take a day off from the brutal round of labor that life in 1876 required.

   - Alan Borer

[1] https://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=cornell_diaries

[2] Otterbein Dial, May 1876.

[3] Henry A. Thompson, A Brief history of “The Otterbein University of Ohio” . . . . prepared for The Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia, PA, 1876.  Reprint ed, by Harold B. Hancock, 1975, p. 19.

4  Otterbein Dial, March 1876.

5  Otterbein Dial, June 1876.

6  Otterbein Dial, August 1876.