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1885 |
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| South America & Caribbean:Events of this year in this region influencing Louisiana. | |||||||||||
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January 1885
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February 1885
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March 1885
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April 1885
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May 1885
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June 1885
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July 1885
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August 1885
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September 1885
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October 1885
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November 1885
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December 1885
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| Sophie Bell Wright opens the only free night school in New Orleans. She had been born in 1866 to a family that had been impoverished by the Civil War. When she was 3 she was injured severely and spent six years strapped to a chair. Later she hobbled to school with the help of crutches, a brace and will power. To add to the family budget she opened a morning school for girls with classes in her home and tuition at 50 cents a month. At sixteen she taught math at the Normal School in exchange for auditing language classes. at 19 she opens at the night school that teaches adults as well as working children. A report by New Orleans Public Schools in 1894 rejected night schools as unfeasible and unreliably attended, but by December 1900 Sophie’s school had 1,100 students with 20 more being turned away at night. She also labored at other good causes such as collections for yellow fever victims, prison reform, the Home for Incurables, etc. In 1904 she became the first woman to be awarded The Times Picayune Loving Cup in a ceremony that drew 15,000 people. In April 1912 Sophie became the first person in the city to have a school named after her while still alive. She dies in June 1912 but her Home Institute functions until 1928. The night school closed in 1909 when the city opened its own. | Pianist, composer and leader Ferdinand Joseph Jelly Roll Morton (formerly La Menthe) is born. Congo Square is closed to dancing and moves to a storage area and dray animal yard near North Broad Street uptown. Trumpeter and leader Joseph King Oliver born in Donaldsonville, La. |
Newspaperman Henry McElwin (Elyria, Ohio) Republican) visiting during the Cotton Exposition writes that he French Market was in full blast, for the citizens do all their marketing Sunday, instead of Saturday, as we do in the north... For music on Sunday we had organ grinders, Italian orchestras, street pianos...and a noisy brass band advertising a horse race and shooting match to come off in the afternoon. | Japanese exhibitors at the Cotton Exposition introduce the water hyacinth to Louisiana waterways. Unfortunately the beautiful purple flowers grow unchecked and clog many navigable bayous.
Two cookbooks, one by the Christian Women’s Exchange, the other compiled by Lafcadio Hearn are the first to put many Creole recipes in print. The Crescent City Skating Rink built at 2727 Prytania Street. After an 1891 foreclosure it used by a prominent firm of morticians and livery men. It became an automobile garage in 1920 and in 1979 was renovated to accommodate several small specialty shops. Joshua Baker Alexander Mouton |
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