1887

Society

1887. Bismarck warns Europe against war, January 11, in a speech advocating a much larger German army while France is agitated by nationalist sentiment and demands for revenge against her victor in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.

1887. A "Jim Crow" law passed by the Florida legislature requires segregation of black railway passengers from white.

1887. "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," writes Lord Acton, a liberal Roman Catholic and a leader of the opposition to the papal dogma of infallibility.

1887. The Perkins Institution founded in 1829 receives a request from telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell to examine 6-year-old Helen Keller who lost her sight and hearing at 19 months of age. Teacher Anne Mansfield Sullivan, 20, of the Perkins Institution travels to the Keller home, starts work with young Helen, March 2, and quickly teaches her to feel objects and associate them with words spelled out by finger signals on the palm of her hand. Helen soon can feel raised words on cardboard and make her own sentences by arranging words in a frame.

1887. Esperanto is invented by Polish oculist-philologist Lazarus Zemenhof who hopes his universal language will help achieve world peace and understanding.

1887. The first U.S. social register is published by New York golf promoter Louis Keller.

1887. Richard Sears moves to Chicago, hires watchmaker Alvah C. Roebuck and sells watches through clubs and by mail order.

Literature

The Father. August Strindberg. Swedish. 1887. Play. Psychological antagonism between men and women. Females of the family dominate the captain, driving him mad and to his death.

Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle. British. 1887/1927. Detective Stories. Brilliant, eccentric detective; analytic; master of the violiin and obscure sciences. Also has a cocaine habit.