Notes on the

Charles Alling Diary, 1883-1884

The complete diary is available at the Duggan Library Archives, Hanover College (Hanover, Ind.). The notes below correspond to entries transcribed for the Hanover Historical Texts Project in Winter 2009 by the students of His234 "Studies in American Cultural History: The Middle Class," taught by Sarah McNair Vosmeier (vosm@hanover.edu). Those entries are available here.

 

 

 

Charles Alling's Diary, 7 April, 1884, page 83
Transcribed, with editorial comment, by Michael Gilliam, HC 2011

 

Background and Explanations

In the second paragraph, Alling talks about how the Spring Exhibitions had just ended. I discovered that the Spring Exhibitions were speeches that were given over the course of several days. One example was a speech delivered during the Spring Exhibition of March 25, 1863, by a man named John Holliday, a student at Hanover College at the time. This particular speech discussed the Civil War and hatred toward slavery. These exhibitions probably would have been very popular amongst the students at Hanover College because their own peers gave some of the speeches, as well as some guest speakers.

Another interesting passage I found in Charles Alling's entry from April 7 was his discussion of his sister. He states that she came down for the Spring Exhibitions and visited Dr. Fisher. We discovered in class that Dr. Fisher was mentioned several times in different entries leading us to believe that he was close to Alling, and apparently his family as well. Charles Alling had only one sister named Kittie, who was two years older.

In regards to Dr. Fisher, I found it very interesting that Charles was so close to him. We learned earlier in the semester from Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz and her book Campus Life, that the student-professor relationship was a very hostile one. It was not uncommon for riots as well as fights to break out during a school year, and we do not hear much of students taking an interest in getting to know their professors on a personal level. One explanation that did cross my mind while investigating this mystery in the archives was that Dr. Fisher had a son the same age as Charles named Howard. Obviously if Charles was close to Howard Fisher, he would probably know his father very well as well.

Another interesting topic of Alling's diary entry was in his final paragraph, where he talks about a certain young lady by the name of Ella Peace, whom he has taken quite an interest in. He talks about the date they had when he took her riding, which I assume meant on either horses or possibly bikes, and goes on to talk about how he sometimes gets jealous when other boys show her attention. He then says something very interesting when he states, "She is quite popular since Aunt Drusie & Uncle Newt allow her to go out in society." This made a lot of sense considering the male and female societies were still so segregated in the college environment. We did not yet have coed dorms, or even coed classrooms in some institutions, so being allowed to go out in public to hang out with those of other gender was a big deal.

Sources: John Holliday, "Conservatists," The Indianapolis Star Magazine, 25 March 1863, 1; Helen L. Horowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 23-55, 193-219.

Charles Alling Diary, 8 Apr. 1884, page 84
Transcribed, with editorial comment, by Jake Cummins, HC 2012

About Charles Alling

Charles Alling, Jr. was born in Madison, Indiana, on December 13, 1865. He attended Hanover College from 1879 to 1885. He graduated from Hanover College and continued to study law at the University of Michigan until 1888, when he received a law doctorate from the university. He was a member of Sigma Chi and became the Grand Consul and editor of their national publication. While he worked as an attorney for the Illinois State Board of Health, there was a murder attempt on his life. The gunman shot him in the eye, but he eventually healed. He married Jane Murdoch but had no children. He died in 1931.

About this excerpt

Charles Alling starts by stating that he has not been able to keep up on his journal entries because he was in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was there to help the Hon. Nathan Powell at the state oratorical. Nathan Powell was born in Madison, Indiana. After graduating from Hanover College in 1884, he studied law at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University. Alling went to Indianapolis with members of Sigma Chi named Fisher, Wiggam, Turner, Irwin, and Voris. After the contest, they attended the Sigma Chi banquet at the New Denison. According to Alling, this event was the most extravagant occasion he had ever been a part of. He also comments on how expensive the banquet was by commenting on his "pocket book." He later makes a comment referring to himself as a "poor Boy." This shows that Alling did not see himself as an upper- or maybe even middle-class member.

Sources: "Alumni File of Charles Alling, Class of 1885, "Archives of Hanover College, Duggan Library, Hanover College (Hanover, Indiana); "Alumni File of Nathan Powell, Class 1884," Archives of Hanover College, Duggan Library, Hanover College, (Hanover, Indiana).

Charles Alling, Jr., Diary, Wednesday, April. 23, 1884
Transcribed, with editorial comments by Amber Carrell, HC 2010

The composition of Alling's junior class

Alling's junior class in 1884 had nineteen students, including Alling. Based on the names of the students, it is reasonable to assume Alling's class was composed solely of males. Thus, it is fair to assume that at this time it was rare, if it happened at all, for a woman to attend school at Hanover. Sixteen students out of Alling's class were either from Hanover or neighboring towns in Indiana. Only three students were from out of state. Out of the students from Indiana, four were from Madison, one was from Charleston, one was from Franklin, one was from Vernon, three were locals from Hanover, one was from Greensburg, two from Vevay, one from Seymour, and finally one from Deputy, Indiana. The three from out of state were from Nicholasville, Ohio; New Liberty, Kentucky; and Chilocothe, Ohio. Hence, due to the class ratio from local Indiana students and students from out of state, and due to the difficulty and expense of travel, one can make the inference that it was difficult for students from a considerable distance to get to Hanover or even hear about it.

Alling's residence hall

Alling mentions the Point House in this diary excerpt. The Point House existed where the Administration building sits now (in 2009), adjacent to the Fiji fraternity house and College House. The Point House was built obviously prior to 1884, and lasted until it was torn down in 1958 during the year that also marked the end of Albert Charles Parker, Jr.'s term as president at Hanover College and marked the beginning of John Edward Horner's term as president. The Point House began as an all-male dormitory, but as a few students fondly remember, it became a controversial co-ed dorm before it was destroyed in 1958.

Charles Alling, Jr., Diary, Monday, May 26, 1884, continued
Transcribed, with editorial comments, by Azra Besic, HC 2010

About Charles Alling and his Times

Charles Alling, Jr., was the third child of seven, born to Charles and Harriet Alling in Madison, Indiana, December 13, 1865, a little over eight months after the end of the American Civil War. Charles Alling (senior) described his profession in the 1870 census as "Hardware Merchant," while Harriet was a fulltime homemaker; this makes it safe to assume the family qualified as middle class. The family, as described in the 1870 census, consisted of Charles senior (37), Harriet (31), Albert (9), Kati (7), Charles Jr. (5), Howard (3) and William (1); his youngest brothers, Van and Frederick, were not yet born.

Charles's early education likely consisted of the staples of American education in the mid-to-late 1800s--reading, writing, mathematics, and the Bible. This early education clearly had strong moral and religious content, as indicated by his multiple references to Sunday as the Christian Sabbath and fond memories of Bible stories; that education influenced Charles all of his life, leading him to become active in community politics and civic organizations. Charles attended Hanover College, graduating in 1885, the year during which the first successful appendectomy was performed, Leopold II established Belgian possession of the Congo, the Washington monument was dedicated, Grover Cleveland succeeded Chester Alan Arthur as president of the United States, AT&T was incorporated, Louis Pasteur tested his Rabies vaccine, Serbia declared war on Bulgaria, and America's first skyscraper was built in Chicago .

Charles went on to the University of Michigan, was admitted to the bar in Chicago in 1888, and received a master's degree in 1889. He went on to practice law until Christmas Eve, 1914, when he lost his right eye to a gun shot wound inflicted by a defendant he was prosecuting for the Illinois State Board of Health . Earlier in 1914, on March 28, Charles had married Jane Murdoch, who, along with his brothers Van and Fred outlived him. Charles and Jane had no children.

Additional Topics in this Excerpt

In his diary, Charles mentions Miss Mary Hanley and a grandma Crane. A census search returned seventeen Mary Hanleys in Indiana in 1880; of these, he may be referring to a 27 year old black seamstress and washer woman who lived in Madison , though I am unable to assert this with confidence.

Regarding "An eminent priest has said, 'give me the children to educate till six years of age and you (protestants) can make what you please of them,'" it seems Charles may have been referring to someone else's citation of the Jesuit motto, "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." This quote is often attributed by some to Francis Xavier (1506-52), and by others to Baltasar Gracian (1601-58).

Sources: "Census of Madison City, Jefferson Co. Indiana, 1870," Heritage Quest Online, Indiana Public Libraries; Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1885, s.v. 1885; "Charles Alling, Retired Lawyer, Taken by Death," Chicago Daily Tribune, Thursday, November 26, 1931; "Census of Madison City, Jefferson Co. Indiana, 1880," Heritage Quest Online, Indiana Public Libraries; "Census of Madison City, Jefferson Co. Indiana, 1860," Heritage Quest Online, Indiana Public Libraries.

Charles Alling, Jr., Diary, Monday, May 26, 1884, continued
Transcribed, with editorial comments, by Hanna-Maria Dubourg

About Charles Alling, Jr.

Charles Alling, Jr., was a Hanover College student (from 1879 to 1885) who wrote a diary during his junior year in 1884. He was born in Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, on December 13, 1865. His father, Charles Alling, Sr., was a "descendent of Roger Alling, who was a life treasurer of the New Haven colony of Pilgrims founded in 1638. His mother, Harriet Scovel, was the daughter of the Rev. Sylvester Scovel, who was the fourth president of Hanover College from 1846 to 1849." In 1879 he attended Hanover College, where he studied for six years. He graduated in 1885 with his Bachelor's Degree. From 1886 to 1888, he studied at the University of Michigan, where he received his Master's Degree in law and a doctorate in law. "From 1897 to 1905 he was an Alderman in Chicago. He served as judge advocate and Lieutenant Colonel of the Illinois National Guard from 1902 to 1907. Alling was the Dean of Chicago Business School of Law and was the Grand Consul and editor for the national publication of Sigma Chi [a fraternity]. Beginning in 1907, he worked as an attorney for the Illinois State Board of Health." Charles Alling practiced law until 1914. (Alling was in his office in Chicago, when a man called Frank Klimer came in and shot him in the eye; he lost consciousness but then recovered.) On March 28, 1914, he married Jane Murdoch, the daughter of the late Thomas Murdoch, a wholesale grocer. On November 25, 1932, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

A year before his graduation, in his junior year in 1883, he decided to write a diary, in which he describes his experience as a Hanover College student.

Charles' acquaintances
Charles Alling made lots of acquaintances when he was around Hanover College and Madison in 1883-1884. He talked about the Harper family but more about George and Will ("my early years on Main St. are intimately associated with the Harper boys - George and Will") and more precisely about Will ("Will Harper who was an interesting party at that time"). Charles's other acquaintances were "Charley, alias Sonny" 12, "Belser" 13, and "Harvey." I did some research about these people, and, except the diary, I found nothing. The last person that Alling mentioned in this excerpt is "'Professor' A. H. Young." According to another source, Professor A. H. Young was a Ph.D. professor of natural science at Hanover College from 1879 to1926. He "was a great teacher, and breathed deeply the spirit of scientific inquiry." "His laboratory was the first in which the students had an opportunity to do individual experimentation." "He was a man who was deeply interested in the slowly developing uses of electricity." Thus we can say that, according to this excerpt, Charles Alling made lots of acquaintances with whom he did some very attractive activities.

Charles' activities
When Charles Alling, Jr., first attended Hanover College in 1879, he was only fourteen years old. In 1883-1884, he was around eighteen or nineteen years old. According to his diary, Charles was playful and curious: "and many an hour have I spent in rolling clay marbles and balls to bake in the sun." What was also funny at the time was stealing stores: "That was the time when our passion for keeping a store was at its height. Those fellows were in the habit of stealing all the stock from the drug store." However when we talk about stealing, we also talk about escape, which was the case for Charles and his friends: they "found convenient avenue of escape and were soon past all danger." There was another game that boys liked to play with each other, which was teasing other friends like Harvey in this particular case: "Will often tells that Harvey, as he calls him, grew very angry one day where he stopped him in a buggy just to ride from Broadway hotel to his grandfather Greens - or Fords present residence." I think that this behavior was and is still typical of boys/men.

The last activity that Charles mentioned in this excerpt is the episode of the velocipede (see picture). As we can notice, this activity was important to him: "Let me not fail to mention the velocipede they [Mr. and Mrs. Harper] had given them [George and Will] on one Christmas It was among the first in Madison and the rest of us boys considered it quite a treat to have a ride." The velocipedes were created around 1850s-1860s in America. Thus it was a luxury at the time to possess this kind of vehicle.

As a conclusion, I would like to say that this excerpt was very interesting because it gives us, twenty-first century students, an idea of how students from the late nineteenth century lived. For instance, we noticed that Charles Alling made lots of acquaintances when he lived in Madison and in Hanover College (friends, parents, and professors), and that he did different activities with them (the velocipede, stealing stores, playing games). He seemed to be a very interested, playful, and nice man.

Sources: Charles Alling Jr., "Supplement to July Bulletin" (Hanover College's Library's Archives); Chicago Daily Tribune, 26 November 1931 (Hanover College's library's Archives); Clinton D. Christensen, "Charles Alling, 1865-1931"; Charles Alling, Jr., diary, 1883-1884; MSS 21; Hanover College Archives Agnes Brown Duggan Library; Hanover, Ind.; Waterloo Reporter (Iowa), vec 24, 1913, page 2; William Alfred Millis, History of Hanover College, 1827-1927, WM Mitchell Printing Co. Greenfield, Ind., 1927, page 204; Wikipedia, s.v. Velociped, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocipede. Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_American_Velocipede.jpg

About Charles Alling Jr.
Charles Alling, Jr., was the son of Charles and Harriet Scovel Alling. He was one of six brothers and sisters: Albert, Howard, Robert, Kitty, Will, and Fred.
He was born on December 13, 1865, in Madison, Indiana, where he stayed to attend college at Hanover College from 1879 to 1885. During this time, he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz states that college men of this time were less interested in "faculty standards" or success and were greatly intrigued by social rules of competing, girls, and drinking . Charles Alling was different. Although it is a possibility that he enjoyed the fraternity lifestyle, he must have cared for his grades because in six years (1885) he graduated with a bachelor's degree. Later, he attended the Law Department of University of Michigan, from 1886 to 1888. He then received his L.L.B. in 1888 and became a lawyer. On March 28, 1914, he married Jane Murdoch and had no children. He was involved in many different clubs throughout late adulthood including: member of multiple Sigma Chi organizations for alumni, superitendent of Sunday school for thirteen years, founder of the Indiana Society of Chicago, and member of the Union League club, the University Club of Chicago, the Knollwood Country club, the National Guard, and the Friends of Opera. His life finally came to a conclusion on November 25, 1931.

About this excerpt
He mentions a Capt. Spillman whome he and his friends would visit. It is difficult to discover who Capt. Spillman was, but I did discover a forty-four year old merchant who could be referred to as "captain" and who lived in Trimble County, Kentucky. Later in the journal he speaks of Trimble and Carroll counties. These are located on the other side of the Ohio River in Kentucky. Trimble in the county immediately to the south, and Carroll is neighboring it to the east. Alling mentions Capt. Spillman residing opposite of Eagle Hollow, which is in southern Indiana just north of the Ohio River. There is a bridge that links into Kentucky and placed a traveler on Spillman Ln. aligned with the border between Trimble and Carroll counties. Charles expresses his enjoyment for Kentucky dinners, and it would be conceivable to believe these locations are in Kentucky .

Sources: Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Campus Life (New York : Knopf, 1987); "Alumni File of Charles Alling, Class of 1885," Archives of Hanover College, Duggan Library, Hanover College (Hanover, Ind.); United States Atlas, 1990.

About Charles Alling, Jr.

Charles Alling, Jr., was born on December 13, 1865, to Charles and Harriet Scovel Alling. Alling had five brothers - Albert S. Alling, Howard S. Alling, Robert Alling, Will R. Alling, and Frederick Alling - as well as one sister, Miss Kitty Alling. He attended Hanover College in 1879, receiving his Bachelor's Degree six years later in 1885. While at Hanover College, Alling was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Greek life in the nineteenth century was a new outlet for undergraduate men. It had great appeal for those seeking escape from the traditional rules and norms of the college and the larger society as a whole. Horowitz states that in the mid-nineteenth centuries "fraternities provided the economic and social basis for feasts, strong drink, loose talk about women, card playing, and gambling." This trend of fraternity life must have been carried over to the time of Charles Alling's inclusion in a Greek society. However, Alling seems to have kept his mind more focused on his studies than some of his contemporaries. After graduating from Hanover College, Alling continued his education at the Law School of the University of Michigan from 1886 to 1888; he was admitted to the Bar in Chicago in 1888 as well. Alling also served as the Principal at Ryker's Ridge School from 1885-1886. According to the Chicago Daily Tribune, "he practiced law until 1914, retiring because his right eye was shot out on Dec. 24, 1913 by an insane defendant whom he was prosecuting as attorney for the State Board of Health." Charles Alling, Jr., married Jane Murdoch on March 28, 1914. They had no children.

About Mary E. Reid

This diary page of Charles Alling, Jr., talks about his memories of Sunday School at the First Presbyterian Church on Broadway Street in Madison Indiana. In doing so, he mentions a Miss Mary E. Reid as the lone teacher during his time at the Sunday School. According to the census records, Miss Mary E. Reid, was a 35 year-old female in 1880. Living in Madison, Indiana, her main occupation was to work at home, where she lived with her mother, H.A. Everson, and her brother, C.R. Everson. Miss Mary E. Reid was either a widow or a divorcee at the time of these census records, which could account for her difference in last name. Her father was originally from Maryland.

About Nineteenth-Century Sunday Schools

The diary page also discusses a certain Sunday School practice, in which Alling would cite scriptures in order to earn a card; and upon the collection of twenty cards or so he would receive a book or pamphlet. This practice refers to new reforms in Sunday school that were taking place in the nineteenth century. According to R. DeWitt Mallary, in talking about how Sunday school should be explained, "there should be a normal class in every Sunday school for the training of teachers, possible in pedagogy, certainly in the historical understanding of the Bible, and in such books such as Bushnell's Christian Nurture. Methods should be devised to secure lesson study on the part of the pupils, whether by honor-rolls, merit cards, or by the presentation of Bibles or other books." It appears that the practice Alling refers to Miss Mary E. Reid utilizing was a combination of new methods of Sunday school teaching that were taking place in the nineteenth century. Sources: "Alumni File of Charles Alling, Class of 1885," Archive of Hanover College, Duggan Library, Hanover College (Hanover, IN); Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz (1987). Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. New York: Knopf, 36; U.S. Department of the Interior, Census Office, Tenth Census, 1880, Hanover, Jefferson County, Indiana, s.v. "Mary Reid"; Mallary, R. DeWitt. "Reforms in the Sunday School." The Biblical World. 14, no. 6 (1899): 422.