50-Day Family History Blogging Challenge: Charles Reed's Timeline

 Charles Reed (1840-1920) was my great-great grandfather on my mother's side.  He was born in Gallia County, Ohio, 28 August 1840.[1]  He died 26 January 1920 in Portland, Jay County, Indiana.[2]  In the year in which he was born, "horsepower" meant the ability of a horse to pull the family buggy.  In the year in which he died, "horsepower" was the power rating of the automobiles coming off Henry Ford's production line.  Charles Reed had served in the Civil War, Company F, 140th Indiana Infantry.[3]  When he died, the world had not long before engaged in a terrible war "to end all wars," which, of course, it did not.  

And when he died, importing, manufacturing, or drinking alcoholic beverages was illegal.

In the year in which he was born, Victoria, Queen of England, married Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Germany.  James Fenimore Cooper's The Pathfinder was a nationwide best-seller.  Born in 1840: Emile Zola, Claude Monet, Thomas Nast, Pierre Auguste Renoir, August Rodin, Peter Ilich Tchiakovsky, and Father Damien, the "leper priest" of Hawaii.[4]

 In the year before Charles Reed died in January of 1920, Theodore Roosevelt died.  Woodrow Wilson presided over the first meeting of the League of Nations.  There was racial strife in Chicago, and the American Steel strike began, ending in January of 1920.  The International Labor Conference endorsed the eight-hour workday.  Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio was published, as was Hugh Lofting's first Dr. Doolittle book, H. L. Mencken's The American Language. and Robert H. Goddard's A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, a seminal work at the beginning of the age of rocketry.[5]  

 All of this information, and the citations below, are in an extensive timeline I did in 2003 on Charles Reed.  It spans 88 pages, with endnotes.  I had read an article extolling the virtues of timelines as a way of placing our ancestors in context.  I used Bernard Grun's The Timetables of History, which is arranged in chronological order, and lists events of political, historical, scientific, and social importance.  I also used various censuses, Charles Reed's Civil War pension file, and other references, to create the timeline.

Not only did I enter the events of national and world importance, I also entered the family events, such as births and deaths of the descendants of Charles Reed and of members of collateral families, mainly the spouses and children of his descendants. 

I am a convinced advocate of timelines. 

[1]  John Robinson Reed (son of Charles Reed), et. al., "Births and Deaths in the Reed Family to April 1st, 1913."  List of the birth and death dates of Charles and Clarissa Reed and their children with additional death dates entered by persons unknown, no date.  Copy of typescript, initialed "J.R.R." (presumably John Robinson Reed).

[2] Charles Reed, Civil War Pension Application File, SO 816,345; SC 697,707: Records of the Veteran's Administration, Record Group 15, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Bernard Grun, The Timetables of History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982).  The book is arranged by year; I have not given page numbers because the arrangement by year makes it easy to find the items cited.

 [5] Ibid.