History Book - A pioneering lawyer, and aluminum

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: the WORLD History Book.

This week: a first attempt on Abraham Lincoln’s life, the first black female lawyer, and the first cheap way to isolate aluminum. Here’s WORLD senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

AUDIO: [TRAIN WHISTLE]

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: We begin today with a polarizing president-elect. On February 23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln dodged would-be assassins in Baltimore and arrived under cloak of darkness in Washington, D.C. for his inauguration. 

Lincoln began a goodwill tour before his inauguration, beginning at his home in Springfield, Illinois. The Smithsonian explains Lincoln intended the publicity to soften the public’s perception of him.

SMITHSONIAN: And he said, “It’s my hope that when we see more of each other, we shall like each other the more.”

But Maryland was a slave state, and many were dissatisfied over the country’s new anti-slavery leadership. Railroad officials tapped Allan Pinkerton to run security for the 70-city tour. He got wind of a plot to ambush Lincoln’s carriage in Baltimore. Knife-wielding assassins hoped to stab Lincoln at the train station when he changed trains. 

Pinkerton devised a series of decoys, bluffs, blinds, and even a disguise of sorts—a shawl Lincoln would use to obscure his distinctive features—to enable safe passage for Lincoln. He even cut telegraph communication in the area to keep conspirators from corresponding. A 2016 episode of “American Lawmen” explained that Pinkerton’s tactics were novel for their time. 

AMERICAN LAWMEN: Allan Pinkerton believed that criminals had a deep desire to unburden themselves so his whole approach to law enforcement was founded on the notion of surveillance. “We will watch them until they give themselves up.”

When Lincoln’s train carriage arrived in Baltimore in the middle of the night—earlier than expected, by Pinkerton’s design—rail workers unhitched it, and horses pulled it to his transfer station. 

Lincoln’s train arrived safely in the nation’s capital at 6 a.m. on February 23. Throngs of disappointed onlookers at the Baltimore train station learned Lincoln had already passed through their city. 

MUSIC: ARTHUR FOOTE, “SUITE NO. 1 IN D MINOR, OP. 15: III. ROMANCE”

Only 11 years after that close call, a step forward: On February 27, 1872, Charlotte E. Ray became the United States’ first black woman lawyer at the age of 22.

The Minority Corporate Counsel Association annually presents an award in Ray’s name. Its 2018 Charlotte E. Ray Award honoree, Michele Colman Mayes, read from an 1872 Women’s Journal article about Ray. 

MAYES: In the city of Washington, where a few years ago colored women were bought and sold under sanction of law, a woman of African descent has been admitted to practice at the bar of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. She doubtless has a fine mind and deserves success. 

Ray used only her initials on her Howard University law school application, not letting on that she was a woman. Women in other states used Ray’s bar admission as precedent for admission to their state bars. 

We’ll end on something light—the production of a lightweight metal. On February 23, 1886, Charles Martin Hall completed several years of intensive work, producing the first samples of aluminium from the electrolysis of aluminium oxide. His sister Julia assisted him, as recreated in this 1940s ALCOA promotional film. 

ALCOA: Julia, look!/ Charles! Is that it?/ Yes! At last I’ve finally got it… aluminum! 

Even though aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth’s crust, scientists hadn’t found a cost-effective way to isolate it. The 1940s radio show “A Matter of Luck” imagined Hall’s time as a student at Oberlin College. 

RADIO: Uh, Professor, could I have a word with you?/ Why certainly, Hall. What is it?/ It’s about this lecture you’ve just given us on aluminium. It seems a pity there isn’t a process for extracting it in commercial quantities./ Why do you say that?/ Well, sir, in the first place, it’s so plentiful… it’s a pity that it has to cost so much to get a hold of a scrap! 

Advancements in the century before Hall’s work had brought the price of aluminum down from about $500 a pound to closer to $12. Hall thought he could do even better. But he graduated without realizing his dream of discovering an inexpensive way to isolate aluminum. Still, his work didn’t end when he received his diploma. 

ALCOA: He rigged up a laboratory in his father’s woodshed. Gasoline stove and homemade batteries, using fruit jars and jelly tumblers, most any sort of container he could find around the house. 

Hall later brought in investors, founding the company that would become the Aluminum Company of America, or ALCOA.

ALCOA: I think that sums it up. I believe there’s a great future in aluminum with this Hall process… 

SONG: “ALUMINUM” BY BNL

That’s this week’s History Book. I’m Katie Gaultney.

(Photo/Biography, via Facebook) Charlotte E. Ray

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