1856 Democrat James Buchanan elected to presidency
Emerson's English Traits published
1857 Dred Scott case
Kansas elected free state legislature
Frederick Law Olmsted designed New York's Central Park
Atlantic Monthly began publication (later bought by Ticknor and Fields)
Harper's Weekly began publication
1859 John Brown led raid on federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia
Thoreau delivered "A Plea for Captain John Brown"
Bronson Alcott became Superintendent of Schools in Concord (continued until 1865)
Pullman (sleeper) car introduced
1860 Republican Abraham Lincoln elected to presidency
Strike by Massachusetts shoemakers
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody established first American kindergarten in Boston
Hawthorne's The Marble Faun published
Emerson's The Conduct of Life published
1861 Kansas admitted to Union
Civil War began
1862 Henry David Thoreau died
1863 President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
1865 Civil War ended
President Lincoln assassinated
1866 First successful transatlantic cable laid
1867 Emerson's second volume of poems, May-Day, published
1870 Emerson's Society and Solitude published
1875 Emerson's Letters and Social Aims published
1879 Bronson Alcott established Concord School of Philosophy
1882 Ralph Waldo Emerson died
