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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC00687.005 |
| From Archive Folder | Papers of George May Powell |
| Title | George May Powell to Emma C. Small about her illness, work at the Senate and his military inventions |
| Date | 28 October 1862 |
| Author | Powell, George May (1835-1905) |
| Recipient | Small, Emma C. |
| Document Type | Correspondence |
| Content Description | re: He hasn't heard from her in some time, due to her illness, and he is anxious for full details. He describes his work with the Senate, introducing his "inventions in projectiles" and inventions of portable cots for officers and field hospitals. He includes a poem, "Nearer Home" by Pheobe Cary, with the intent to have Emma publish it. |
| Subjects | Disease Invention Poetry Congress Book Selling Hospital Weaponry Science and Technology Women's History Military History Civil War Woman Author Health and Medical Inventor Ammunition |
| People | Powell, George May (1835-1905) Small, Emma C. (fl. 1860-1868) |
| Place written | Washington, D.C. |
| Theme | The American Civil War; Science, Technology, Invention; Women in American History; Health & Medicine; Government & Politics |
| Sub-collection | Papers and Images of the American Civil War |
| Additional Information | Powell was a Lincoln supporter and served as a statistician in the Treasury Department during the Civil War. He was an inventer, social reformer, evangelical, entrepreneur, pacifist, and archaeologist. His philosophy and life combined social Christianity and capitalist enterprise. The Republican Party in the 1864 election used Powell's 1863 article, favorably comparing American wartime excise taxes with those of other countries at peace. His photographic montage of supporters of the Thirteenth Amendment (included in this collection) was very popular. Active in religious work as a young man, he was the secretary and manager of the Evangelistic Press Association and led a topographical corps through Egypt and North Africa to create Sunday School maps of Palestine and the Holy Land. He invented many devices both during and after the Civil War, and pursued economic ventures in enterprises such as the Cordell Life Limb company, providing prosthetics for Civil War veterans. After the war he founded the Evangelical Press Association in 1868, led the Oriental Topographical Corps in an archaeological expedition to Egypt and Palestine in 1873 (publishing colored maps and lecturing widely after his return), and ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the Prohibition Ticket. He worked to promote fireproof structures and participated in the American Forestry Commission, the Grange and Patrons of Husbandry, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the National Geographic Society. He was active in Sabbath reform work. |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945 |