D.H. Hill's 1857 Algebra book

[CSA Today]

D. H. Hill did not like Yankees. His fierce disdain for folks from the North and particularly from New England, where abolitionists abounded, even found its way into the pages of an Algebra textbook he produced in 1857. Indeed, some of the problems he devised were almost humorous in terms of how they castigated the people of the North.

A Yankee mixes a certain number of wooden nutmegs, which cost him 1/4 cent apiece, with a quantity of real nutmegs, worth 4 cents apiece, and sells the whole assortment for $44; and gains $3.75 by the fraud. How many wooden nutmegs were there? 33

In the year 1692, the people of Massachusetts executed, imprisoned, or privately persecuted 469 persons, of both sexes, and all ages, for alleged crime of witchcraft. Of these, twice as many were privately persecuted as were imprisoned, and 7 17/19 times as many more were imprisoned than were executed. Required the number of sufferers of each kind? 34

In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut, or sold into slavery. The square root of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10 that number. What was the number? 35

C. D. Fishburne was asked by Hill to read the manuscript before it was published. He was shocked by its contents. He expected it to deal with algebra, not politics. Fishburne told Hill that he "protested against his bringing into a book . . . allusions and references which smacked of sectional politics." Fishburne insisted that colleges and universities outside the South would not adopt the work because it contained superfluous material that was "offensive to those who lived in that happy region which lay north of Mason & Dixon's line." D. H. Hill, Fishburne reported, received these objections "very pleasantly but suggested that he did not care whether his book was received favorably by the Northern people or not."36

http://www.cmhpf.org/personalities/DHHill.html

 

[rhettbutler1865]

D. H. Hill did not like Yankees. His fierce disdain for folks from the North and particularly from New England, where abolitionists abounded, even found its way into the pages of an Algebra textbook he produced in 1857. Indeed, some of the problems he devised were almost humorous in terms of how they castigated the people of the North.

A Yankee mixes a certain number of wooden nutmegs, which cost him 1/4 cent apiece, with a quantity of real nutmegs, worth 4 cents apiece, and sells the whole assortment for $44; and gains $3.75 by the fraud. How many wooden nutmegs were there? 33

In the year 1692, the people of Massachusetts executed, imprisoned, or privately persecuted 469 persons, of both sexes, and all ages, for alleged crime of witchcraft. Of these, twice as many were privately persecuted as were imprisoned, and 7 17/19 times as many more were imprisoned than were executed. Required the number of sufferers of each kind? 34

In the year 1637, all the Pequod Indians that survived the slaughter on the Mystic River were either banished from Connecticut, or sold into slavery. The square root of twice the number of survivors is equal to 1/10 that number. What was the number? 35

C. D. Fishburne was asked by Hill to read the manuscript before it was published. He was shocked by its contents. He expected it to deal with algebra, not politics. Fishburne told Hill that he "protested against his bringing into a book . . . allusions and references which smacked of sectional politics." Fishburne insisted that colleges and universities outside the South would not adopt the work because it contained superfluous material that was "offensive to those who lived in that happy region which lay north of Mason & Dixon's line." D. H. Hill, Fishburne reported, received these objections "very pleasantly but suggested that he did not care whether his book was received favorably by the Northern people or not."36

http://www.cmhpf.org/personalities/DHHill.html

Most interesting! Thank you! And I thought I was stubborn...I sure do agree with Fishburne, but I never did enjoy algebra!

 

[AndyHall]

https://archive.org/stream/elementsofalgebr00hillrich#page/n5/mode/2up

Note that the first testimonial in the front of the book -- what we would now call a "blurb" -- was from a Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the Virginia Military Institute, named T. J. Jackson.

 

[nitrofd]

https://archive.org/stream/elementsofalgebr00hillrich#page/n5/mode/2up

Note that the first testimonial in the front of the book -- what we would now call a "blurb" -- was from a Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at the Virginia Military Institute, name T. J. Jackson.

I took a look at it..but I am not going back to school.

 

[brass napoleon]

They are quite humorous. But the humor vanishes when you realize that this was pure propaganda designed to fan the flames of sectional hatred.

 

[CSA Today]

They are quite humorous. But the humor vanishes when you realize that this was pure propaganda designed to fan the flames of sectional hatred.

I think it safe to say that by 1857 sectional hatred was approaching a full blown inferno.

 

[AndyHall]

Hill's Wiki article gives some more examples from the book:

The field of battle at Buena Vista is 6½ miles from Saltillo. Two Indiana volunteers ran away from the field of battle at the same time; one ran half a mile per hour faster than the other, and reached Saltillo 5 minutes and 54 6/11 seconds sooner than the other. Required their respective rates of travel.


A man in Cincinnati purchased 10,000 pounds of bad pork, at 1 cent per pound, and paid so much per pound to put it through a chemical process, by which it would appear sound, and then sold it at an advanced price, clearing $450 by the fraud. The price at which he sold the pork per pound, multiplied by the cost per pound of the chemical process, was 3 cents. Required the price at which he sold it, and the cost of the chemical process.


At the Women's Rights Convention, held at Syracuse, New York, composed of 150 delegates, the old maids, childless-wives, and bedlamites [lunatics] were to each other as the number 5, 7, and 3. How many were there of each class? Answer. 50, 70, and 30.​

 

[brass napoleon]

I think it safe to say that by 1857 sectional hatred was approaching a full blown inferno.

Largely because of propaganda just like this.

 

[CSA Today]

Largely because of propaganda just like this.

And would you include the abolitionists who took pen in hand while actually knowing little or nothing about the South?

 

[brass napoleon]

And would you include the abolitionists who took pen in hand while actually knowing little or nothing about the South?

You mean like that arch-fanatic Harriet Beecher Stowe?:

"To you, generous, noble-minded men and women, of the South,--you, whose virtue, and magnanimity and purity of character, are the greater for the severer trial it has encountered,--to you is her appeal. Have you not, in your own secret souls, in your own private conversings, felt that there are woes and evils, in this accursed system, far beyond what are here shadowed, or can be shadowed? Can it be otherwise? Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? And does not the slave system, by denying the slave all legal right of testimony, make every individual owner an irresponsible despot? Can anybody fall to make the inference what the practical result will be? If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor, justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, the debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and purest? Are the honorable, the just, the high-minded and compassionate, the majority anywhere in this world?
...

Do you say that the people of the free states have nothing to do with it, and can do nothing? Would to God this were true! But it is not true. The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South, in that they have not the apology of education or custom.

If the mothers of the free states had all felt as they should, in times past, the sons of the free states would not have been the holders, and, proverbially, the hardest masters of slaves; the sons of the free states would not have connived at the extension of slavery, in our national body; the sons of the free states would not, as they do, trade the souls and bodies of men as an equivalent to money, in their mercantile dealings. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned, and sold again, by merchants in northern cities; and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South?

Northern men, northern mothers, northern Christians, have something more to do than denounce their brethren at the South; they have to look to the evil among themselves.

But, what can any individual do? Of that, every individual can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do,--they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this matter! Are they in harmony with the sympathies of Christ? or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy?

Christian men and women of the North! still further,--you have another power; you can pray!"

- Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: http://stowe.thefreelibrary.com/Uncle-Toms-Cabin/2-28​

 

[CSA Today]

You mean like that arch-fanatic Harriet Beecher Stowe?:

"To you, generous, noble-minded men and women, of the South,--you, whose virtue, and magnanimity and purity of character, are the greater for the severer trial it has encountered,--to you is her appeal. Have you not, in your own secret souls, in your own private conversings, felt that there are woes and evils, in this accursed system, far beyond what are here shadowed, or can be shadowed? Can it be otherwise? Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? And does not the slave system, by denying the slave all legal right of testimony, make every individual owner an irresponsible despot? Can anybody fall to make the inference what the practical result will be? If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor, justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, the debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and purest? Are the honorable, the just, the high-minded and compassionate, the majority anywhere in this world?
...

Do you say that the people of the free states have nothing to do with it, and can do nothing? Would to God this were true! But it is not true. The people of the free states have defended, encouraged, and participated; and are more guilty for it, before God, than the South, in that they have not the apology of education or custom.

If the mothers of the free states had all felt as they should, in times past, the sons of the free states would not have been the holders, and, proverbially, the hardest masters of slaves; the sons of the free states would not have connived at the extension of slavery, in our national body; the sons of the free states would not, as they do, trade the souls and bodies of men as an equivalent to money, in their mercantile dealings. There are multitudes of slaves temporarily owned, and sold again, by merchants in northern cities; and shall the whole guilt or obloquy of slavery fall only on the South?

Northern men, northern mothers, northern Christians, have something more to do than denounce their brethren at the South; they have to look to the evil among themselves.

But, what can any individual do? Of that, every individual can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do,--they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this matter! Are they in harmony with the sympathies of Christ? or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy?

Christian men and women of the North! still further,--you have another power; you can pray!"

- Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: http://stowe.thefreelibrary.com/Uncle-Toms-Cabin/2-28​

You don't think Harriet Beecher Stowe's book fanned sectional hatred?

 

[brass napoleon]

You don't think Harriet Beecher Stowe's book fanned sectional hatred?

What fanned sectional hatred was Southern leaders banning her book and portraying it as an attack on Southerners, when it very clearly was not. In addition to the conciliatory words above, Stowe went out of her way to make the villain of the story, Simon Legree, a Northerner. And she made some of the kindest characters, like Augustine St. Clare, Southerners.

The book was an attack on the institution of slavery, but not at all an attack on Southerners. It was only an attack on the South to the degree that you equate the South with slavery - which Southern leaders did, but she clearly did not.

 

[CSA Today]

What fanned sectional hatred was Southern leaders banning her book and portraying it as an attack on Southerners, when it very clearly was not. In addition to the conciliatory words above, Stowe went out of her way to make the villain of the story, Simon Legree, a Northerner. And she made some of the kindest characters, like Augustine St. Clare, Southerners.

The book was an attack on the institution of slavery, but not at all an attack on Southerners. It was only an attack on the South to the degree that you equate the South with slavery - which Southern leaders did, but she clearly did not.

Perhaps, she would have been clearer to Southerner, as to her intentions, had she included a couple of chapters on the New England and New York triangular slave trade that had so much to do with slaves being in the South in the first place?

 

[brass napoleon]

Perhaps, she would have been clearer to Southerner, as to her intentions, had she included a couple of chapters on the New England and New York triangular slave trade that had so much to do with slaves being in the South in the first place?

When all else fails, erect a strawman and change the subject. The triangular slave trade had been outlawed for decades when she wrote that book. Slavery itself was still very legal in the Southern states, and the Fugitive Slave Law (her primary focus) was still very much in force in the Northern states.

 

[CSA Today]

When all else fails, erect a strawman and change the subject. The triangular slave trade had been outlawed for decades when she wrote that book. Slavery itself was still very legal in the Southern states, and the Fugitive Slave Law (her primary focus) was still very much in force in the Northern states.

It was you that brought up a book as a cause for fanning flames of sectional animosity, you aren't seriously attempting to imply that Hill's book fanned those flames more violently than did Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

 

[Lauren]

D.H. Hill had such a dry, dark sense of humor that (I feel) was so ahead of its time: a welcome break from the typical Victorian solemnity.

 

[Rebel_Giratina]

D.H. Hill had such a dry, dark sense of humor that (I feel) was so ahead of its time: a welcome break from the typical Victorian solemnity.

It's just too bad he couldn't keep his snark to himself when he was in the Confederate army; IMO much of D. H. Hill's talent went to waste because of this.

 

[brass napoleon]

It was you that brought up a book as a cause for fanning flames of sectional animosity, you aren't seriously attempting to imply that Hill's book fanned those flames more violently than did Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

I repeat - and as I have shown - there was absolutlely nothing sectional about Stowe's book. It was an attack on slavery, an institution that she said "the people of the free states ... are more guilty for ... than the South." The fact that Southern leaders turned it into a sectional issue, the same way they turned an algebra textbook into a sectional issue, shows exactly where THEY were coming from - trying to fan the flames of sectional hatred so that they could get their non-slaveholding neighbors to fight their war to preserve their blessed peculiar institution.

 

[Rebforever]

Largely because of propaganda just like this.

All hate propaganda from either side deseves the same measure.

 

[brass napoleon]

All hate propaganda from either side deseves the same measure.

I agree. And if any Northerner wrote a textbook indoctrinating children with the belief that Southerners were all frauds, cheats, and murderers, I would condemn it as well, no matter how witty it might have been.