Milestones: February 27, 2024

February 27, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

19TH AMENDMENT UPHELD — THE 19TH AMENDMENT PREVAILED WHEN, on Feb. 27, 1922, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously dismissed a challenge to the women’s right to vote. The plaintiffs in the landmark case, Lesser v. Garnett, challenged the 19th Amendment on three grounds: that the power to amend the Constitution did not apply to this particular nature; that states had constitutions with language prohibiting women from voting, even though these same states had ratified the amendment; and the ratifications from Tennessee and West Virginia were not valid to begin with because they hadn’t followed the rules of legislative procedure. However, Justice Louis Brandeis refuted each of these claims writing in a unanimous decision; one, that the long-established 15th Amendment had already covered a similar voting rights issue (on race); that state legislatures operating in a federal capacity according to the Constitution took precedence over state law; and that additional states’ ratifications rendered the argument moot.

The nation’s highest court also found that the Secretary of State had already accepted the ratifications by the legislatures of Tennessee and West Virginia as valid.

✰✰✰

PHOTOGRAPHED LINCOLN AT COOPER UNION — NOTED PHOTOGRAPHER MATHEW BRADY of the Civil War era on Feb. 27, 1860, began working with Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln for the first of several portraits. The now-famous photo soon after appeared on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar with the caption identifying a beardless Lincoln as the Republican candidate for President, but misspelling his first name as “Abram.” At the time, photography, also called daguerreotype, for its inventor, Louis Daguerre, was a newer art form. Daguerreotype refers to pictures with a mirror-like, highly polished silver surface giving off a negative/positive appearance depending on the angle viewed). Lincoln was photographed immediately before giving an iconic speech at the Cooper Union that introduced him to voters in the eastern U.S. and cemented his candidacy. During his address, he argued against the spread of slavery. Lincoln had the chance to reconnect with Matthew Brady, who photographed him as President on several more occasions. Lincoln commended both Matthew Brady and the Cooper Union for making him President.

However, Lincoln was not the first President to be photographed. The sixth U.S. President, John Quincy Adams, beat him to this in 1843. Brady would also photograph President Zachary Taylor at his 1849 inauguration and President Millard Fillmore the following year.

✰✰✰

DOESN’T LEAN SO MUCH NOW— THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT ON FEB. 27, 1964, PUBLICLY SOLICITED SUGGESTIONS on how to save the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa from collapse. The tower, in existence since the late 12th century, was constructed to house the carillon of the vast cathedral of the Piazza dei Miracoli in Italy’s central Tuscany region. But over time the top section of the 180-foot tower began leaning and its tilt kept increasing each year; a recent investigation of the structure revealed that the tower sat on an ancient river estuary, which caused the leaning. After Italy released its request for proposal, responses flooded in from around the globe. However, it would take a few decades before restoration work proved successful, a technique in which soil was gradually eliminated from the foundation.

The Tower of Pisa was reopened to the public in December 2001, after it had been straightened by 18 inches, which is believed to give the tower the chance to stand for another three centuries.

✰✰✰

PUSHED TO PROMOTE NEGRO LEAGUE — BASEBALL PIONEER EFFA MANLEY ON FEB. 27, 2006, BECAME THE FIRST WOMAN ELECTED — POSTHUMOUSLY — TO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME. During her lifetime (she died in 1981 at age 84), Manley, who was the only woman in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, had championed Black athletes and the Negro leagues in particular. Identifying as Black, she gave an interview to the participants of an oral history project at the University of Kentucky saying that she was the fruit of her mother’s affair with a wealthy white man named John Marcus Bishop. For a while, Effa Manley and her husband were owners of a Negro League team named the Brooklyn Eagles that they had purchased; but as the couple lived in New Jersey, they renamed the team as the Newark Eagles. Effie Manley proved to be a successful and ubiquitous business manager who was not afraid to confront the leaders of Major League Baseball and urge them to recognize the successes of the Negro League teams.

Effa Manley worked to improve the condition of the players in the entire league through better scheduling, pay, and accommodations. Her players traveled in an air-conditioned Flxible Clipper bus, considered extravagant for the Negro leagues, but which she believed was essential to her teams’ well-being.

✰✰✰

FIRST AND ONLY — THE GRAMMY AWARD FOR BEST DISCO REPORTING had its one-and-only presentation on Feb. 27, 1980, with the winner being Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” Gaynor won her award as disco as a pop form was on the decline. Although disco was popular on broadcast and in clubs, there was not an abundance of multi-platinum groups that the industry needed to thrive. There were 1970s movies featuring disco, foremost among them the 1977 blockbuster, “Saturday Night Fever.”

However, the Best Disco Recording category was eliminated from the following year’s awards.

See previous milestones, here.