Katherine (Collins) Barron (1868 - 1934)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Katherine's lifetime.

In 1868, in the year that Katherine (Collins) Barron was born, on February 24th, three days after his attempt to dismiss United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton - who was opposed to Johnson's leniency towards the former Confederacy - the US House of Representatives voted (126 to 47) to impeach Andrew Johnson. Johnson was later acquitted in the Senate by one vote short of the required 2/3rds.Senators crossed party lines to keep Johnson as President.

In 1874, she was just 6 years old when on September 14th, the Battle of Liberty Place occurred in New Orleans - the capital of Louisiana. Some members of the previous Confederate Army assembled for the purpose of "driving the usurpers from power" and the Republican Governor - William P. Kellogg - was physically driven from his office. The former Confederates temporarily replaced him with (the former) Democratic Governor John McEnery. Federal forces arrived, put down the insurrection, and five days later the legally elected government was restored.

In 1905, she was 37 years old when the first movie theater opened in the United States in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was the first theater to show nothing but movies - silent films. Two men, John P. Harris and his brother-in-law Harry Davis, opened the Nickelodeon on Smithfield Street - charging 5 cents for admission. The first day, 450 people watched movies at the new theater - on the second day, more than 1500 people stood in line to get in.

In 1915, at the age of 47 years old, Katherine was alive when The Birth of a Nation opened in February. A silent film, it was the most ambitious film to date and is considered a classic. Three hours long, it starred Lillian Gish and was directed by D. W. Griffith. The movie was based on the book The Clansman and told the story of two families (one pro-Union and one pro-Confederate) and their relationship during the Civil War and Reconstruction. The KKK was shown as "a heroic force".

In 1934, in the year of Katherine (Collins) Barron's passing, on November 11th 1933, an extremely strong dust storm hit South Dakota, stripping topsoil. Other strong dust storms had occurred during 1933. Severe droughts continued to hit the Great Plains and the dust storms devastated agricultural production as well as people's' lives for several years. The Roosevelt administration and scientists eventually determined that farming practices had caused the conditions that led to the dust storms and the changes they implemented in farming stopped the Dust Bowl.