A historic subject is always many subjects combined. Below are the most importand people and objects mentioned in this book. 26/1/26
1804 The painter Charles Wilson Peale, a young German explorer bachelor aged 30. Journeyed through Central South America. He had read every book he had seen . In Virginia he worked on teeth of a mammoth that he had discovered in the Andes.
Alexander von Humboldt born in Berlin 1769 to 1859 can be regarded as the high priest of 19C science. He had been a government inspector of mines in Prussia. His travels through South America overshadowed the Lewis and Clark expedition
(1804 – 1806 the Lewis and Clark Expedition journeyed over 3,700 miles sent out by Jefferson, just after the Louisiana purchase in 1803)
Due to an outbreak of typhoid were put off at Cumana on the coast of present day Venezuela. There is a connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon Rivers. They classified more plants than any other explorer before them. He kept the most copious notes imaginable on tides , soils , petroleum , chocolate , rubber and missionaries. His description of the earthquake in Caracas. Darwin would confide that Humboldt's description of the tropics had inspired his whole career . From Venezuela Humboldt and Ponpland sailed for Havana Cuba in 1800 where he saw the institution of slavery and considered in the greatest of all evils.
They went overland to Bogota. In 2 years the toured Colombia Ecuador and Peru. They went over the Ades by foot and cris crossed it, and recorded the plant life according to the elevation. Hecanbe regarded as an early ecologist and in Quinto Equador the spent time sorting their collective they had gathered. The ingenuity of the Inca Road was way above any roman road and later became the present day Pan American Highway. In Lima he made notes on the local use of guano that was still unknown in Europe. He is known for the Humboldt Current. he was the first European to sense the scale and greatness of the ancient civilization. Later the Maya temples of Yucatan were written about.
In Philadelphia the first mammoth skeleton was mounted in America by Charles Wilson Peale. Humboldt went to Monticello and founded a lifelong friendship with Jefferson. He spent the next 32 years and his personal fortune to publish 30 volumes of his tours of 1799 to 1804. Amongst other things in discussed the ships canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific and named 5 likely routes for this. He was convinced that there was no difference between the level of the 2 oceans only the difference in tides. This was confirmed in 1850. He also wrote that the felling of trees would bring a disaster in the future. He was the first to recognize that the physical features and the planets affect on the weather. He laid the foundation for descriptive geography. Observed the Earths magnetism and vulcanism in the role of mountain building. Simon Bolivar sought him out to talk on political freedom . Charles Lyll the great English geologist had a long interview. with him. In 1851 his books were big sellers and Emerson considered him the greatest living man.
Louis Agassiz born in Switzerland 1807 to 1873. became a doctor and research the Alpine glaciers. In 1840 published a study on Glaciers. He spent 13 years in the US and published a series of lectures. Charles Lyell was most influenced by his lectures. America was in the throes of an educational awakening. Libraries were being established and schools were training teachers. 1847 he got the chair of natural history at the Lawrence School of Science. he did not see any reason for excluding young women. He said facts are stupid things until brought into conjunction with a law. You have to works out things without a teacher. On an expedition to lake Superior the Indian guides would sing the same 2 or 3 songs over in French. He coauthored Principles of Zoology his first publication in the US. He contributed to American Geology and a guide to the birds and fish of Lake Superior.. On the death of his first wife he remarried and sent for his 3 children. His wife opened a private school for girls on the top floor of his house. He wrote 10 volumes of the entire natural history of the USA. he announced he planned to open a museum of Comparative Zoology the cornerstone was laid in 1859, the same year that \Origen of Species was published in England. Agassiz who was not a church goer denounce the book and its theory as atheism. The study of nature was considered a study of the works of God. In 1869 he embarked on a venture around Cape Horn and to California on a coastal survey. He was not alone in being mistaken on his views of evolution.
Calvin Stowe 1802 to 1886 This is the story of the family of Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.
The Real West Teddy Roosevelt had set up a ranch in the North Dakota badland and the winter of 1886 was so sever that with the spring of 1887 the carcass of dead cattle surged downstream like cordwood. The French Canadian trappers had been here a 100 years before and called this les mauvalses terres a traverser - bad lands to travel across. Custer on the way to Little Bighorn in 1876 called this worthless country. However the grass was all free for the taking and there was water. So why not put a beef packing plant where the cattle were and avoid the Chicago middlemen. The French Marquis bough up al the land he could and equipment for packing. Lots of cattle sheep bought. Roosevelt wanted to become a cattle baron.
Fred Remington born in Kansas City. Enrolled at Yale School of Fine Arts 1879 on the death of his father dropped out of Yale and returned to Kansas. His success was sudden and extraordinary. and established himself as a magazine illustrator in NY. He received a commission to illustrate Theodor Roosevelt articles. By 1890 he was the best known artist in America. Illustrated Longfellow's Song Of Hiawatha. The pictures convinced the public they was authentic about the west. His endurance was tested when he rode with the cavalry and documented what he saw. Willa Catcher books documented the west. With the frontiers disappearing he went west to chase the disappearing past. The Virginian by Owen Wister 1902 was the first true Western in US literature.
He was very much against immigration and said the countries was being flooded with trash, he hated Jews, Italians, Huns. In 1897 he sailed to Cuba to cover the rebel uprising on assignment for Rudolf Hearst and what he saw he described as horrible hopeless, bloody bodies and helpless suffering. He painted the charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill.
With photography his painting could now be published in color. He now realized that the days of the cowboys were over and build a big statue of a Cowboy on Horseback at Fairmount park Philadelphia in 1908.
Panama Railroad completed in 1855. Later we had saw the completion of the Suez Canal 1869, the Union Pacific 1869, the Brooklyn bridge 1883.
In 1850 as a result of the California gold rush a railway line was started in Panama. This cost more per mile in human life and money, than any railroad ever build, later the canal followed this route. 1846 the Bidlack Treaty was the basis for US involvement. Today a railroad still goes from Panama City to Colon, it is different to the original one which was covered by the Getun lake and it is an hour and a half ride. In the 47.5 miles(76.4 Km) it has 170 bridges over 12 feet ling. Swamps had to be bridged or filled. It took 6 days to walk across the isthmus though clouds of insects and pack mules sinking into the mud. Stephens was the president of this wholly US owned stock company. Panama was still part of Colombia or New Granada as its name was then. American troops were used to prevent the transportation of Colombian troops adn a local junta created the Republic of Panama. They found a gap in the mountains only 275 feet above sea level. The sea level on both side of the isthmus are the same but the tides are different. Men began to sicken and die from Charges fever a variety of malaria. Also dysentery , sunstroke, cholera and Yellow jack (later identified that it was fever carried by mosquitos The work force came from many places West Indies, Colombia , Ireland Italy , China, India and US. Colombian were best adapted to conditions. About 6000 men died and there was a thriving trade of taking bodies with unknown kin and putting pickling the bodies in barrels and selling them to medical schools. around the world. This finance the railroad hospital at Colon. In these conditions clothes never got dry and the scorpions, sand flies ticks and bad food were all killers. To ease the plight the company brought in opium for the Chinese labourers. There were construction gangs from both ends. Steamship passengers arrived in the morning and could be on a ship at eh other side before dark.
In 6 years the railway covered all outlay costs, and in NY this was the highest listed stock. A ride cost $50 and this was the most expensive rail ride in the world. Walking instead would cost $10 for right of way. 1881 the company was bout outright by Compagnie Universelle du Canal inter oceanique for $20 million. In 1912 the line was move to make way for the canal.
Brooklyn Bridge A German trained in Berlin and was the first to perfect a suspension wire bridge to carry a railway at Niagara Falls.
1876 labourers were paid bonanza wages for working in the pneumatic caissons, they worked 10 hour days 6 days a week. Only men except for Emily Roebling. The was the East River Bridge or New York Bridge or Roebling Bridge. This was a turning point in US history. Roebling was caught on the ice on Brooklyn ferry and envisioned this in 1852. He owned a steel wire factory.
Roebling suspension Bridge in Cincinnati over the Ohio river was only completed after the civil war in 1867. This completed he went to German to study pneumatic caissons. The men could come and go without loss of pressure. The average age of the engineers hired to build this was 31. The illumination was candles or limelight and when a fire broke out in 1870 the compressed air cause such a conflagration Roebling was in the caisson 20 hours directing extinguishing it till he felt paralysis caused by the onset of the bends or the mystery caisson disease. One caisson hit bedrock at 44 feet, another one at 78 + feet and when 3 men already died they decided to stop as it was hardpack sand.
Roebling had a house where he could watch the construction and sent his wife out to give instructions and he ran things from his sickroom. Only when the bridge was finished did he emerge with improved health. The grand opening was in 1883. The US president Chester A Arthur(1881 to 1885) as was as Governor Grover Cleveland were there. The bridge had cost double the original estimate and it cost 27 lives.
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman proceeds completion of the bridge but anticipates future generation in the bridge.1856
Hart Crane's "To Brooklyn Bridge" describes it as a marvel of engineering connecting city life. written in 1930
The Bridge Plan 1969 Because of a problem on the bridge Francis Valentine was set to search for the plans of the bridge. He found the plans in the cities carpentry shop and the each had the initial WAR on them and he realized they were Washington A Roebling own signed drawings. There were 70 draws of them and it cost $15,000 , to clean up by had 65 of these drawing and they were first put on display to the public in 1976 with great success. Brooklyn Bridge once was the most celebrated bridge on earth. Every component was custom made often the very first of its kind, from the masonry of the towers to the manhole covers. All sorts of machines were custom build like hoisting apparatus, compressed air pumps, cable making equipment all custom build for this project. 64 draughtsman and engineers are represented being clearly named. Some the best of their profession and specific parts they played in this 14 year ordeal. Roebling also wrote a book on cable making. Many highly skilled crafts men were illiterate and could not read the plans.
This bridge was a redemption for the "Tweed years" and "Grant years" a period of corruption in New York the US and the US after the Civil War.
Long Distance Vision In the 1920s a new breed of pilot as pioneers all in their twenties developed in flying the new airmail service. They flew in every kind of weather by instinct not instruments. 6 were lost before Charles A Lindbergh flew non stop 3,610 miles NY to Paris in 1927. Many of them proved to be writers Lindbergh wrote 7 books including The Spirit of St Louis while his wife Anne co-pilot and aviator wrote North to the Orient. Antoine de Saint Exupery a mail pilot over the Sahara and Andes wrote Night Flight and other books . Beryl Markham of Kenya who flew the Atlantic wrote West with the night. Nevil Shute an English pilot who became a well known writer. Flying had stirred them to write like the sea moved Melville and Conrad to write.
This era was from the mid 1920 to 1937 with Hitler bombing of Spanish city of Guernica and Amelia Erhardt attempting to fly around the world and was lost in the Pacific near the Marianas also in 1937.
Lindbergh was given red carpet treatment and toured the aircraft factories and flew the latest fighter planes in Germany and was given a medal by Goering. Beryl Markham went back to her fathers racing horse trade. Neville Shute left England for Australia and wrote On the beach about a nuclear holocaust.
Harry Monroe Caudill The first known white man to settle in Kentucky was in 1792 James Caudill and he was the progenitor of a large widespread mountain family. Caudills own lumberyards run for judge, mine coal, win scholarships etc. Lack of jobs causes many to leave, and the word Appalachia is synonymous for inadequate education and few jobs. Harry Monroe Caudill a great-great-great grandson of the original Caudill, has spent years fighting for what remains of the Cumberland mountains. In Whitesburg(population 1800) where he worked as an attorney. He had attended the University of Kentucky on the GI Bill. He has written books, articles and lobbied on TV and Washington. In 1968 in at a Senate Committee, he pointed out that in the US there is a crises of destruction of the land.
Big Corporation from outside of Kentucky like National Steel , US steel Bethlehem Steel appoint local operators to do strip mining. This is an extremely profitable business with more power stations needing quality coal. Coal was once a seasonal commodity now it is in demand all year round for air-conditioning. Those left with the ravaged land get no share of the coal or money made from it.
They strip off the topsoil, clay and rock that cover the coal and dump it aside smashing an d smothering every tree and leaving a spoil bank. 3Access acres are destroyed for every acre mined. This leaves a danger like the Aberfan, Wales disaster in which 116 children and 28 adults were killed.in 1966. Here thousands of Kentucky creeks and streams are dead nothing lives in them. Abandoned strip pits and used as dumping grounds for garbage and used cars.
1965 he founded the Appalachian Group to save the land and the people,
Caudill has collected stories about the mountain country for as long as he can remember. Night comes to the Cumberlands 1963 this can be compared to Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath. In the area there used to be enormous maples hickories , beeches, ashes , black gums, pines and hemlocks in abundance. By the 1930 all the virgin trees were gone.
The loss of the trees was minor compared to what happened with the coal. After the railways arrived it was possible to take this out.
The mineral buyers came to purchase not the land but the minerals beneath it. They all though this was easy money and put their cross on the broadsheet deed. This authorized the grantees to do what ever was convenient or necessary to extract those substances.
Underground mining men worked 10 hour days and died of black damp methane, cave in explosions or like Caudills father or brother they were crippled for life, but wages were good by Kentucky standards. The unemployment of the 1930 was replaced by good wages in the war years till 1947. With automation and hard time came enormous migration and 250,000 left the mountains between 1950 to 1970.
Strip mining the farmers were informed that the bulldozers were to rip open the land. When they objected the broad form deed that their grandfathers had signed were brought out and courts ruled in favour of the mining industry. Local started sniping at the bulldozers and even blew up a company ware house with the dynamite they found there. Strip mining is safer less men to mine more coal faster and men do not get killed in them, A retired man was warned unofficially not to sleep in the room of his house facing the spoil bank. He took the matter to court with Caudill. The problem of acid mine damage was a thing that the Federal Government did not know how to deal with. Coal operators now said that Caudill and others who speak against them were Communists. They accused outsiders of coming to Kentucky to make trouble the fact that they most strip miners were "outsiders" never occurred to them. The mines claimed they were providing the country with energy by making worthless land pay and providing jobs. Free enterprise implied freedom from moral responsibility.
Caudill claimed that as a shortage of free land grows more serious all this magnificent country will have a value surpassing that of coal. A campaign was set up to stop the Red River Gorge from being build. Justice William O Douglas led a hike through the area and the gorge was saved. The press wrote that Caudill is a good man he is the one person who stayed and everyone know that the strip mining damage is wrong.
Mirriam Rothschild 1908 - 2005 she was an acclaimed scientist of entomology and botany who never had a formal education in science and was a mother of 6. the first female President of the Royal Entomological Society and a Trustee of the Natural History Museum.
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