Current Events:
The Institute on Public Policy conference was held on Friday at Holy Family University. The Critical Issues Seminar for high school juniors was entitled: "Iran: The Threat to the United Staes, Israel, and the Middle East."
The speakers were Asaf Romirowsky, Adjunct Professor, Middle East Forum, and Ed Turzanski, Senior Fellow, Center for Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism, Foreign Policy Research Institute.
The speakers described the charismatic speaker, Hassan Nasrallah, who has rallied Middle Eastern Muslims against the West. Religious hatred would not be so dangerous if Middle Eastern and Asian elements did not obtain weapons of mass destruction. Shi'ite Muslims in Iran are awaiting the 12th Imam after the destruction of the world. Currently, Iran possesses the Shahab-3 rocket which has an effective range of 2,000 kilometers.
The speakers questioned Obama's "confused and naive" foreign policy. The Russians revealed a "secret letter" from Obama that effectively sold out our allies in the Czech Republic and Poland. Medvedev told Obama to wait until 17 September to announce the dismantling of our agreement with our allies. Either he is too naive to understand how the Russians were playing him or he did not realize the significance of the date. It is the anniversary of the day that Russia invaded Poland 70 years ago. The Russians were mocking the Americans.
Not only Russia but China also does not support American concerns for safety against Iran. Iran will develop a nuclear weapons in 14-18 months according to Israeli intelligence and we will all need to be policy makers then because Iran has threatened to use its weapons against Israel.
Obama has developed a pro-Islamic foreign policy which was obvious from his Cairo speech and in his U.N. speech he has apologized for U.S. actions, using "I" 23 times in emphasizing himself over past U.S. actions.
Those interested in knowing the dangers we face with Islamists in the Middle East are described well in various works by Bernard Lewis.
Allies of Iran fire missiles into Israel.
Sderot (pronounced sderr-ROHT) is the only town and the Western Negev is the only region in the entire world in which missiles are fired towards civilian population in the 21st Century.
Yet in spite of the promise by Hamas (allied with Iran) that they will not fire rockets into Israel again, a promise to the world in fact, missiles have been fired and one exploded inside the city of Sderot.
Nearly 270 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel since the end of last winter's counterterrorist operation on January 18. This is in comparison to more than 3,300 rockets and mortars fired in the year before the IDF carried out the operation, the IDF spokesman pointed out.
In the past month, Hamas terrorists have again slowly begun increasing the number of rocket attacks on Israel, with approximately 15 rockets and mortar shells fired to date.
While 15 is not a large number, they do help to create the atmosphere of terror to Sderot. Sderot is the only town in the world in which between 74% and 94% of children aged 4-18 exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress, says Natal, the Israel Center for Victims of Terror and War.
Iran remains a closed society and uses technology to censor the Internet.
May 6, 2009 Ahmadinejad boasted that “those who one day called Iran and Syria part of the axis of evil now want to develop relations with Iran and Syria.”
“Circumstances are changing rapidly in our favor,” Arab media quoted him as saying. “We are on the road to victory.”
Posted more than once since often these videos are scrubbed.
Brigitte Gabriel talks about the Obama message to Iran.
Brigette Gabriel dissects Obama's surrender to the Iranian Mullahs.
Obama never mentions the deaths and dismemberment of U.S. military troops at the hands of Iran in a weak-kneed attempt to curry favor. The anti-Iranian regime and pro-democracy movements are surely to be disappointed in the message.
Nowrūz (Persian: نوروز /noʊruz/ ↔ [noʊɾuːz]; with various local pronunciations and spellings, meaning 'New Day') is the traditional Iranian new year holiday celebrated by Iranian peoples, having its roots in Ancient Iran.
Nonetheless, Tiversa, a company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks discovered what it said is a potentially serious security breach involving Marine One’s helicopter. Engineering and communications information about Marine One was discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.
Iran has stolen and ordered the deaths of Westeners.
"It was twenty years ago today" and yet the West still fails to effectively respond to censorship. Twenty years ago Iran ordered the death of British author Salman Rushdie and his publishers for blaspheming Islam. The verdict still stands.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa (religious edict), issued on February 14, 1989, sent Rushdie into hiding under 24-hour police protection, and triggered attacks on bookstores and assassination attempts-–at least one successful-–against the publishers of his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses.
Khomeini died four months after issuing the decree, but not before declaring in an official statement that “even if Salman Rushdie repents and becomes the most pious man of all time, it is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has got, his life and wealth, to send him to hell.”
“I call on all zealous Muslims to execute [Rushdie and his publishers] quickly, where they find them, so that no one will dare to insult the Islamic sanctity, “he said. “Whoever is killed on this path will be regarded as a martyr, Allah-willing.”
The Rushdie affair has generated considerable debate over the years about freedom of expression, intolerance, Islamic law (shari’a) and Islamic-inspired violence.
A year after the fatwa was issued, OIC member states adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which says all human rights and freedoms must be subject to shari’a.
Obama's policy of direct diplomacy with Iran may buy Tehran enough time to produce nuclear weapons, Shabtai Shavit, former chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, warned.
"My concern is that until Obama finishes his learning curve of the subject, the Iranians are going to have maybe the first or even more nuclear bombs."
Shavit served as director of the Mossad from 1989 through 1996.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Iran's top cleric opined: "The world is on a slope of collapse. One is shocked when a president (Obama) sits, smiles and says 'my concern is to find a dog for my daughter.' Shame on you and those who voted for you," he said.
He also added during Friday prayers that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni should be shot.
"Every time the picture of this woman is shown, I really wish that somebody would expend a bullet on her," he said according to a recording of the sermon obtained by the Associated Press, and a copy of the speech was also translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Middle Eastern press monitoring service.
Iranian supplies kill American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Graphic source: Pajamas Media
A Humvee interior view of the passenger side door shows how a copper projectile ripped violently through the door, fragmenting the interior door armor and causing significant damage before exiting though the dashboard. This is a typical Iranian-made EFP causing U.S. casualties.
Unit 3 An Era of European Imperialism 1800-1914
Industrialization
Changes in Cotton Production
The Textile Industry Advances
The Industrial Revolution first took hold in Britain’s largest industry—textiles. In the 1600s, cotton cloth imported from India had become popular. British merchants tried to organize a cotton cloth industry at home. They developed the putting-out system, also known as cottage industry, in which raw cotton was distributed to peasant families who spun it into thread and then wove the thread into cloth in their own homes. Skilled artisans in the towns then finished and dyed the cloth.
Inventions Speed Production
Under the putting-out system, production was slow. As the demand for cloth grew, inventors came up with a string of remarkable devices that revolutionized the British textile industry. For example, John Kay’s flying shuttle enabled weavers to work so fast that they soon outpaced spinners. James Hargreaves solved that problem by producing the spinning jenny in 1764, which spun many threads at the same time. A few years later, in 1769, Richard Arkwright patented the water frame, which was a spinning machine that could be powered by water.
John Kay’s flying shuttle, 1733. James Hargreaves’ spinning jenny, 1764. Richard Arkwright’s water frame, 1769.
Meanwhile, in America, these faster spinning and weaving machines presented a challenge—how to produce enough cotton to keep up with England. Raw cotton grown in the South had to be cleaned of dirt and seeds by hand, a time-consuming task. To solve this, Eli Whitney invented a machine called the cotton gin that separated the seeds from the raw cotton at a fast rate. He finished the cotton gin in 1793, and cotton production increased exponentially.
Factories Are Born in Britain
The new machines doomed the putting-out system. They were too large and expensive to be operated at home. Instead, manufacturers built long sheds to house the machines. At first, they located the sheds near rapidly moving streams, harnessing the water power to run the machines.
Later, machines were powered by steam engines.
The Spinning Mill Animation
Spinning mills used 'line shafting', which is the means by which the power of the steam engine is transmitted along rotating shafts (rods) to spinning or weaving mills.Spinners and weavers now came each day to work in these first factories, which brought together workers and machines to produce large quantities of goods. Early observers were awed at the size and output of these establishments. One onlooker noted: “The same [amount] of labor is now performed in one of these structures which formerly occupied the industry of an entire district.”
This animation depicts a spinning mill like that found at Quarry Bank museum in Cheshire. It shows a furnace powering a flywheel, which is there to smooth out the otherwise jerky rotation of the crank.
In spinning mills, which could be multi-storey, there are large numbers of ropes coming off the flywheel. These 'rope races' convey power to the mill's different floors.
Checkpoint
What led to the advancement of the British textile industry?
The Coal and Iron Industries
Another factor that helped trigger the Industrial Revolution was the development of new technology. Aided by new sources of energy and new materials, these new technologies enabled business owners to change the ways work was done.
An Energy Revolution
During the 1700s, people began to harness new sources of energy. One vital power source was coal, used to develop the steam engine. In 1712, British inventor Thomas Newcomen had developed a steam engine powered by coal to pump water out of mines. Scottish engineer James Watt looked at Newcomen’s invention in 1764 and set out to make improvements on the engine in order to make it more efficient. Watt’s engine, after several years of work, would become a key power source of the Industrial Revolution. The steam engine opened the door not only to operating machinery but eventually to powering locomotives and steamships.
The Quality of Iron Improves
Coal was also a vital source of fuel in the production of iron, a material needed for the construction of machines and steam engines. The Darby family of Coalbrookdale pioneered new methods of producing iron. In 1709, Abraham Darby used coal instead of charcoal to smelt iron, or separate iron from its ore.
Darby’s experiments led him to produce less expensive and better-quality iron, which was used to produce parts for the steam engines. Both his son and grandson continued to improve on his methods. In fact, Abraham Darby III built the world’s first iron bridge. In the decades that followed, high-quality iron was used more and more widely, especially after the world turned to building railroads.
Abraham Darby III completed the world’s first iron bridge in 1779. The bridge still stands today.
Checkpoint
What new technologies helped trigger the Industrial Revolution?
Railroads
It was the invention of the steam locomotive that made the growth of railroads possible. In the early 1800s, pioneers like George Stephenson developed steam-powered locomotives to pull carriages along iron rails. The railroad did not have to follow the course of a river. This meant that tracks could go places where rivers did not, allowing factory owners and merchants to ship goods swiftly and cheaply over land. The world’s first major rail line, from Liverpool to Manchester, opened in England in 1830. In the following decades, railroad travel became faster and railroad building boomed. By 1870, rail lines crisscrossed Britain, Europe, and North America.
Stephenson's Rocket Animation
BackgroundOne of the most important developments of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of a countrywide railway network. The world’s first major rail line went from Liverpool to Manchester in England. Fanny Kemble, the most famous actress of the day, was one of the first passengers:
The Rocket was designed and built by George Stephenson with the help of his son, Robert, and Henry Booth, for the 1829 Rainhill Trials.
The Trials were held by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, to find the best locomotive engine for a railway line that was being built to serve these two English cities. On the day of the Trials, some 15,000 people came along to see the race of the locomotives.
During the race, the Rocket reached speeds of 24mph during the 20 laps of the course. This was due to several new design features. It was the first locomotive to have a multi-tube boiler - with 25 copper tubes rather than a single flue or twin flue.
The blast pipe also increased the draught to the fire by concentrating exhaust steam at the base of the chimney. This meant that the boiler generated more power (steam), so the Rocket was able to go faster than its rival, and thus secure its place in history.
The Rocket can be seen at the Science Museum, in London.
“We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails. . . This snorting little animal, . . . started at about ten miles an hour. . . . You can’t imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus, without any visible cause of progress other than the magical machine . . .”
Learn
Focus Question
What key factors allowed Britain to lead the way in the Industrial Revolution?
The New Factories
The new machines doomed the putting-out system. They were too large and expensive to be operated at home. Instead, manufacturers built long sheds to house the machines. At first, they located the sheds near rapidly moving streams, harnessing the water power to run the machines. Later, machines were powered by steam engines.
Spinners and weavers now came each day to work in these first factories, which brought together workers and machines to produce large quantities of goods. Early observers were awed at the size and output of these establishments. One onlooker noted: “The same [amount] of labor is now performed in one of these structures which formerly occupied the industry of an entire district.”
Checkpoint
What led to the advancement of the British textile industry?
Reading Check
Describing
How were adult and child factory workers disciplined?
The Spread of Industrialization
Europe
Industrial Europe, c. 1850
North America (note how in the Glencoe textbook the entire section is about the United States; it states nothing about Mexico and Canada yet the section is entitled "North America.")
Reading Check
Evaluating
Social Impact in Europe
Growth of Population and Cities
The agricultural revolution contributed to a rapid growth of population. Precise population statistics for the 1700s are rare, but those that do exist are striking. Britain’s population, for example, soared from about 5 million in 1700 to almost 9 million in 1800. The population of Europe as a whole shot up from roughly 120 million to about 180 million during the same period. Such growth had never before been seen.
Vocabulary Builder
statistics—(stuh tis tiks) pl.n. data that are gathered and tabulated to present information
Why did this population increase occur? First, the agricultural revolution reduced the risk of death from famine because it created a surplus of food. Since people ate better, they were healthier. Also, better hygiene and sanitation, along with improved medical care, further slowed deaths from disease.
Checkpoint
How did an agricultural revolution contribute to population growth?
The Industrial Middle Class
The Industrial Revolution created a new middle class along with the working class. Those in the middle class owned and operated the new factories, mines, and railroads, among other industries. Their lifestyle was much more comfortable than that of the industrial working class.
When farm families moved to the new industrial cities, they became workers in mines or factories. Many felt lost and bewildered. They faced tough working conditions in uncomfortable environments. In time, though, factory and mine workers developed their own sense of community despite the terrible working conditions.
The Industrial Middle Class
Those who benefited most from the Industrial Revolution were the entrepreneurs who set it in motion. The Industrial Revolution created this new middle class, or bourgeoisie (boor zhwah zee), whose members came from a variety of backgrounds. Some were merchants who invested their growing profits in factories. Others were inventors or skilled artisans who developed new technologies. Some rose from “rags to riches,” a pattern that the age greatly admired.
Middle-class families lived in well-furnished, spacious homes on paved streets and had a ready supply of water. They wore fancy clothing and ate well. The new middle class took pride in their hard work and their determination to “get ahead.” Only a few had sympathy for the poor. Women of the middle class did not leave the home to work but instead focused their energy on raising their children. This contrasted with the wealthy, who had maidservants to look after their children, and the working class, whose children were a part of the workforce.
The Industrial Working Class
As more and more people moved to the cities to work, they had little choice about where to live. There was no public water supply, waste lined the unpaved streets, and disease spread rapidly in these unsanitary conditions. Dr. Southwood-Smith worked in two districts of London and wrote:
“Uncovered sewers, stagnant ditches and ponds, gutters always full of putrefying matter . . . It is not possible for any language to convey an adequate conception of the poisonous condition in which large portions of both these districts always remain, . . . from the masses of putrefying matter which are allowed to accumulate.”Learn
Focus Question
What were the social effects of the Industrial Revolution?
The Industrial Revolution brought great riches to most of the entrepreneurs who helped set it in motion. For the millions of workers who crowded into the new factories, however, the industrial age brought poverty and harsh living conditions.
In time, reforms would curb many of the worst abuses of the early industrial age in Europe and the Americas. As standards of living increased, people at all levels of society would benefit from industrialization. Until then, working people would suffer with dangerous working conditions; unsafe, unsanitary, and overcrowded housing; and unrelenting poverty.
People Move to New Industrial Cities
The Industrial Revolution brought rapid urbanization, or the movement of people to cities. Changes in farming, soaring population growth, and an ever-increasing demand for workers led masses of people to migrate from farms to cities. Almost overnight, small towns around coal or iron mines mushroomed into cities. Other cities grew up around the factories that entrepreneurs built in once-quiet market towns.
The British market town of Manchester numbered 17,000 people in the 1750s. Within a few years, it exploded into a center of the textile industry. Its population soared to 40,000 by 1780 and 70,000 by 1801. Visitors described the “cloud of coal vapor” that polluted the air, the pounding noise of steam engines, and the filthy stench of its river. This growth of industry and rapid population growth dramatically changed the location and distribution of two resources—labor and people.
Checkpoint
What led to the massive migration of people from farms to cities?
While the wealthy and the middle class lived in pleasant neighborhoods, vast numbers of poor struggled to survive in foul-smelling slums. They packed into tiny rooms in tenements, or multistory buildings divided into apartments. These tenements had no running water, only community pumps. There was no sewage or sanitation system, so wastes and garbage rotted in the streets. Sewage was also dumped into rivers, which created an overwhelming stench and contaminated drinking water. This led to the spread of diseases such as cholera.
Vocabulary Builder
contaminated—(kun tam uh nayt id) adj. unclean and impure; polluted
Workers Stage Futile Protests
Although labor unions, or workers’ organizations, were illegal at this time, secret unions did exist among frustrated British workers. They wished to initiate worker reforms, such as increases in pay, but had no political power to effect change. Sometimes their frustration led to violence. The first instances of industrial riots occurred in England from 1811 to 1813. Groups of textile workers known as the Luddites (lud yts) resisted the labor-saving machines that were costing them their jobs. Some of them smashed textile machines with sledgehammers and burned factories. They usually wore masks and operated at night. There was widespread support among the working class for these Luddite groups.
Workers Find Comfort in Religion
Many working-class people found comfort in a religious movement called Methodism. This movement was influenced by the Industrial Revolution as people moved to cities and lost connections with their old churches. John Wesley had founded the Methodist movement in the mid-1700s. Wesley stressed the need for a personal sense of faith. He encouraged his followers to improve themselves by adopting sober, moral ways.
Vocabulary Builder
stressed—(stresd) vt. emphasized
Methodist meetings featured hymns and sermons promising forgiveness of sin and a better life to come. Methodist preachers took this message of salvation into the slums. There, they tried to rekindle hope among the working poor. They set up Sunday schools where followers not only studied the Bible but also learned to read and write. Methodists helped channel workers’ anger away from revolution and toward reform.
Checkpoint
How did members of the working class react to their new experiences in industrial cities?
Life in the Factories and Mines
The heart of the new industrial city was the factory. There, the technology of the machine age and the rapid pace of industrialization imposed a harsh new way of life on workers.
Discovery School Channel
Watch In Old New York on the Witness History Discovery School™ video program to learn about life during the Industrial Age.
Factory Workers Face Harsh Conditions
Working in a factory system differed greatly from working on a farm. In rural villages, people worked hard, but their work varied according to the season. Life was also hard for poor rural workers who were part of the putting-out system, but at least they worked at their own pace. In the grim factories of industrial towns, workers faced a rigid schedule set by the factory whistle.
Working hours were long, with shifts lasting from 12 to 16 hours, six or seven days a week. Workers could only take breaks when the factory owners gave permission. Exhausted workers suffered accidents from machines that had no safety devices. They might lose a finger, a limb, or even their lives. In textile mills, workers constantly breathed air filled with lint, which damaged their lungs. Those workers who became sick or injured lost their jobs.
The majority of early factory workers were women rather than men. Employers often preferred to hire women workers because they thought women could adapt more easily to machines and were easier to manage. In addition, employers generally paid women half what they paid men.
Factory work created a double burden for women. Their new jobs took them out of their homes for 12 hours or more a day. They then returned to their tenements, which might consist of one damp room with a single bed. They had to feed and clothe their families, clean, and cope with such problems as sickness and injury.
Miners Face Worse Conditions
The Industrial Revolution increased the demand for iron and coal, which in turn increased the need for miners. Although miners were paid more, working conditions in the mines were even worse than in the factories. They worked in darkness, and the coal dust destroyed their lungs. There were always the dangers of explosions, flooding, and collapsing tunnels. Women and children carted heavy loads of coal, sometimes on all fours in low passages. They also climbed ladders carrying heavy baskets of coal several times a day.
Even children as young as five years old worked in the mines. James Kay-Shuttleworth worked as a physician among the different classes of the Industrial Revolution in Manchester. His profession allowed him to see the working conditions of poor in the cities. How was work in factories and mines different from work on the farm?
Children were accustomed to work on a farm: the money earned by children was vital to most working class families during the early 20th century and before.
Primary Source
“Whilst the engine runs, people must work—men, women, and children are yoked together with iron and steam. The animal machine is chained fast to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and weariness.”
—James Kay-Shuttleworth, 1832
Children Have Dangerous Jobs
Factories and mines also hired many boys and girls. These children often started working at age seven or eight, a few as young as five. Nimble-fingered and quick-moving, they changed spools in the hot and humid textile mills where sometimes they could not see because of all the dust. They also crawled under machinery to repair broken threads in the mills. Conditions were even worse for children who worked in the mines. Some sat all day in the dark, opening and closing air vents. Others hauled coal carts in the extreme heat. Because children had helped with work on the farm, parents accepted the idea of child labor. The wages the children earned were needed to keep their families from starving.
Child labor reform laws called “factory acts” were passed in the early 1800s. These laws were passed to reduce a child’s workday to twelve hours and also to remove children under the age of eight or nine from the cotton mills. Because the laws were generally not enforced, British lawmakers formed teams of inspectors to ensure that factories and mines obeyed the laws in the 1830s and 1840s. More laws were then passed to shorten the workday for women and require that child workers be educated.
Families could afford to take trips to such places as the zoo as wages increased.
Checkpoint
How did the Industrial Revolution affect the lives of men, women, and children?
Early Socialism
While the champions of laissez-faire economics praised individual rights, other thinkers focused on the good of society in general. They condemned the evils of industrial capitalism, which they believed had created a gulf between rich and poor. To end poverty and injustice, they offered a radical solution—socialism. Under socialism, the people as a whole rather than private individuals would own and operate the means of production—the farms, factories, railways, and other large businesses that produced and distributed goods. Socialism grew out of the Enlightenment faith in progress, its belief in the basic goodness of human nature, and its concern for social justice.
Are Utopians Dreamers?
A number of early socialists established communities in which all work was shared and all property was owned in common. When there was no difference between rich and poor, they said, fighting between people would disappear. These early socialists were called Utopians. The name implied that they were impractical dreamers. The Utopian Robert Owen set up a model community in New Lanark, Scotland, to put his own ideas into practice.
Infographic
Owen’s Utopia
For: Interactive Village
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: nap-1941
Owen Establishes a Utopia
A poor Welsh boy, Owen became a successful mill owner. Unlike most industrialists at the time, he refused to use child labor. He campaigned vigorously for laws that limited child labor and encouraged the organization of labor unions.
Checkpoint
What did early socialists believe?
Reading Check
Describing
What type of working conditions did the industrial workers face?
References and Resources
Rise of the Working Class by Jurgen Kuczynski
Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson
Cultural Foundations of Industrial Civilization by John U. Nef
Sign entering the village. Graphic source: The Next Generation
A living museum can be viewed at Old Sturbridge Village. At the village visitors can ride the stagecoach, interact with the farm animals, talk with costumed historians, and watch the blacksmith, cooper, potter, and farmers at work. In the village visitors can experience life in the 1830s--with 40 antique homes, buildings, and water-powered mills. The village is well worth exploring in some detail.
Old Sturbridge Village Feature Shown on Al Jazeera Television winter 2008
Laura Linney and Ken Burns on the importance of Old Sturbridge Village
4th of July at OSV.
Redcoats to Rebels at OSV.
Traditional American Music performed live at Mystic Seaport, CT: Part 1
Traditional American Music performed live at Mystic Seaport, CT: Part 3
The Charles W. Morgan embarks on a voyage of restoration at the Henry B. DuPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport. Shipyard Director, Quentin Snediker explains what is done to prepare the ship for the historic journey.
The Charles W. Morgan is the last surviving wooden whaling ship from the great days of sail. Built in 1841 in New Bedford, MA, the Morgan had a successful 80-year whaling career. She made 37 voyages before retiring in 1921, and was preserved as an exhibit through the efforts of a number of dedicated citizens. After being on display in South Dartmouth, MA, until 1941, she came to Mystic Seaport, where each year thousands of visitors walk her decks and hear the fascinating story of her career as a whaling vessel, historic exhibit, film and media star, and a porthole into America's rich history.
Over the last three decades, the Charles W. Morgan has undergone two regimes of partial restoration along with annual maintenance. Despite these efforts, the inevitable effects of time on the wooden fabric of the vessel's structure demand additional extensive restoration. If left unchecked, these deficiencies will threaten the structural integrity of the Morgan and her use as a primary artifact in Mystic Seaport's interpretive programs.
Mystic Seaport, 1960 (No, this is not Dr. Smith as a boy), from family home movies.
Whaling in popular culture: Mountain, "Nantucket Sleighride"
The cold hard steel of the harpoon's point
Struck deep into its side.
We played out line and backed the oars
And took the cruel sleighride.
The term "Nantucket Sleighride" was coined by the whalers to explain what happened after they harpooned a whale. (Nantucket Island was considered the whaling capital of the world during the 19th century.) The first strike of the harpoon was not intended to kill the whale but only to attach it to the whale boat. The whale would take off pulling the whale boat along at speeds of up to 23 mph (37 kmh). The whale would eventually tire itself out, the leading officer in the boat would then use a penetrating lance to kill the whale.
Nantucket Sleighride is Dedicated to Owen Coffin who was cabin boy aboard the whaler Essex, which was destroyed by a sperm whale in 1819. Owen ended up in the lifeboat with Captain Pollard, his uncle. Two other lifeboats also put out. During the next 3 - 4 months, the lifeboats separated. One was never seen again, but some of those on the remaining two boats were eventually rescued.
During those long months at sea (and on desert islands), many of the men died. The remainder eventually had to resort to cannibalism to survive. After the dead of natural causes were consumed, the men determined to draw lots to see who would sacrifice his life for the others. Owen Coffin ``won'' the lottery. The Captain tried to take Owen's place, but the youth insisted on his ``right''. The executioner was also drawn by lot. That ``winner'', another young man named Charles Ramsdell, also tried vainly to swap places with Owen. Again he refused. Owen's body kept the others alive for ten days (Captain Pollard refused to eat his nephew). Another man died, and his body kept Pollard and Ramsdell alive a few more days until they were rescued.
Lyrics
Goodbye, little Robin-Marie
Don't try following me
Don't cry, little Robin-Marie
'Cause you know I'm coming home soon
My ships' leaving on a three-year tour
The next tide will take us from shore
Windlaced, gather in sail and spray
On a search for the mighty sperm whale
Fly your willow branches
Wrap your body round my soul
Lay down your reeds and drums on my soft sheets
There are years behind us reaching
To the place where hearts are beating
And I know you're the last true love I'll ever meet
Starbuck's sharpening his harpoon
The black man's playing his tune
An old salt's sleeping his watch away
He'll be drunk again before noon
Three years sailing on bended knee
We found no whales in the sea
Don't cry, little Robin-Marie
'Cause we'll be in sight of land soon
Agriculture
Farming and everyday life during the past 250 years
Children who lived in the English countryside
The Agricultural Revolution
Transportation, Industrial Revolution
Stephenson's Rocket Animation
The Spinning Mill Animation
Britain at the time of the Great Exhibition
Who Wants to Be a Cotton Millionaire?
Iron Bridge Virtual Tour
New machines that brought changes in America
Review changes of the 18th and 19th centuries
The Industrial Revolution
The everyday life of children in Victorian Britain (including the cities)
Online game about life in an industrial Victorian city
Take a tour of a workhouse
HW email to gmsmith@shanahan.org
1. In your own words, describe and explain "The Spinning Mill Animation" noted above in the daily lecture about The Spinning Mill Animation.
