The technology of the 1800s

This blog I'm doing is going to be on the technology of the 1800s.  Technology has come very far but I believe that the most important inventions and ideas were made during this era.  The first example of this would be electricity which was invented by Thomas Edison in the early 1800s.  His invention alone paved the way for many opportunities to come.  It helped with the economy, the workforce, agriculture, and car and telephone production. The first opportunity being the electric light (1809) which helped with the production of factories which could now be built anywhere instead of being close to waterways or canals.  It helped the economy in the way that it gave more jobs for production like the sewing machine (1830) made great jobs for the people who could work in the factories being built anywhere because of it.  The steam locomotive (1814) was invented as well in this time and it helped with trade and transporting materials, and also people to different places. The telephone is the next and it helped with communication (1876). Before this people either used letters or if you were lucky you were given the opportunity to use mores code.  The health field made an advancement because safer milk was being produced because of pasteurization.  Also the biggest spring of this time was the first car with an internal-combustion engine (1855).  This was one of the greatest advancements in this time because aside from electricity people needed cars to travel the new roads that were being produced around this time.  There were many more inventions of the 1800s that have made huge advancements throughout time but these were the ones I thought were the most important that that have made an impact of our lives today.

Links!!

Inventions of the 1800s http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1800s.html

Medicine http://www.mnwelldir.org/docs/history/history03.htm

Cars http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/History-Of-Electric-Vehicles.htm

Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14m1VCVeWY

Washinton's Health and Gateways

One thing about Washington Irving that a lot of people do not know about would be his many health problems.  Unlike like most when you have health problems some people let them either get the best of them and stop what they were doing or they live and push through it.  Washington chose to push through it and it created a great gateway and opened many doors along his journey. Washington was the only child out of all 11 of his siblings that was born sickly. So his disease was not one that was acquired throughout his lifetime he was born with it and it gradually got worse.  He did not let it stop him though.  In 1804 he set sail to get treatment for his disease from his town in New York to Bordeaux, France.  While in France he worked on his French skills, his health, and his knowledge of other subjects such as art, theater, and opera.  He also traveled to other countries such as The Netherlands, Spain, Scotland, Wales, and England.  After returning to an emasculate state in health he returned to New York because he was called to the bar in 1806.  Instead he decided to start writing papers for a periodical with his brother and that led to his writings of stories like the Salmagundi Papers and the Whim-Whams and opinions of Laucelot Langstaff in 1809.  In 1815 he returned to England to work with his brother who truly pushed him with his writing style and between 1819-1820 he wrote the famous books The Crayon Papers and the even more famous The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. Also Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow which are even bigger books.  After publishing these works he got a lot of great reviews from famous people such as Charles Dickens and Samuel Taylor Coloridge. After seeming to get so far ahead in life Washington's health struck him tragically again as well.  This time it hit him so hard that he could not walk.  He then moved back to Spain for more rehab.  Even after this he wrote 5 more books and one which he considered his finest work Tales of a traveler (1824).  He then moved back to America in 1832 and bought a farm close to the Hudson River in Tarrytown, New York very secluded with a lake as well.  He also continued to write many other books such as Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey (1835) and finished his long awaited project the Life of George Washington (1859).  Washington died on September 28, 1859, his body rests in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery which overlooks Tarrytown, New York.

Links!!!!

Different Lung Diseases http://www.lung.org/lung-disease/?gclid=CO2q-9m4hbQCFQ2znQodOWQARw

Washington's many works http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wirving/bl-wirving-collected.htm

Washington's biography on his 225th birthday! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZH6JJw6ngY

Pictures of Washington Irving! https://www.google.com/search?q=Washington+irving+picture&hl=en&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=RmPAUO3UNoLa8ATD84DIAg&ved=0CC4QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=869


Justin Kennedy

Rip Van Winkle

         Rip Van Winkle was a story of an old man who took a trip to the woods with his companion wolf  to escape from his nagging wife. Once he entered the woods he was poisoned by alcohol, which made him fall asleep for twenty years. Rip Van Winkle took place during the revolutionary war. His nagging wife was a representation of the bitter controling rule of Great Britain during the queens era. the people of the village were also symbolic. They represented the colonies trying to break away from Englands power. His twenty year slumber symbolized the long years of war. Once he had woken, he came to realization that there was a new ruler. His name was General Washington.
        The story Rip Van Winkle was composed of the supernatural, gloom, and mystery, which puts this tale into the catergory of Gothic Litereature. The supernatural beings of the story were the goblings he encountered in the woods that were playing nine pin(bowling). The gloom came from when Rip would always go home to his wife. He would have to prepare for the challenges he had to face with his wife when she would constantly nag about how he did not meet up to his husbandly duties at home. The mystery of the tale was from when he woke from his twenty year nap wondering what happened and why there were so many changes. Also, another form of symbolism was at the end of the story when he came to realize that his wife was dead and he felt happiness. it was in relation to the colinies finally gaining freedom from Great Britain.

Rainey Taylor

life and works

Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783, in New York City. He is actually named after George Washington and attended the first presidential inauguration of his namesake in 1789. Unlike most writers of his era, he did not attend college. He was educated privately and studied law. By his own account, he was not a good student and barely passed the bar to be a lawyer. He experienced his first brush with writing when he and his brother wrote the Salamagundi papers, which was a collection of humorous essays. Early on, he commonly wrote under the surname, Diedrich Knickerbocker.

                He traveled to England in 1815 to help run his brother’s business, but that eventually went south. He then wrote a collection of short stories called The Sketch Book, which were published under the name “Geoffrey Crayon” and included his most popular writings, “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  While in England, he became secretary of the U.S. legation in London from 1829-1832. He also became a U.S. ambassador in Spain, but he spent most of his time in his estate, “Sunnyside”,  near Tarrytown, New York. While there, he composed a five-volume biography of George Washington.

                His stories have become some of the most popular children’s stories of all time. In 1999, director Tim Burton transformed “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” into a film that starred Johnny Depp. It was titled simply, Sleepy Hollow. The story is about a police officer, Ichabod Crane, who is from New York and has been called to investigate a series of gruesome murders committed by the “Headless Horseman.” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” has also been converted into a children’s cartoon numerous times, as well as “Rip Van Winkle.”

                Below is a link to the trailer from the movie Sleepy Hollow. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6O4Himch7g&noredirect=1

Bradley Raulston