The Classics - Opening Lines: Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

"The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside;" 

(Published 1877) 

I love the classics and plan to share more "opening lines" over the coming months. Comment if you like, or read for inspiration. Writing styles were different then, but were they really? 

The Words of Old at Christmastime: "Beggar Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

"I am a novelist, and I suppose I have made up this story. I write “I suppose,” though I know for a fact that I have made it up, but yet I keep fancying that it must have happened on Christmas Eve in some great town in a time of terrible frost.  

I have a vision of a boy, a little boy, six years old or even younger. This boy woke up that morning in a cold damp cellar. He was dressed in a sort of little dressing-gown and was shivering with cold. There was a cloud of white steam from his breath, and sitting on a box in the corner, he blew the steam out of his mouth and amused himself in his dullness watching it float away. But he was terribly hungry. Several times that morning he went up to the plank bed where his sick mother was lying on a mattress as thin as a pancake, with some sort of bundle under her head for a pillow."

Published 1876)
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Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
Published with Evernight Teen: 
~~The Shells of Mersing

The Classics - CLOSING LINES: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

"We need scarcely mention that her uncle was the illustrious Professor Hardwigg, corresponding member of all the scientific, geographical, mineralogical, and geological societies of the five parts of the globe.

End of the Voyage Extraordinaire."  

(Published 1871)


I love the classics and plan to alternately share some "CLOSING lines" over the coming months. Comment if you wish, or read for inspiration. Writing styles were different then, or were they really?  

The Classics - Opening Lines: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

"The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten." (Published 1870)
 

I love the classics and plan to share some "opening lines" over the coming months. Comment if you like, or read for inspiration. Writing styles were different then, but were they really? 
 

The Classics - Opening Lines: Middlemarch by George Elliot

Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters;
(Published 1871-72 in eight installments)

I love the classics and plan to share some "opening lines" over the coming months. Comment if you like, or read for inspiration. Writing styles were different then, but were they really?

The Classics - Opening Lines: Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

"TOM!"
No answer.
"TOM!"
No answer
"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!" 
No Answer. (Published 1876)

I love the classics and plan to share some "opening lines" over the coming months. Comment if you like, or read for inspiration. Writing styles were different then, but were they really?

P is for Paper Bag Machine: Inventions by Women A-Z

Margaret E. Knight (1838-1914)

In 1850, Margaret E. Knight of York, Maine was one smart twelve-year-old. She had just made her first invention, a device to stop cotton mill machinery from operating, when thread or something else got stuck.

While visiting a cotton mill where her brothers worked as overseers, she had witnessed an accident. A thread had snagged, causing a shuttle to fly off its spool, and stabbed a young boy. As shocking as it was, accidents with flying shuttles were not uncommon. Eyes were lost and other injuries inflicted. 

Margaret thought it through and came up with a device that worked. It was never patented, but by the time she was a teenager, news had spread and the device was being used in mills elsewhere. It saved workers from who knows how many injuries.

1834 Lowell, Mass. A typical cotton mill in Margaret's time

Margaret liked inventing things and never forgot her first experience. After the Civil War, she found herself working for the Columbia Paper Bag  Company in Massachusetts. It seemed to her a better bag could be made, one that had a flat bottom and could stand up alone, making it easier to pack. She made drawings and designed a model for a machine that glued the bottom together. The machine was patented in 1871, and the new paper bag was a huge success. 

Margaret's Paper Bag Machine

Unfortunately, a patent was not enough to prove that Margaret was the sole inventor. Charles Annan, who had watched her machine being built, stole her idea and filed a patent in his own name. Outraged, Margaret took him to court, where Annan then argued before the judge that she wasn't capable of creating such a device. Margaret did not back down and proved in court that she did indeed invent, build, and patent the machine. 

Margaret went on to receive over twenty patents for her inventions, among them a rotary engine, shoe-cutting machine, and a dress and skirt shield. When she died, her obituary described her as a "woman Edison." 

In 2006 she was inducted into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame. Her paper bag machine is still used today, with over 7000 machines in existence worldwide that continue to make the ever popular flat-bottom bag. Suppliers are in the U.S.A,. Germany, France and Japan. 

Sources: http://www.women-inventors.com/Margaret-Knight.asp
http://www.smithsonianlegacies.si.edu/objectdescription.cfm?ID=92
http://www.paperdiscoverycenter.org/margareteknight/;https://www.google.com/patents/US116842
https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/diversity/margaret-knight
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_E._Knight

Copyright 2015 © Sharon Marie Himsl

G is for Globe: Inventions by Women A-Z

What a clever a woman. Ellen Eliza Fitz (1836-??) was an American working as a governess in New Brunswick, Canada, when she decided to design a better globe. She was teaching her young charges about geography and the changing seasons with the course of the sun, and thought she could do a better job . . . so she designed a special globe mounting to do just that. 

The Fitz Globe is the first globe designed by a woman.

In 1875 Ellen filed a patent for the new globe mounting that showed the effects of the earth's daily rotation on its axis, and yearly revolution around the sun. Finally, her students could follow the path of the sun and durations during the day, night and twilight throughout the year. The globe made its debut in Philadelphia at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. In 1882, she filed a second patent to show the position of the stars.

The handbook Ellen wrote to assist

Thinking back on the globes in my life, I don't recall every seeing one this complicated. My parents had a standard globe that I rotated and played with once in awhile. I found the atlas more useful, but the Fitz Globe sounds interesting.  

Are you familiar with the Fitz Globe?

In case you are wondering what an 1879 Fitz Globe might cost today should you find one, I checked. I found one at Bonhams (an online auction house) that sold for $4,375 (U.S.) in Oct. 2014.

 


Sources:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr133.html
http://maps.bpl.org/id/m8671
http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/22247/lot/26/ 

Copyright 2015 © Sharon Marie Himsl

A is for Alphabet Blocks: Inventions by Women A-Z

Parents have long understood the educational value of alphabet blocks in teaching their children how to read, in addition to inspiring the imagination and encouraging coordination skills as a building toy. 

Alphabet blocks are just plain fun.  

In the 19th century, alphabet blocks were found in school rooms everywhere in the educated world. Historically, some form of alphabet blocks existed as far back as 1693. The English philosopher John Locke wrote that “dice and play-things, with the letters . . . teach children the alphabet by playing,” and make learning how to read enjoyable. 

Does anyone reading this not remember playing with alphabet blocks as a child?

"Baby at Play" (Thomas Eakins, 1876)

Similar references to alphabet blocks appeared in 1798 in a book called Practical Education (Maria and R.L. Edgeworth) as "building bricks," in 1820 (U.S.) as "multi-colored blocks," again in 1837 (Germany), and in 1850 (England) as "terracotta toy blocks." 

Adeline Dutton Train Whitney (1824-1906)

But the alphabet blocks that most of us identify with today were invented by a Massachusetts woman named Adeline Dutton Train Whitney. 

Adeline was well educated and came from a well-to-do family. Her father owned a successful shipping business. After marrying at nineteen and raising four children, Adeline pursued her dream of writing. She wrote poetry and over twenty books, stories mostly for young girls. 

Adeline held to traditional values typical of her time, opposing women's suffrage and promoting the domestic role of women in the home. At age 42 (1882) Adeline patented a set of alphabet blocks constructed of wood, and officially became the toy's inventor. Her model is still used today, although they are often made with non-wood materials.

 

Sources:
http://www.aauw.org/2010/09/16/alphabet-blocks/
http://famousamericans.net/adelineduttontrainwhitney/
http://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/alphabet-blocks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_block

Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
Published with Evernight Teen: 
~~The Shells of Mersing

The Classics - Opening Lines: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

"MY UNCLE MAKES A GREAT DISCOVERY"

"Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day, I am scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures. They were truly so wonderful that even now I am bewildered when I think of them." (Published 1871)


I love the classics and plan to share some "opening lines" over the coming months. Comment if you like, or read for inspiration. Writing styles were different then, but were they really?
 

Chumps on the Street: Stereoviews A-Z

Social reformer and physician Ben Reitman was quoted in 1875 as describing the unemployed homeless this way: "A tramp is a man who doesn't work, who apparently doesn't want to work, who lives without working and who is constantly traveling. A hobo is a non-skilled, non-employed laborer without money, looking for work. A bum is a man who hangs around a low class saloon and begs or earns a few pennies a day in order to drink. He is usually an inebriate." 

So are these hobos, tramps or bums? Chumps for sure, as they do appear to be foolish. Photographer Herman Knutzen honed in on the comical side of being homeless and drunk in this 1906 set of photos. And since they are 'loveable' drunks, they are rather funny. But I'm not sure if we would laugh at this today, or maybe it's just me. I live in a community under 24,000 and never see this kind of thing. What do you think?

"Ah, here is where those bums get what is coming to them."

"You big lobster, what did you hit me for?"

"Now we will give the other one a dose of the 
same medicine for that tired feeling."

"You hit me first."...."I didn't."...."You did."....You are a***!!!"

"Biff--Bang--Bing. Call me a liar, will you?"

"You kids come out here and we'll wake you up, too."

Source: http://www.mandymnewman.com/2012/05/american-hobo_3202.html

Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums, Tom Lutz, p. 162

Stereoviews, copyright 1906, Herman Knutzen; Gravseth family archive; Copyright 2013 © Sharon Himsl

Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
Published with Evernight Teen: 
~~The Shells of Mersing