I'm glad that you are willing but in your case I made an exception and simply reactivated you from the reserve list w/o consulting you.
1855 - Abraham Gesner patents kerosene
Gesner had been trying to organize a company to manufacture and sell the new lamp fuel. One of his first actions, around 1850 or so, was to coin a name for it. As one residue of the distillation was a kind of wax, Gesner decided to call his lamp fuel wax-oil, and combining the Greek words for wax and oil came up with “keroselain” and “keroselene” before finally settling on kerosene as neater and more analogous with such established names as benzene and camphene.
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In June 1854, Gesner obtained U.S. patent numbers 11,203, 11,204, and 11,205 for “improvement in kerosene burning fluids.” The three patents are essentially the same in text, but cover respectively what Gesner called “A,” “C,” and “B” kerosene. Under Gesner’s guidance, the Asphalt Mining and Kerosene Gas Company set up a factory at Newtown Creek on Long Island, changing its name to the North American Kerosene Gas Light Company.
By 1857, kerosene was being advertised as an illuminant and lubricant throughout the United States and the British American provinces and Gesner’s company prospered, allowing him a comfortable life in Brooklyn, where he became a prominent figure in the local church and community.
Unknown to Gesner, however, a Scottish chemist working in England in 1848 had distilled boghead coal to produce a light oil that when purified, made an excellent lamp fuel. He obtained a British patent for “paraffine-oil” in 1850 and an American patent two years later, fully two years before Gesner received his kerosene patents. Gesner’s Kerosene Company was eventually forced to pay a royalty to the Scottish chemist to continue manufacturing kerosene.
By 1859, commercial production of petroleum had begun in northwestern Pennsylvania and southern Ontario, and by converting to petroleum as their raw material-a switch made easy by Gesner’s flexible design-the kerosene factories were able to produce the illuminant at about one-quarter of its former cost. The age of the kerosene lamp and the petroleum industry was launched but Gesner benefited little. He had made his contribution to refining technology and was replaced as the chemist of the Kerosene Company.
It’s the perfect project. I’m an adult advisor for our local high school’s “We The People” Constitutional Law debate team. I advise Unit 3, which deals with the 14th Amendment among other things.
Glad to see this. I was thinking the other day how much I missed the daily World War 2 threads.
1855 - The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
1830 highest per capita consumption of alcohol. lots of reformation besides slavery. I think immigrants were involved in the riots..................
https://www.mainehistory.org/rum-riot-reform/1820-1865/content.html
Current estimations show that per capita consumption of alcohol in America reached its peak in 1830. Its abuse led to violence, spousal and child abuse, loss of work, and sometimes, a night in jail. Drunkenness among children was not uncommon, either
By mid-century, Portland’s Neal Dow (1804-1897) changed the tactics of the battle against alcohol by adopting a legislative approach. Rather than changing people’s attitudes, Dow’s new reformers would change laws. Rather than preaching moderation, they branded all drinkers as rum dealers. Indeed, Dow left the moderates behind, including wine drinker Governor William King, who founded the first statewide temperance association. In 1851 Dow guided his Maine Law through the legislature and Maine became the first “dry” state. Neighboring states, including Massachusetts, took the law as a model and passed similar anti-liquor reforms. The nation’s eastern-most state seemed to be living up to its motto, “Dirigo” (I lead) and, on paper at least, it stayed dry through National Prohibition. Celebrated as the Napoleon of Temperance, Dow promoted his approach nationally and internationally. In spite of endless adjustments, however, the Maine Law never succeeded in destroying the liquor traffic or public thirst. Dow’s own reputation was severely threatened in 1855 when he ordered the militia to fire on civilians as they descended upon Portland’s City Hall, looking for a stash of liquor they had heard was kept there. One man was killed by Dow’s forces. Portland’s Rum Riot demonstrated the passionate, sometimes irrational, zeal of both factions.
Maine’s immigrant communities were also noticeably absent from the Maine Law ranks. Irish-Americans, whose younger men tended to embrace the stereotype of public drinking, often seemingly to spite Yankees such as Dow, were now given the brunt of the blame for outbreaks of violence. Portland had a remarkable number of riots in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s, often related to alcohol.
1855 - US Congress approves $30,000 to test camels for military use
I think most of us have heard the camel story but there is an interesting twist regarding the civil war. It would appear that Jefferson Davis was a proponent but once he left for another job, the idea began to decline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Camel_Corps
Among the reasons the camel experiment failed was that it was supported by Jefferson Davis, who left the United States to become a rebel and President of the Confederate States of America that the U.S. Army was a horse and mule organization whose soldiers did not have the skills to control a foreign asset.[4]
http://www.transchool.lee.army.mil/museum/transportation%20museum/camel.htm
Count me in too.