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Tredegar Iron Works
The Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia, was the biggest ironworks in the Confederacy during the American Civil War, and a significant factor in the decision to make Richmond its capital. Tredegar supplied about half the artillery used by the Confederate States Army, as well as the iron plating for CSS ''Virginia'', the first Confederate ironclad warship, which fought in the historic Battle of Hampton Roads in March 1862. The works avoided destruction by troops during the evacuation of the city, and continued production through the mid-20th century. Now classified as a National Historic Landmark District, the site serves as the main building of the American Civil War Museum. The name Tredegar derives from the Welsh industrial town that supplied much of the company's early workforce. History Founding (1836–1841) In 1836, a group of Richmond businessmen and industrialists led by Francis B. Deane, Jr. set about to capitalize on the growing railroad boom in the United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Gardner (photographer)
Alexander Gardner (October 17, 1821 – December 10, 1882) was a Scottish photographer who immigrated to the United States in 1856, where he began to work full-time in that profession. He is best known for his photographs of the American Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and of the conspirators and the execution of the participants in the Lincoln assassination plot. Early life Alexander was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, on 17 October 1821. He became an apprentice jeweler at the age of 14, lasting seven years. Gardner was raised in the Church of Scotland and influenced by the work of Robert Owen, Welsh socialist and father of the cooperative movement. By adulthood he desired to create a cooperative community in the United States that would incorporate socialist values. In 1850, Gardner and others purchased land near Monona, Iowa for this purpose, but Gardner never lived there, choosing to return to Scotland to raise more money. He stayed there until 1856, becoming owner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panic Of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment went up, and pessimism abounded. The panic had both domestic and foreign origins. Speculative lending practices in the West, a sharp decline in cotton prices, a collapsing land bubble, international specie flows, and restrictive lending policies in Britain were all factors. The lack of a central bank to regulate fiscal matters, which President Andrew Jackson had ensured by not extending the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, was also key. This ailing economy of early 1837 led investors to panic – a bank run ensued – giving the crisis its name. The run came to a head on May 10, 1837, when banks in New York City ran out of gold and silver. They suspended specie payments and would no longer redeem commercial paper in specie at full face value. A signi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USS Colorado (1856)
The first USS ''Colorado'', a , three-masted steam screw frigate, was launched on 19 June 1856, by the Norfolk Navy Yard. Named after the Colorado River, she was sponsored by Ms. N. S. Dornin, and commissioned on 13 March 1858, with Captain W. H. Gardner, in command. She was the fifth of the "Franklin-class" frigates, which were all named after US rivers, except for . Pre-Civil War Putting to sea from Boston on 12 May 1858, ''Colorado'' cruised in Cuban waters deterring the practice of search by British cruisers until 6 August, when she returned to Boston and was placed in ordinary until 1861. Civil War ''Colorado'' was recommissioned on 3 June 1861, and sailed from Boston on 18 June, to join the Union Navy's Gulf Blockading Squadron. She was under the task force commander, Commodore William Marvine, acting as his flagship for the Blockade. On 14 September, an expedition under Lieutenant J. H. Russell, from ''Colorado'', cut out the schooner ''Judah'', believed to be prepa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USS Roanoke (1855)
USS ''Roanoke'' was a wooden-hulled screw frigate built for the United States Navy in the mid-1850s. She served as flagship of the Home Squadron in the late 1850s and captured several Confederate ships after the start of the American Civil War in 1861. The ship was converted into an ironclad monitor during 1862–63; the first ship with more than two gun turrets in history. Her conversion was not very successful as she rolled excessively and the weight of her armor and turrets strained her hull. Her deep draft meant that she could not operate off shallow Confederate ports and she was relegated to harbor defense at Hampton Roads, Virginia for the duration of the war. ''Roanoke'' was placed reserve after the war and sold for scrap in 1883. Description ''Roanoke'' was long between perpendiculars and had a beam of .Canney 1990, p. 174 The ship had a draft of Silverstone, p. 17 and a depth of hold of . She displaced and had a burthen of 3,400 tons. ''Roanoke''s hull was strongly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Locomotives
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels. In most locomotives, the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders, in which pistons are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. Variations in this general design include electrically-powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally. Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithick bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zerah Colburn (locomotive Designer)
Zerah Colburn (January 13, 1832 – April 26, 1870) was an American engineer specialising in steam locomotive design, technical journalist and publisher. Career Without any formal schooling, Colburn was a teenage prodigy. Barely in his teens at the start of the railroad boom, he found work in Lowell, Massachusetts as an apprentice in the "drafting room" of the Lowell Machine Shops where America’s first steam locomotives were taking shape. While working among the locomotives Colburn also began to write and before long compiled his first regular newssheet – ''Monthly Mechanical Tracts''. As he moved about the locomotive works of New England gathering experience and an eye for engineering detail, he also produced his first book, ''The Throttle Lever''. Designed as an introduction to the steam locomotive, this became the standard U.S. textbook on building locomotives. It not only took Colburn, then not 20, deeper into the world of publishing, but also earned him wider respect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Souther
John Souther (March 1, 1816 – September 12, 1911) was the founder of Globe Locomotive Works, an American steam locomotive manufacturing company. In his obituary published in the Newton, Massachusetts, ''Town Crier'', he is credited with designing the pattern for the fence around Boston Common The Boston Common (also known as the Common) is a public park in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest city park in the United States. Boston Common consists of of land bounded by Tremont Street (139 Tremont St.), Park Street, Beacon .... In 1852 he built the first Tunnel Boring machine using Charles Wilson's Patented design (Nos. 14,483 and 17,650). The machine was tried at the Hoosac Tunnel work but after only 12 feet the steel was not up to the test of grinding rock. In 1854 Souther would build two 4-4-0 locomotives for the Fitchburg Railroad, the Hoosac and the Champion. He also built two 25-horsepower steam shovel for Norman Carmine Munson to use in filling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels. In most locomotives, the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders, in which pistons are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. Variations in this general design include electrically-powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally. Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Board Of Public Works
The Virginia Board of Public Works was a governmental agency which oversaw and helped finance the development of Virginia's transportation-related internal improvements during the 19th century. In that era, it was customary to invest public funds in private companies, which were the forerunners of the public service and utility companies of modern times. The state often invested in up to 40% of the stock to build turnpikes, toll bridges, canals, and water and rail transportation enterprises. Claudius Crozet: Virginia's State Engineer Claudius Crozet (1789–1864), a civil engineer and educator who helped found Virginia Military Institute (VMI), was Principal Engineer and later Chief Engineer of the Board of Public Works. He was involved with the planning and construction of many of the Canals in the United States, canals, Toll roads in the United States#History, funding through toll, turnpikes, bridges, and railroads in Virginia, including the area which is now West Virginia. Of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slave Labor
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph R
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic countries. In Portuguese and Spanish, the name is "José". In Arabic, including in the Quran, the name is spelled '' Yūsuf''. In Persian, the name is "Yousef". The name has enjoyed significant popularity in its many forms in numerous countries, and ''Joseph'' was one of the two names, along with ''Robert'', to have remained in the top 10 boys' names list in the US from 1925 to 1972. It is especially common in contemporary Israel, as either "Yossi" or "Yossef", and in Italy, where the name "Giuseppe" was the most common male name in the 20th century. In the first century CE, Joseph was the second most popular male name for Palestine Jews. In the Book of Genesis Joseph is Jacob's eleventh son and Rachel's first son, and k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructure that may have been neglected. Civil engineering is one of the oldest engineering disciplines because it deals with constructed environment including planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures, and facilities, such as roads, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, dams, irrigation projects, pipelines, power plants, and water and sewage systems. The term "civil engineer" was established by John Smeaton in 1750 to contrast engineers working on civil projects with the military engineers, who worked on armaments and defenses. Over time, various sub-disciplines of civil engineering have become recognized and much of military engineering has been absorbed by civil engineering. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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