Hi there – Winnie Griggs here. I was looking through my handy-dandy ‘This Day In History’ calendar a few days ago and discovered that 150 years ago today the Western Union Telegraph Co. linked the eastern and western networks of telegraph systems at Salt Lake City, Utah. For the first time in our nation’s history nearly instantaneous communication between Washington D.C and San Francisco, CA was possible.  I’d heard quite a bit about the Transcontinental Railroad but nothing about the Transcontinental Telegraph so I decided to do a little digging and then share with you something of what I learned.

The first transcontinental telegraph was actually sent by the chief justice of California, Stephen Field, and was sent to President Abraham Lincoln. In the historic missive, Field predicted that the newly established communication venue would help ensure that the western states would remain loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

A little of the history behind this historic event: An efficient telegraph system was first developed in the 1830s and in the ensuing years spread with phenomenal speed. By 1850 lines covered most of the eastern part of the country as well as the fast growing territory of California. When California achieved statehood in 1850 it became the first state not contiguous with the rest of the country. Almost immediately there was a major push to connect this new state with the rest of the country via communication and travel services. In 1860, Congress passed the Pacific Telegraph Act and awarded a contract to Hiram Sibley, president of the Western Union Company. Mr. Sibley took the contract and formed a consortium between his company and telegraph companies in California to undertake the commission.

The task involved building lines to connect the system at the western-most edge of Missouri and the one at Carson City, Nevada. Sibley formed the Pacific Telegraph Co. to construct the eastern leg and the California telegraph companies consolidated into the Overland Telegraph Company to build the western leg. The two lines would eventually meet at Salt Lake City, Utah.

Most of 1860 was spent collecting materials for the project, and construction began in earnest in 1861. Right from the start there were significant problems along the way with provisioning the construction teams. Glass insulators and wire had to be shipped to San Francisco by sea and then transported to the construction sites in the west by wagon – this included a trek over the Sierra Nevada. Finding sources for telegraph poles was also a challenge in the mostly treeless plains areas as well as the deserts of the Great Basin.

The line from Omaha in the east made it to Salt Lake city first, arriving on October 18, 1861. The Transcontinental connection was completed six days later when the line from Carson city joined it on October 24, 1861.

A side result of this momentous accomplishment that happened almost immediately was that it made the Pony Express obsolete.  On October 26th, a scant two days after the lines were joined, this adventurous, dedicated relay mail service which had previously provided the fastest means of communication between the western and eastern United States, officially closed.  Just as often happens today, the new technology made their jobs obsolete.

I’m always intrigued by new ways of using technology to improve farming, and with the latest buzz being about sustainability and environmental responsibility, I did a little research into some new trends. What I found was pretty interesting, and I’m still learning and trying to understand some of it (a scientist I am not).  I’m pretty intrigued by two ideas and interestingly enough they are on different ends of the spectrum – one is taking ranching into the future, and the other is returning to grassroots ideas.

So cool idea #1 – Have you ever heard the saying “Making honey out of dog #$*&”? Now you can make electricity from refuse – specifically manure. Manure makes gas, which is then converted into electricity. Methane never smelled so good. If you take a look at this ranch’s site, you’ll see how they use the manure from their cows to create enough electricity to completely power their own operation – and then some.  There’s been a lot of development in this area over the last few years; I hope other Canadian operations will soon follow suit! 

As Spring Creek puts it: When you work with a live inventory that keeps eating and growing everyday, challenges are a fact of life; they also present a heap of opportunity.  Case in point, cattle produce manure; crop production results in organic waste…It simply makes sense to renew the resources that sustain our family and community – today and well into the future.

I’m guessing this is a pretty expensive venture to set up, and yes there are manufacturing considerations for fuel cells etc. but one would hope there would also be grants available to assist. What a renewable resource! Everybody poops! Holy Cow!

The other cool idea is one I came across researching some areas in Southern Alberta. I found one particular operation that’s kickin’ it old skool when it  comes to methods. The OH Ranch takes conservation very seriously – through a Heritage Rangeland Designation and Conservation Easements. What does that mean? I’m going to snag the explanation from the OH Ranch Site:

For the OH Ranch, the public grazing land portions of the Longview and Pekisko sections of the ranch are now designated as heritage rangeland. The heritage rangeland designation helps protect about 10,200 acres (41.28 square kilometers) of public land that has consistently been ranched under grazing leases by the OH Ranch. The designation helps preserve a way of life through the continuation of traditional ranching practices that have stewarded and managed sensitive native prairies in southern Alberta for generations.

The other term you’ll see here is “traditional ranching practices”. Since its inception in 1883, the OH Ranch has always operated using traditional methods. Today, cowboys continue to ride the range, moving cattle and doctoring sick animals in the open field by roping from horseback. While the ranch owns trucks and other equipment, horses are still the primary mode of transportation on the ranch and continue to be used for such tasks as packing fencing supplies, minerals and salt and protein blocks. The OH Ranch is one of the few large cattle outfits in North America which continues to be operated utilizing historic methods.

It’s really interesting to see ranchers come up with new ways of preserving the environment and staying sustainable in an economic climate that is anything but farmer-friendly.

Winchester (U.S.) Model 1866 Lever Action Rifle (repeater/ breech-loading/ black powder/ cartridge ammunition)

Last time we discussed the Winchester 1873 Repeating Rifle. Today, I want to introduce the precursor to that rifle – the Winchester 1866 Repeating Rifle, aka The Yellow Boy.

The Yellow Boy got its name because of the shiny brass frame. The design improvements over the original Henry repeating rifle ensured the Yellow Boy’s success. In 1866, Nelson King, an engineer with Winchester Repeating Arms, patented a spring load gate for ease of loading cartridges into the side of a spring-fed, closed-end tube attached under the barrel. The tube held fifteen bullets. Add the one in the chamber and you could pull the trigger sixteen times before reloading.

The 1866 Yellowboy lever-action rifle was a marked improvement over the Henry rifle. It was the first true cowboy lever-action rifle, and the first rifle widely carried in a cowboy-style saddle scabbard.

Both the “Henry and Winchester Model 1866 “Yellow Boy” rifles found a ready market on the western frontier. The Indians referred to these arms as “many shots,” and “spirit gun,” which showed a measure of awe and respect for the products of the New Haven-based company. Many warriors were able to obtain these arms for themselves, and more than twenty of them were used against George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry and their single-shot Springfield carbines at the Little Bighorn in June, 1876. Winchester repeaters also found favor with miners, homesteaders, ranchers, lawmen, and highwaymen.” http://www.nramuseum.com/the-museum/the-galleries/the-american-west/case-42-the-guns-that-won-the-west-colt-winchester/winchester-model-1866-lever-action-rifle.aspx

Winchester produced the Yellow Boy as a musket, a carbine (shorter barrel, often around 19”) and a rifle with a barrel up to 24 ¼”.

Some 150,000 Yellow Boys were produced from 1867 to 1892-93. The carbine version of the 1866 Yellowboy was a hit worldwide. Chief Sitting Bull had one; the forces of Benito Juarez used the rifles in Mexico; the Turkish Army used the new Winchester Yellowboy against the Russians; and settlers in the U.S. bought thousands for frontier use. Based on its popularity and performance, the “Yellow Boy” earned the title of “the gun that won the west.”

The Yellow Boy’s popularity with Native Americans as well as the general shooting public continued its production well after the introduction of the more powerful Model 1873 Winchester began.

The Yellow Boy is still popular in Hollywood. The Yellow Boy appeared in many of the Spaghetti Westerns, and, more recently, TomChaney (Josh Brolin) carried one in the new release of True Grit.

Winchester chambered it for the .44 Henry Flat round, or a flat nosed bullet. Though it didn’t have a lot of power for a rifle, the Henry Flat had already been proven in combat.  The Flat was a rimfire cartridge, which means the hammer strikes the rim of the cartridge, not the center. It wasn’t until near the end of production–when the 1876 Centennial Rifle was being produced–that Winchester developed a .44 center-fire cartridge for the 1866 rifle.

Here’s a tidbit that might come in useful in your plot – No dust covers were used on the 1866.  This did permit dust and other debris to enter the action, which meant misfiring or not firing at all–which can put the shooter in a real tight spot.

Next time — the gun that started it all: The Henry Repeating Rifle.

129 years ago today Maxwell Henry Aronson was born.  Max eventually changed his name to Gilbert M. Anderson, but you would probably know him better by the name of the character he played in over 300 films – Broncho Billy.

Anderson was a native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  He drifted into acting, working first as a photographer’s model and newspaper vendor before moving into work as a vaudeville performer.  In 1903 Anderson landed a role in The Great Train Robbery by claiming he could ride a horse like a Texas Ranger.  When it turned out he could hardly climb onto a saddle, he was demoted to ‘extra’ and ended up playing several minor parts in the film.  The resulting 10 minute movie found an enthusiastic reception from the general public, and Anderson was hooked.  He decided to make his career in the fledgling moving picture business.

Anderson formed a partnership with old friend George Spoor and together they created the Essanay Company (the name is a play on the first letter of each of their last names “S and A”).  This company was destined to become one of the early film industry’s predominant studios. 

At first Essanay made comedies, but Anderson couldn’t forget the success of The Great Train Robbery and soon he focused on Westerns.  But where Anderson really differentiated himself, is that he was one of the first to realize that the public needed a ‘star’ to latch on to, a central character they could really focus on.  But at that time (1909) the big names of the stage were reluctant to risk their careers on the new medium of film.  So Anderson decided to take on that star role himself, creating the character of Broncho Billy from ideas he collected for the most part from popular dime novels.  Anderson wrote and directed most of the movies himself and within five years he had filmed over 300 one or two reel movies featuring his new character.  Most of these films were distributed simultaneously in the U.S. and Great Britain.  And while Anderson was not especially dashing, audiences liked Broncho Billy for his bravery and virtue.  As a side note, Essanay studios also filmed many Charlie Chaplin shorts, including The Little Tramp.

In 1915 , Anderson’s final film in the Broncho Billy series, Broncho Billy’s Sentence, was released.  He turned to writing for a while and then later attempted a comeback.  But by then more dashing actors such as William S. Hart and Tom Mix had taken over the hearts of film viewers.  So he made comedies for a while before finally retiring from film.

Some of the milestones in his later years:

• 1958 – Received an honorary Oscar as a “motion picture pioneer, for his contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment.”
• 1965  - he made a cameo appearance at age 85  in a modern Hollywood Western called The Bounty Killer, his first talking picture.
• 1998 – posthumously honored with his image on a U.S. postage stamp.
• 2002 – posthumously inducted into the National Cowboy Hall Of Fame
• Anderson also has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.

Gilbert Anderson died in his sleep in 1971 at the age of 90 at a sanitarium in South Pasadena, Ca.  He was cremated and his ashes were placed in a vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.

Last week something fun and wonderful happened to me, way sooner than I expected it to. The release of Redeeming Daisy, the second inspirational novella about the Martin family of Hearts Crossing Ranch. So soon on the heels of Marrying Mattie, my sensual Western Historical released two weeks ago, I found myself not only in Seventh Heaven but also realizing that both heroes, some 130 years apart,  are horse doctors. So I reckoned a trip down Vet History Lane was a good topic for today. And anybody who comments gets in a name-draw for a pdf. copy of Redeeming Daisy.

Okay. Long ago, the caretakers of the horses of the ancient Roman army were called veterinarii. The term itself derives from the Latin root for beast of burden.  The first veterinary school was founded in Lyon, France, in 1762.

But in colonial America, words like veterinarian, horse doctor, or even animal doctor weren’t part of the vocabulary. (In fact, fifty years ago or so, vet care for house pets was often considered frivolous.)   For the colonists, animal disease was surrounded by mystery, superstition and ignorance—pretty much the same as for human ailments. Simple cures were largely unknown, because even  physicians had little information on bacteria and anatomy.  Often a sick horse was tended by a herdsman or farrier (blacksmith) with roots, herbs, and often witchcraft.  The prevailing and unfortunate creed was—the more it hurt, the better it must heal. This mentally just breaks my heart.

By the early 1800’s, professional veterinarians, most of them graduates of the  London Veterinary College founded in 1791, began migrating to America’s cities. Without suitable veterinary schools here, young men apprenticed with these professionals and went on to become animal doctors. There were also medical doctors who used their knowledge of humans to treat animals, and other doctors who served both “man and beast.”

On the frontier, most horse doctors were self-taught, like Call Hackett in Marrying Mattie. He has studied science at university level and extensively educates himself by reading treatises by such animal scientists as William Youatt. He performs necropsies when he can in a little lab he has set up in a shed on his land. Pike Martin in Redeeming Daisy is, of course, a fully accredited twenty-first century large animal vet.

Back in the 1800’s, books and pamphlets on horse medicine helped spread knowledge. The first surgical anesthesia upon a horse was performed in London in 1847 and helped advance animal surgery in America. Prior, surgical techniques were rarely attempted on horses: forcible restraint and terrible anguish were just not pleasant for anybody, especially the animal.  I get chills just imagining such torture on a senient creature who has no intellectual concept of  ”Hey, big horsie. This is gonna hurt like a son of a gun, but it’s downright good for you.”

Dr. Isaiah Michener of Pennsylvania, whose education credentials are unknown, started a practice in 1836 and contributed many articles to Philadelphia periodicals and country newspapers. His criticism of the funds spent “to build theatres, railroads and canals” while the ravages of livestock diseases were neglected began to spread. Hence, the first veterinary association was launched in Philadelphia in 1854.

The development of veterinary schools soon followed. New York College of Veterinary Surgeons, chartered in 1857 at New York University is generally claimed to be the first veterinary college established in America. Prompted by funding from the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act as well as concerns over post-Civil War animal disease epidemics,   Iowa State College (now University)   offered  its first animal science  class in 1872 and officially founded its veterinary school in 1879.    

 By the late 19^th century, a collective of institutions, agricultural organizations, and scientific periodicals united veterinarians in a common cause.  The U.S. Veterinary Medical Association was founded in 1863, later renamed American Veterinary Medical association in 1898.

One fun fact:  In 1912, Chandler, Arizona was established by and named for Dr. A.J. Chandler, a veterinarian who graduated with honors in 1882 from Montreal Veterinary College at McGill University. He left a successful practice in Detroit to come to Arizona in 1887 to set health standards for the growing cattle industry. Creating a network of canals and electric pumps to draw ground water, he transformed his ranch into a green empire in an arid land. He was able to raise enough grain and alfalfa on 300 acres to feed 2,000 head of cattle and several hundred sheep.

Dr. M. Phyllis Lose, VMD, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School in 1957, the first female equine vet, or horse doctor, in the United States.

The following picture doesn’t really have a thing to do with veterinary science but it’s such a fun picture since I’m talking about horses today. It’s my grampa, a minister, on his way to court my gramma in Kansas about 1915. His horse was named Babe, and he just loved her.  Gramma, too.    

Any veterinarian  stories today?

(If you’re interested in receiving a copy of my upcoming release, read through to the end of this post)

Did you know that the scientific principles behind 3-D movies had their first practical application as early as 1838?  That’s when Charles Wheatstone patented his reflecting stereoscope.   I’m sure you’ve all seen stereoscopes before, in pictures if not in actuality.  But do you know how they work?

Actually, they work in much the same way human vision works.  Because our eyes are spaced about two inches apart we see everything from slightly different angles.  Our brains, wonderful creations that they are, then process these into a single image with both dimension and depth.  Charles Wheatstone applied this principle to his invention, using drawings that were pairs of reverse images and a series of mirrors to create the illusion of a single three dimensional image. 

In 1850, glass images were developed.  Though an improvement on the earlier drawings, the quality was low and the price was relatively high. 

Queen Victoria took a fancy to the device when she saw one demonstrated at the Crystal Palace Exposition in 1851, and suddenly they were all the rage in Europe.  It was somewhat later before the fascination took hold in America.

These early stereoscopes were large, bulky and table mounted, requiring a large commitment of space as well as money.  But all of that changed a few short years later.  With the advent of photographic improvements, tintypes, daguerreotypes and flat mount paper became available, greatly improving the quality of the images.  Early attempts had photographers taking one photograph then slightly shifting the camera and taking a second.  The next evolution had photographers utilizing a rig that had two cameras mounted on it to take the twin photos.  Eventually an enterprising inventor created a camera with two lenses

Then, in 1862 Oliver Wendell Holmes and Joseph Bates created a compact, handheld viewer named the Holmes stereopticon and the popularity of stereoscopes exploded.  In fact, by the end of the century, in spite of their expense, you could find one of these devices in many middle and upper class parlors of the time.  The most popular slides were the travelogue type that depicted exotic landmarks such as the pyramids of Egypt and the closer-to-home scenic beauty of Yellowstone.   The marvels of the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1892 and the St. Louis World Fair also made their way onto stereoscopic slides.  As Burke Long put it, “Mass-produced and relatively cheap, the integrated system of mechanical viewer and photographs became fashionable for classroom pedagogy, tourist mementos, and parlor travel to exotic places of the world.”  You could say that, as a form of entertainment, the stereopticon was the Victorian era’s equivalent of today’s DVD players. 

By the 1920s movies and the enhanced availability of cameras to the ‘common man’ began to supplant the stereopticon’s hold on people’s  interest.  But the stereopticon survives to this day.    The child’s toy View-Master, named one of the top 50 toys of the twentieth century, is a direct ‘descendent’ of the stereopticon, utilizing the very same principles. 

So, do any of you have any first hand experience with a stereopticon? 

Oh, and about my June release – while THE HEART’S SONG is not a western, I hope it’s a book you will enjoy.  If you’re interested in winning a copy, just leave a comment related to the subject of this blog before 7:00 this evening, and you’ll be entered in the drawing!

 Thank you so much for this opportunity to blog with you today. I am the Executive Producer for Reader Hook Productions and you can find us at www.readerhook.com . I want to talk a little about an option for promotion that appears to becoming more and more popular with writers… and that’s video.

The world of entertainment is exploding. Authors today must compete with movies, television and music that is now, thanks to devices like the i-phone, just as portable as a paperback. The number of books is also on the rise. Many authors are choosing the convenience of self publishing, and this has sent the number of books available to the public through the roof.

Creating a movie-like trailer for your novel can bring you new fans, push up your sales, and it can be fun. Putting together a promotion video can seem like a daunting task, but there are a few big mistakes that beginners make that if avoided can make the process a whole lot easier.

Lets start with 5 steps that will get you off on the right foot.

1.) Do Work and Re-work the script. A video is only as good as its script. Tap into your own skill as a writer to create a quick description of your book that will grab the viewer.

2.) Do Find the Right Look. Spend some time finding the right look for your video. Try for pictures or video that will fit both the time period and theme of you book. Here is one we did that I think has a good look:

3.) Do Pick Good Music. The right music can make an average video good, but the wrong music can ruin a great one.

4.) Do Ask for Help. Find someone with some video editing experience and ask for their help putting together your video. It could be the kid down the street or a professional video production house,. The point is the right advice could really add some energy to your video. Don’t be afraid to ask, but remember that you get what you pay for

 5.) Do Have Fun. Look at the video creation process as another way to enjoy your writing. If you take the time to craft the right look and feel for your video, you will be much happier with the final product. Plus friends and fans will enjoy a video more when they know it has been made with love.

Now the 5 things to watch out for…

1.) Don’t Make it Too Long. Even the best videos can be killed by length. Short and sweet is the way to go. Try to hook the viewer quick, hit them hard and leave them wanting more. A good length to try and stick to is around one to two minutes.

2.) Don’t Underestimate a Good Voice. The right narrator can add life and pace to your video.

3.) Don’t Assume Anything. It is important to remember that the viewer will most likely know little to nothing about your book, so highlight the big themes of your story. Keep the script simple, and in the end your video will be more interesting.

4.) Don’t keep it to yourself. If you want the world to read your book, let the world see your video. There are several websites where you can post video for free. YouTube is the biggest but not the only one out there. It can also be a good idea to burn your video onto DVDs and pass them out to friends and fans. Here is a video Reader Hook did that is front and center on the client’s website: http://www.enjoyluxuryoflife.com/

5.) Don’t Forget the Details. Nothing is worse than a great video that leaves the viewer saying “Now what?”.

Remember to include the details of where and when the viewer can get your book. You may also want to include your own website or the website of your publisher near the end of the video. Here is one example of one we just did with lots of detail:

The bottom line is whether you do it yourself or with a little help, producing a video can be fun if you let it, and it can be a great way to pull in new fans.

Check out some of the latest videos from Reader Hook Productions at www.readerhook.com . Please shoot us an email if you have any questions, or you are ready to get started on your video.

Gook luck!

Margaret Brownley

Scams, advertisements and demands from Prince “Wants Your Money” from some foreign country:  Sound like your e-mail? You’re close. Only back in the 19th and 20th centuries it was called the telegraph.  Not only did the telegraph create a quicker way to get junk mail, it changed the way Victorians lived, did business, received news and yes, even fell in love.

In his fascinating book, The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage tells us that there really is nothing new under the sun.  Meetings, chat rooms, games, and illicit affairs were just as prevalent 150 years ago as they are today.  And what, for that matter is a text message but a telegram, forcing people to be brief and to the point? (Tell that to your teen!)

If you think acronyms such as LOL and BTW are a modern concept, think again. Telegram security was an issue and secret codes were devised.  Government regulators tried to control this new means of communication, but failed. Sound familiar?

Though the telegraph was first conceived in the 1600s and an optical one developed in the 1700s, it took a tragedy to make the dream of fast communication over long distances a reality.

Samuel Morse: A Love Story

Samuel Morse was an artist commissioned to paint a portrait in Washington. Upon receiving a letter informing him of his wife’s sudden death, he returned to his New Haven home as quickly as possible, but he had already missed her funeral.  This had to be very much on his mind seven years later when he in a chance conversation aboard a ship he learned that electricity could travel along any length of wire almost instantaneously.  Unaware that others had tried and failed to create a fast way of communications using this method, he immediately set to work.    

What Hath God Wrought?

It took Samuel Morse 12 years to perfect his invention and many trials and tribulations, but he was convinced that this new way of communicating would allow a husband to reach a dying wife’s bedside or save the life of a child.  He thought it might even prevent wars.  His hard work and perseverance paid off.  On May 24, 1844, he sent the telegraph message “what hath God wrought?” from the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to the B & O Railroad Depot in Baltimore, Maryland.

No longer was it necessary to communicate solely through trains, mail or horse.  Even Morse himself couldn’t have imagined how telegraphic communications could change society.

Boon and Bust for Outlaws

Then as now, the first to embrace the new technology were criminals. The first telegrams sent were horse bets and lotteries.  A man named Soapy Smith opened a fake telegraph office in Skagway, Alaska during the gold rush of 1897. The wires went only as far as the wall. The telegraph office obtained fees for “sending” messages from gold-laden victims. Though outlaws such as Butch Cassidy routinely cut wires or jammed telegraph keys to prevent lawmen from tracking them down, the telegraph eventually helped put an end to the train robberies that plagued the west. 

Wired Romances

Western Union might have been the first equal opportunity employer as women telegraphers were prevalent.  The ratio of men to women in the New York office in the 1870s was two to one.  Women operators were often chaperoned but that didn’t stop women from forming relationships with partners in distant offices.  As a result, wire romances bloomed and one couple even married by telegraph. However, not all online romances had a happy ending.  In 1886, The Electrical World magazine ran an article titled The Dangers of Wired Romances. That same article would no doubt be just as timely today.

Tom Standage writes that time traveling Victorians arriving in today’s world might be impressed with our flying machines but they would be unimpressed with the Internet. They did, after all, have one of their own.

A Lady Like Sarah in Bookstores now

Leave a comment and you might even win a copy.

www.margaretbrownley.com

On our recent trip north to visit our niece Katie and hubby John in the Lake Tahoe area, we paused to take in the sites and history of Sacramento including the mansion  of Leland Stanford (1824-1893). Stanford wore such hats as California governor, railroad baron, university founder…and race horse owner. One of the video displays at the mansion shows his search to settle one of the hot debates of the 1870’s: Is there a moment in a horse’s gait when all four hooves are off the ground at once?

There is a legend that Leland Stanford bet $25,000 that it was true. Common reaction at the time nixed the idea. After all, if God wanted horses to “fly”, He would have given the creature wings.  But determined to settle the question, Stanford hired celebrity photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) to prove it.

Actually Muybridge was born Edward Muggeridge in Kingston-Upon-Thames, Surrey, near London. He adopted the more dramatic moniker, believing it to be the true Anglo-Saxon spelling. However, he soon shortened it to Helios and became one of San Francisco’s most celebrated landscape photographers, taking more then 2,000 photographs with 20×24 inch negatives. His 1867 photographs of Yosemite Valley brought the valley…and himself…almost mythic status.

He accepted Stanford’s challenge in 1872 and came to “the farm” in Palo Alto. (It now is Stanford University.)  After a bit of a detour –Muybridge went on trial for killing his wife’s lover— he found it wise to spend some time in Mexico and Central America even though he was acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide. Here he did photography work for Union Pacific Railroad, one of Stanford’s companies. In 1877 Muybridge came back to Palo Alto and continued his experiments in motion photography, using 12 to 24 cameras and a special shutter he developed that gave an exposure of 2/1,000 of a second. 

Muybridge’s first attempt indeed captured Stanford’s horse, Occident, silhouetted against white sheets with all four feet off the ground. Although these original pictures didn’t survive, Muybridge continued to work with Stanford to develop techniques in the “science of animal motion.”

In 1878, he succeeded in photographing a sequence of frames produced on wet plate with 12 cameras that proved the “flying horse.” The slow wet plate collodion process produced images that were mostly silhouettes, but they showed something never before seen by the human eye.

Scientific American and other prominent publications featured articles on Muybridge’s accomplishment. However, Stanford invited his close friend, horseman and medical physician  Dr. J.B.D. Stillman to produce a book analyzing the horse-in-motion. Stillman used Muybridge’s photography without crediting the photographer. Interestingly, when Muybridge sued Stanford and Stillman for copyright infringement, he lost his suit.

Eadweard migrated to the University of Pennsylvania after that where he developed sequences of human figures, both clothed and naked (including himself unclothed). This important collection helped scientists and artists study human and animal movement, and many of the sequences were published in 1887 in a portfolio,  “Animal Locomotion, An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movement.”. To simplify, imagine the “flip books” of your childhood. And actually, Muybridge’s sequences are available for kids in just this format in the mansion gift shop.

For all these reasons, and for the big one — the zoopraxiscope—Eadweard Muybridge is often called the father of the motion picture. To illustrate his lectures, he developed the’scope; its lantern projected images in rapid succession onto a screen. The images came from his photographs, printed on a glass disc. From the rotating disc came the illusion of moving pictures.

Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope display, an important predecessor of the modern cinema, was a sensation at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Muybridge continued to promote his photography and publish his work until his retirement in 1900 at which time he returned to England. “Animal Locomotion” is still in demand by art students today.      

I’m always amazed at the progress and prowess of people who came before. What a debt we owe to their ingenuity, their resilience. In honor of Eadweard Muybridge’s legacy, what are your favorite motion pictures?

http://twitter.com/FeliciaFilly

Hi y’all.  Happy Labor Day!  I hope you’re able to take advantage of the holiday to kick back and do something relaxing or fun or, better yet, both!

My latest project had a deadline of Sept. 1^st and after a number of very late nights getting it polished up and ready to send in I’m kicking back a bit myself before I dive into the next project. 

But on to the current post.  I was recently doing a bit of research to see if it would be possible for someone in Texas in 1890 to have access to ice in the middle of summer.   I knew, of course, that in the northern parts of the country, folks would harvest large blocks of ice in the winter and store them away underground or in some other manner that would ensure they would have ice available for most of the year.  But here in the south it is rare that the ponds and lakes freeze over, even during the coldest parts of the year. 

So, I started digging around for info, and in the process I discovered a few interesting little tidbits.  Though some pioneering efforts into artificial ice manufacturing were already in place in the first half of the nineteenth century, the application was very limited and “natural ice” was still the most common source.

Before the Civil War “natural ice” was shipped from points north to the south via rail and ship.   In fact, ice from New York was shipped as far away as India.  (Who would have thought ice would survive a trip like that?)

The change from the use of natural ice to that of manufactured ice was slow in coming.  Many folks distrusted ice created in the crude factories, believing natural ice was healthier and cleaner (despite the questionable sanitary conditions of the water sources and collection procedures).  The push to accept artificial ice was ultimately accelerated by those in the south who grew tired of having to rely on the north for their supplies.  This grew more pronounced with the advent of the Civil War, when the south was almost entirely cut off from their ice suppliers.  It was at this time that enterprising and inventive men stepped forward to develop alternatives. 

Texas and Louisiana, it appears, played a large role in the early work here in the United States relating to the development of commercial ice manufacturing. 

In 1865 Daniel Livingston Holden made several improvements on the Carre absorption machine, a device patented in France, and installed it in San Antonio.  Within two years three of the eight ice manufacturing companies in the US were located in San Antonio

In 1868 the Louisiana Ice Manufacturing Company of New Orleans opened the very first large scale artificial ice manufacturing facility – a plant with a sixty ton capacity.

Charles Zilker, who moved to Austin, TX from Indiana was another early entrepreneur in the ice-making arena.  In 1884, after working in and operating ice plants for a number of years, Zilker built his own plant and made a number of design improvements.  He established his first plants in Austin and San Antonio.  Later he constructed facilities in any area where he could find a sufficient supply of cooling water for the compressors and enough people to allow him to turn a profit.  By 1928 he owned plants raging from Texas to Atlanta to Pittsburg.  He eventually sold these for $1 million.

By 1900 there were over 760 ice plants in the US.  Texas was home to 77 of these, the most of any state in the union.  Beginning in the 1920s there was a gradual decline in commercial ice plants with the greater use of home refrigerators.

So there you have it – a short history of the ice industry in the United States.  Wherever and however you’re spending this Labor Day, when you raise those glasses of iced tea or soda, you can thank those enterprising fellows in Texas for helping to develop and improve on the technology that brought those nice cubes of ice to your glass.