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February 14 is National Ferris Wheel Day

February 14, 2017/0 Comments/in February

Today is National Ferris Wheel Day, a holiday that celebrates the birth of George Washington Gale Ferris on February 14, 1859. At age 33, he designed the first Ferris Wheel, which was introduced at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

The exhibition was also known as the Chicago World’s Fair and commemorated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ landing in the New World. It was one year late but, considering that Columbus actually landed on an island in the Caribbean, thought he was in Asia and never set foot on what would become the United States, maybe we should let it slide.

The Ferris Wheel was America’s answer to the Eiffel Tower, the jewel of the 1889 Paris Exposition. When completed, the ride stood 264feet high, with a circumference of 825 feet, and had 36 cars, each 24 feet long, 13 feet wide and 10 feet high, weighing 26,000 pounds. Screens were fitted over the glass windows on each side. Doors locked securely; firefighting equipment was included. Conductors rode in each car to answer questions and allay fears.

Cars held up to 60 passengers at a time, with a total capacity of 2,160. It took 20 minutes to complete two revolutions, stopping at six platforms to admit and unload passengers then making a nine-minute nonstop rotation. A guard was posted on each platform to signal the operator when it was safe to resume.

The Ferris Wheel opened on June 21, 1893, carrying up to 38,000 passengers daily. A ticket cost 50¢. More than 1.4 million people rode it over the next 19 weeks. On clear days, it was possible to see the fairgrounds, the surrounding city and countryside of four neighboring states. Three thousand of Edison’s new lightbulbs mounted on the wheel made it a spectacle at night as well. The ride had a perfect safety record.

After the fair closed, George Ferris became convinced he’d been cheated out of his share of the reported $750,000 profits the ride earned for exhibition management. His investors and suppliers pursued him for nonpayment. He was also sued by makers of similar “pleasure wheels” for patent infringement. He spent the next two years embroiled in litigation.

Although he eventually proved himself to be his ride’s rightful inventor, the efforts took an emotional and physical toll on him. In 1895, instead of selling the wheel to an amusement park like Coney Island, Ferris paid to have it dismantled and rebuilt in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, hoping to earn a profit from ticket sales. The venture was a failure.

In what would prove to be his last attempt to pay debts, he sold most of his interest in the business he’d built, G.W.G. Ferris & Company, to his partners. He died of typhoid fever on November 22, 1896, at the age of 37. After his death, it was revealed that he was bankrupt and his wife had left him the year before.

On June 3, 1903, the Chicago Tribune reported that the Ferris Wheel, with $400,000 in outstanding debts, had been sold at auction for $1,800 to a wrecking company called Old Truck, which took it down and reassembled it for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s estimated to have carried 2.5 million passengers from its inaugural day in 1893 through its last day of operation in 1904.

In 1906, with neighbors complaining about the eyesore that remained, the Ferris Wheel was reduced to rubble with dynamite. Demolition experts had to use twice the amount of TNT they thought would get the job done. The first 100 pounds brought down the wheel but didn’t destroy the foundation. Workers drilled holes into the concrete and dropped in 100 pounds’ worth of dynamite sticks. What was left was hauled away as scrap.

Perhaps what we should remember about Ferris are his contributions as an engineer to the modern usage of steel in building construction and the experience he gave to millions. As journalist Robert Graves reported in 1893, “It is an indescribable sensation, that of revolving through such a vast orbit in a bird cage.”

Happy National Ferris Wheel Day!

February 12 is National Lost Penny Day

February 12, 2017/1 Comment/in February

Today is National Lost Penny Day but its timing is no accident. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt introduced a one-cent piece to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Great Emancipator’s birth.

It was the first American coin to bear the likeness of a real person. Fifty years later, to celebrate the sesquicentennial of his birth, an image of the Lincoln Memorial was added on the reverse side.

All pennies from 1959 to 2008 also feature a tiny image of the statue within the Memorial. This is not a myth like all the hidden messages in a dollar bill; it’s really there.

Four new designs were minted in 2009 to honor President Lincoln’s 200th birthday (or bicentennial, for centenary fans.) A new, fixed reverse, the Union Shield, was introduced in 2010.

In 2014, the U.S. Mint reported that it cost 1.67 cents to make a penny. The negative return on investment has caused many to call for the abolishment of the coin. If that happens, all pennies will eventually be lost. Lincoln will live on the five-dollar bill.

Until then, remember the old saying: Find a penny, pick it up and all day long, you’ll have good luck. Well, at least you’ll have a penny and a portrait of Lincoln that fits in your pocket.

February 10 is Plimsoll Day

February 10, 2017/0 Comments/in February, Holidays by Month

Today is Plimsoll Day. It celebrates the birth of Samuel Plimsoll (Feb. 10, 1824— June 3, 1898), a British merchant, politician, author and reformer whose tireless efforts saved many sailors’ lives.

Plimsoll realized that the power to bring ship owners to account rested with the government. So he ran for a seat as a member of Parliament (MP) and was elected on the second try, in 1868. He tried in vain for the next eight years to pass a bill to regulate the shipping industry.

Sinkings occurred so frequently that the term “coffin ship,” overloaded, unseaworthy vessels, often so heavily insured that shipping companies stood to make a higher profit if the ship sank. Plimsoll sought to end this by advocating the inspection of all vessels, adoption of a maximum load line and limitation of insurance according to proportions of property on any one ship.

Plimsoll also fought the 1871 Merchant Shipping Act, which obligated seamen to complete a voyage after they had signed a contract. Any sailor who realized a ship was unseaworthy before boarding or during the journey was subject to imprisonment if he refused to go on.

It wasn’t unusual for a company to paint over wood rot, rename a ship and present it as new. When heavy loads were added, a ship could sink in anything but perfect weather. In March 1873, The Times printed a story about fifteen seamen who were imprisoned for months after they refused to board a ship. When the ship finally set sail with a new crew, it sank and three men drowned.

That year, Plimsoll published Our Seamen: An Appeal, a powerful attack on ship owners who knowingly risked their crews’ lives for their own profit. It brought public attention to the injust treatment of working men and incensed many MPs, especially those who were ship owners. (Plimsoll had arranged to have a copy of his book placed on each member’s seat in the House of Commons.)

Some decried him as a militant and tried to have him drummed out of Parliament. But Plimsoll had momentum and public support, although he would later nearly drum himself out. He initiated a Royal Commission to investigate wrongdoing and two years later in 1875, a bill was introduced. It was inadequate, in his opinion, and left ample room for amendments to further weaken it in the future.

However, it was better than nothing and Plimsoll made the difficult decision to support it. Parliament met on July 22, 1875, to ratify the bill. Then Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli changed his mind, deciding not to bring it to a vote, essentially killing it.

Plimsoll had labored for years to force companies to value safety over greed. When Disraeli appeared to accede to the wishes of his enemies, Plimsoll jumped from his seat in a rage, bounded to the floor in front of Speaker Sir Henry Brand and shook his fist at both sides of the assembly.

He proceeded to name-drop MP Edward Bates as the owner of three ships that had sunk the year before, killing 87. He stated that he intended to name others. Here’s the transcript of what happened next:

MR. PLIMSOLL: I am determined to unmask the villains who send to death and destruction—[Loud cries of “Order!” and much excitement.]
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member makes use of the word “villains.” I presume that the hon. Gentleman does not apply that expression to any Member of this House.
MR. PLIMSOLL: I beg pardon?
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member made use of the word “villains.” I trust he did not use it with reference to any Member of this House.
MR. PLIMSOLL: I did, Sir, and I do not mean to withdraw it. [Loud cries of” Order!”]
MR. SPEAKER: The expression of the hon. Member is altogether un-Parliamentary, and I must again ask him whether he persists in using it.
MR. PLIMSOLL: And I must again decline to retract. [“Order!”]
MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member withdraw the expression?
MR. PLIMSOLL: No, I do not.
MR. SPEAKER: I must again call upon the hon. Member to withdraw the expression.
MR. PLIMSOLL: I will not.

This went on until Plimsoll was asked to withdraw. He pretended not to hear, then stated, “I will withdraw,” thankfully ending the exchange before the inevitable “I know you are but what am I” stage and the ritual sticking out of tongues.

Disraeli moved to issue an immediate reprimand but MPs friendly with Plimsoll made the case that he had been overwrought by the burden of trying to save lives and would come to his senses soon. The prime minister agreed to a weeklong timeout instead.

Eventually, Plimsoll did apologize. Many people believed that the government had buckled under pressure from ship owners; they, in turn, pushed Disraeli to reverse his position and pass the bill. In 1876, the Merchant Shipping Act became law. Amendments limiting liability were finally repealed in 1894. Foreign ships visiting British ports were required to have a load line as of 1906.

Plimsoll remained a public servant for many more years, He was honorary president of the National Amalgamated Sailors’ and Firemen’s Union for several years and wrote a book about the horrible conditions cattle suffered during shipping. He even traveled to the U.S. to encourage a less negative portrayal of England in textbooks. He died on June 3, 1898.

He will forever be remembered for his creation of the loading line that came to be known as the Plimsoll Line, marked on the hull of every cargo ship, indicating the maximum depth to which the ship can be safely loaded.

It’s impossible to estimate the number of sailor’s lives that have been saved because of Plimsoll’s dogged determination. A statistic attributed to Royal Museums Greenwich sets the total number of British ships lost in 1873 and 1874 at 411, with a loss of 506 lives. An A-level physics textbook lists U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as its source.

Neither site appears to have that quote. We are unable to track down the source of the number, which has been picked up and reported as fact like a Web-borne virus. It may very well be true but we can’t find confirmation in anything from accounts of the time to a 1981 thesis paper.(Nicely done, Mr. Dixon. We hope you received your PhD.)

It doesn’t really matter whether that number is correct; by any metric, the Plimsoll line has saved thousands in the intervening years. In 1929, the National Union of Seamen erected a monument in his honor, in grateful recognition of his services to the men of the sea of all nations. It stands on the Victoria Embankment in London, overlooking the Thames River.

Some people associate his name with a type of sneaker that has a line around the rubber sides reminiscent of a Plimsoll line. Although Samuel Plimsoll had nothing to do with it, we’re sure he would have approved of any footwear that made it easier to walk on a slippery deck.

Happy Plimsoll Day!

January 29 is Curmudgeons Day

January 29, 2017/0 Comments/in January

Today is Curmudgeons Day, which celebrates the birth, in 1880, of comedian, writer, drinker and self-professed curmudgeon W.C. Fields.

William Claude Dukenfield grew up in Philadelphia, PA, a city that later became the butt of many of his jokes. While this is true, many other aspects of his origin story are difficult to substantiate.

He adopted the name W.C. Fields as a vaudevillian in 1898 and took delight in recounting a tragic personal history. Fields allegedly ran away from home after his alcoholic father beat him over the head with a shovel, ending up sleeping in a hole in the ground, stealing food and clothing to survive, and was often caught and thrown in jail.

At thirteen, he supposedly got a job as a juggler on a pier in Atlantic City, NJ. When business was slow, he would feign drowning at the behest of his employers, who believed the fake rescue they then staged would draw in customers.

Like the best lies, his story had elements of truth. He did sometimes run away from his short-tempered father, but only as far as his grandmother’s house. He was developing a juggling act. But at age seventeen, he was living at home and performing it at church and local theaters.

In actuality, Fields did begin his career in vaudeville and took his stage name in 1898. (He specialized in pretending he’d lost the items he was juggling.) But his family supported him and saw him off on his first tour.

By the early 1900s, he was a headliner in the U.S. and Europe and was often referred to as the world’s best juggler. He toured Australia and South Africa in 1903. By 1904, Fields had become so successful that he bought his father a summer home and enabled him to retire. That’s a heck of a way to repay the man who hit your head with a shovel.

He performed at Buckingham Palace and took the stage at the Folies Bergère when Charlie Chaplin was on the docket. Fields wrote and starred in his first film, Pool Sharks, in 1915. He appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies from 1915 through 1921.

In 1923, he made his Broadway debut in the musical “Poppy,” then reprised the role two years later in D.W. Griffith’s screen adaptation renamed Sally of the Sawdust. By 1944, Fields had made 41 films, including The Bank Dick, My Little Chickadee and Tillie and Gus.

Fields was a staunch advocate of drink and had one in his hand much of the time. (A favorite line: “I certainly do not drink all the time. I have to sleep, you know.”) It should come as no surprise that wear-and-tear on his body caused by alcohol finally did him in.

In the early months of 1945, Fields was admitted to Las Encinas Sanatorium in Pasadena, CA. He never left, dying of a gastric hemorrhage almost two years later, on December 25, 1946—the holiday that Fields, an atheist, said he most despised.

He might have gotten a kick out of the fact that he has a medical condition named after him. Rhinophyma, a form of rosacea that causes the nasal tip to redden and become bulbous, is sometimes referred to as “W.C. Fields syndrome” or “whiskey nose.”

He would certainly be a fan of Curmudgeons Day. He said so many curmudgeonly things in his life, movie scripts, and in ad libs during filming that a Google search for “W.C. Fields quotes” returned 633,000 results. We recommend you make a snack before you dive in. You’re going to be online for a while. Here are a few to whet your appetite:

“Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.”

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.”

“I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.”

“Children should neither be seen nor heard from, ever again.”

“I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.”

“I do if they’re properly cooked.” — (when asked if he liked children)

One frustrating element of Curmudgeons Day is its stubborn resistance to punctuation. Should we read it as a mere grammatical error? Is it written this way by a curmudgeon to irritate other curmudgeons (and the odd English major?) We’ll let you decide.

Happy Curmudgeons Day!

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