Lesson 91: Roller Skates
The 1860s were busy times. The Civil War started in 1861 and killed 600,000 people. It was the worst war in American history.
The first early skates were invented by John Merlin, and they were ice skates with wheels. He himself was wounded in 1760 trying to demonstrate them. They were hard to stop and steer. The roller skate was invented in 1863 by James Plimpton. Not much is known about him.
Roller skates are shoes with 4 wheels on each shoe. Skating is a fun way to get healthy exercise. Another sport that uses skates is roller hockey.
The 4 wheel design was safer than 2 wheels and Plimpton experimented with how to sell them best. He built roller rinks in 1866. He started renting out the skates to young dating couples and got rich of the business. He had to fight 300 lawsuits and then roller skates took off in the 1870s.
The reason roller skates took off was because of disco. The music went well with roller skates. The skates led to the skateboard in the 1950s and the roller blade in the 1990s. The rinks are still in use today.
Lesson 92: Barbed Wire
The US was expanding by 1850 and there were few fences on the open range. The only fences were farmer’s, to keep cattle out of their crop. Cattle went where they wanted so the only way to keep the cattle strait was by branding. Cattle were watched by cowboys on horses because no one could walk as far as was needed to feed the cows. Cattle drives were growing after the Civil War. The first cattle drive was in 1866. It took two months with 10 cowboys driving 3,000 head of cattle 15 miles per day.
Free roaming cows became a problem. The cows would wander onto train tracks and hold up trains. They would also eat farmers’ crops. Back then fencing was expensive and there were no close hardware stores. 160 acres was a lot of land to fence. That problem was solved in 1868.
Michael Kelly invented barbed wire in 1868. Not a lot is known about him.
Barbed wire is an easy and cheap way to control cattle. It lasts 10-20 years and works better than you would think.
Joseph Glidden invented a better version in 1873. What do you think he did to advertise it? He went and built a ranch in the middle of 160 acres and then fenced the entire thing in barbed wire. He then put 12,000 cattle on the ranch and sat back. Not one cow escaped. Then a man named John Gates created an even better on and put on a demonstration where he drove a stampede towards a fence and it did not break.
Ranches grew and the barbed wire is used today to keep prisoners on prison and it is used to keep trespassers out. The barbed wire ended the need for cowboys and the old west.
Lesson 93: Cowboy Hat
Fur traders made the coonskin hat fashionable. And it was used by cowboys. It was not really a good hat for cowboy work though. Meanwhile, the gold rush had started and the 49ers appeared.
John .B. Stetson was born in 1830 in New York. He was the 7th child of 12. His father was a hat maker and he learned the trade. Then, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He figured it was his last chance to see the frontier. So he headed west. While he was there, he noticed that coonskin hats had fleas! He also noticed that no one had the same hat. No one had the same style and none of the hats were good for work. So when he realized that he was not going to die he invented the Cowboy hat in 1865.
The cowboy hat is designed to be functional. The brim kept the sun off your face, neck and back. The water proof fur-felt kept your face dry when it rained. It was made of rabbit and beaver. It could be used as a water bucket for your horse and to steer cattle.
Stetson knew how to advertise and the hat became popular almost immediately. It was called the hat that won the west.
The cowboy hat was iconic in the old west. Buffalo bill wore a custom made one and nothing shows the cowboy hat more than the movies.
Lesson 94: Pasteurization
Louis Pasture was born in France in 1822. He was an average student and went to school in 1838. He was a good philosophy student but a bad chemist. Then he got better with chemistry and was asked to investigate wine that was going bad. He patented his germ theory in 1865.
Pasteurization kills germs and bacteria. You heat the milk of wine hot enough to kill the germs but keep the taste. You use hot temperatures and short time.
He advertised to wine makers and it was not until 20 years later that it was used on milk. Most milk nowadays is pasteurized. The process led Thomas Whelch to invent Grape Juice.
My favorite invention this week was the roller skate. It was my favorite because I love roller skating and its lots of fun. I had not thought about its invention before. I just had fun skating. Now I know all about its invention and inventor.
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