Monopoly in Consolidated Gas Company, Baltimore MD, 1910

Today, I read an article, The case of the City Against the Gas Company as Stated by Mayor Mayhool, The Baltimore Sun, Mon Feb. 28, 1910  detailing the struggle between the Consolidated Gas Company and the City of Baltimore. The Consolidated contended that new gas companies should not be allowed into the city because they would tear up the roadways or force the consolidated to buy them, which might cause further increase to the payment issued from the citizens of Baltimore, all of whom pay nearly double that of citizens from cities in similar circumstance. The Consolidated also wished for the portion of their pipes which had been granted an easement be considered as a franchise, and thus exempt from further taxation. The court disagreed, but concluded that they should not be the arbiter of evaluation, and thus cannot tax the Consolidate for the municipal land the pipes lie within. “Taxes by valuation cannot be apportioned without an assessment. "Without an assessment they have no support, and are nullities." Thayer v. Stearns et al., 1 Pick, 482.” Consol. Gas Co. v. Baltimore City, 101 Md. 541, 558 (Md. 1905)

Progressivism now

Today I researched the progress created by modern day progressives. This includes gay marriage, raising minimum wages, and improving public services.

HW-Progressivism

1. I would define progress as an improvement of situation whether that be in the scope of quality of life, understanding of the universe, or individual improvement towards mastery of some skill.

2. The progressive era was a period of almost universal social activism and political reform between the 1890s and 1920s in the United States. It involved trust busting, women's suffrage, and a more scientific approach to examining social issues. (paraphrased from wikipedia)

3. Progressive goals all seem to be about promoting fairness and exposing inequality.

4. Major goals


1. Essential goals worth striving for
Remove coruption
Southern farmers alliance
2. Good Goals
Government must play a role in economic fairness

3. Strange goals
include more people directly in the political process
temperance movement

4. Bad Goals
socialism
over regulation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era 

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1061.html

Future Predictions

100 Years ago people thought:
Correctly:

•      Digital color photography
• Taller People
• Mobile phones
• pre-prepared meals
• population control
• hothouse vegetables
• television
• tanks
• bigger fruit
• highspeed rail
• flying cars would exist
• automated bathrooms

Incorrectly:

• No more c, x or q
• everyone will walk 10 miles/day
• no more cars in large cities
• no mosquitoes or flies
• firefighters with batwing
• cross atlantic in blimp boats
• domesticated whales used as transportation
• domesticated giant mutant seahorses
• aerial wing flapping hover cars would be primary mode of transport
• robot barbers
• radium for heating homes

50 years ago people thought

Correctly:

• Facetime
• direct dial any spot on earth
• wall mounted televisions and 3d tvs
• coffee machines
• experimental fusion power plants
• self driving cars
• unequal access to technology

Incorrectly:

• Moon colonies
• Worldwide currency
• "one world government"

Warnings:

• Overpopulation
• global warming
• unequal access to technology
• People living too long with minimized creativity and isolation from each other.

In general, people seem to be envisioning a more efficient world in which many quotidian things are done for us by robots. I think that removing these things will make us bored and unhappy. My predictions for the future are: the hyper loop, better mobile internet networks, a switch to renewable energy sources, vertical farming techniques will become more utilized, bionic limbs will seamlessly integrate into the human body, more cancers will become curable, schooling will look drastically different, with students able to go into the workforce 3 years sooner, and everyone will have a personal AI assistant.

Sources:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/why-isaac-asimovs-famous-dystopia-is-still-relevant-to-1473735813

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27069716

Brane Space: Isaac Asimov's Warning - Part I

Ten 100-year predictions that came true - BBC News

11 ridiculous future predictions from the 1900 world's fair — and 3 that ...

Brooklyn Bridge

      The Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge as it was initially called, was a technological marvel the likes of which had never been seen before in the construction of bridges. The scale and difficulty of the construction meant that the construction of the bridge would not have been possible before the industrial revolution and resultant urbanization.

The decision to build a bridge in the first place was heavily influenced by Boss Tweed, who hoped to skim money from the bridge building operation just as he had with so many other public works projects. Tweed paid $65,000 in bribes to alderman to ensure that the New York Bridge company, which he had bullied his way into a management position and bought stock in, received the contract from the city. The construction of the bridge began in 1870, and only one year later, Boss Tweed was arrested. The chief engineer on the project, John A. Roebling, died of tetanus before construction had even started, so the project was taken over by his son Washington who completed the bridge in 1883.

Building a bridge in this location provided several challenges for the engineers. A suspension bridge of this length had never been built before, and the technology behind them was still very new. The materials the builders had available to them made the construction possible. The Brooklyn bridge was the first to incorporate steel cables. This made the bridge strong enough to span 3,460 ft with the longest suspended stretch totaling 1,595 ft. Steel was also used in the girders which made up parts of the body of the bridge. The towers were made of granite with limestone cladding, and some parts were made of concrete. Another difficulty was building a heavy bridge in a deep river. 

The Bridge Company had to make footings to support the towers, but the ground was to soft on the river bottom. They had to find a way to excavate dirt until they reached bedrock, or in this case, until the towers stopped settling. The way this was accomplished was through the use of caissons. Caissons are specially designed boxes big enough to hold about a score of men. The bottom of the caissons were open so the men could dig at the river bottom by hand, and, for the first time, use underwater explosives to clear away large areas at once. Pressurized air was forced in from the top of the caissons to keep the water from rushing in. The caissons were built out of yellow pine several feet thick. The towers were then constructed on top of the caissons, and the weight of the stone made them sink to the bottom. These pine caissons can still be seen today at the bottom of the river.

Caissons presented their own set of problems. Approximately 20 people died as a result of working on the bridge due to falling, crush injury, tetanus, and “the bends”. That is frankly incredible given their general disregard for safety. A bigger issue was the number of people suffering nonlethal injury from “the bends” or what they knew as “caisson disease”. Caisson disease is what is medically described as decompression sickness. The pressure induced in the caisson as it went deeper meant that the blood in people's bodies reacted differently. The issue was not the pressure itself, but that workers ascended too quickly when they left the chamber. This caused nitrogen bubbles to form in their blood which obstructed the flow of oxygen throughout their bodies. The first person to notice this was the Surgeon to the New York Bridge Company, Dr Andrew Heermance Smith. He looked at the symptoms, which included seizures, paroxysms, paralysis, deafness and pain, and concluded that the workers needed to spend time in decompression chambers. This idea fell on deaf ears, as the bridge company had a plentiful supply of workers willing to brave the dangerous conditions and long hours. Overall, their were 110 reported cases of decompression sickness during the construction of the bridge. The cheap labor of immigrants allowed for the bridge to be built for little money, and they didn’t have to waste funds on silly things like worker safety.

Even Washington Roebling fell ill to “the bends”. The lack of oxygen severely damaged his nerves and made him bedridden for the remainder of construction. He was able to watch progress using a telescope, and then give instructions to his workers through his wife Emily. When the bridge was finally finished, Roebling declined to be present at the opening ceremony, with the opinion that the company had really done this without him.

The bridge opened on Memorial day in 1883. There were fireworks, parades, and general excitement for the engineering marvel. There were concerns about the bridge’ safety. Americans had heard stories of poorly built suspension bridges failing in other parts of the world. To allay these fears, P.T. Barnum of circus fame took 21 elephants over the bridge. The bridge held up just fine, and people used it a lot. On opening day, 150,300 pedestrians and 1,800 vehicles crossed the bridge without incident. Compare that to the 144,000 people who cross the bridge on average today. One week later however, there was a scare when people on the bridge mistakenly thought that the bridge was collapsing. 12 people were crushed to death in the panic to get down the stairwells. The bridge was not free to use when it first opened. The toll was 1¢ by foot, 5¢ by horseback, 10¢ by horse and wagon, and an additional 5¢ per cow and 2¢ per sheep or dog. In 1911, the bridge became free, and remains as one of four bridges in New York City that are free to cross today.

  The Brooklyn Bridge immediately became a cultural sensation. People came from all over to admire this marvel of the industrial age, and news of its completion even spread to Californian newspapers. It served as inspiration for countless artists and painters, including Joseph Stella. Stella said “Many nights I stood on the bridge—and in the middle alone— lost—a defenseless prey to the surrounding swarming darkness—crushed by the mountainous black impenetrability of the skyscrapers—here and there lights resembling suspended falls of astral bodies or fantastic splendors of remote rites—shaken by the underground tumult of the trains in perpetual motion, like blood in the arteries—at times, ringing as alarm in a tempest, the shrill sulphurous voice of the trolley wires—now and then strange moanings of appeal from tugboats, guessed more than seen, through the infernal recesses below—I felt deeply moved, as if on the threshold of a new religion or in the presence of a new "DIVINITY.”  

        The bridge almost immediately attracted daredevils and envelope pushers. In 1885, Swimming instructor Robert E. Odlum was the first to jump from the bridge into the river below. He drowned in the river, but many others survived in later attempts. Jumpers included people trying to impress their girlfriends and one man with canvas wings attempted to fly off of the bridge. The connection between the bridge and thrill seekers continues to this day with people flying planes under the bridge, bungee jumping from the deck, and free climbing the towers. This pushing the limits of what the human body can do is a testament to the NYBC engineers who created a bridge in proportions previously unthinkable through the use of new materials and methods. The bridge would not have been possible without the environment of the industrial era: a willingness of people to accept the risks involved with its construction, the covert graft which fueled many public works projects, new materials like steel cables, and a genuine need for improved transportation and connectivity.

"Brooklyn Bridge" by Joseph Stella

Caisson Diagram

Bridge under construction

Bridge under construction

Bridge in the modern day

Stampede on bridge

Inside a caisson

Sources:

History.com source about bridge
This source provides 10 little known facts about the Brooklyn Bridge pbs source about bridge history
This source gives information about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge
Stable Jstor link to Report on Decompression sickness
This source discusses the discovery of decompression sickness in bridge workers
Smithsonian info on Boss Tweed and connection with Bridge
This source discusses Boss Tweed's connection with public works projects including the bridge

Image of California newspaper discussing Brooklyn Bridge
This source demonstrates the cultural pervasiveness of the new bridge
Wikipedia Brooklyn Bridge
This is a general source for information about the Brooklyn Bridge