Benjamin Bannaky essays

Benjamin Bannaky essays Benjamin Bannaky was born in Maryland in 1731. He was the son of Robert a former slave and Mary Bannaky He grew up on a tobacco farm and was taught to read by his grand mother. When he became twelve he went to a Quaker school. The teacher Peter Heinrich changed his name to what he is known as today Benjamin Banneker. Banneker is famous for several things one of which being his ability to make and fix watches and clocks. This started when he was in his early twenties when Joseph Levi gave him a watch because Banneker was so interested in it. Banneker studied the watch and made drawings of its mechanisms. Using his drawings by 1753 he made a clock by carving larger pieces out of wood. Bannekers clock was so accurate it kept time for nearly forty years. This is said to be the first clock made in America. Bannekers almanac is very well known also. He taught astronomy and math to himself. Studying the stars he predicted the weather and tide calculations and eclipses for the almanacs he published from 1792-1797. Bannekers almanacs were nearly as good as Benjamin Franklins famous Poor Richards Almanac. He sent his first almanac to Thomas Jefferson who was Secretary of State at the time. Banneker helped survey Washington D. C. in 1791. He worked with Pierre L'Enfant designing the city. Pierre quit and went to France soon after the planning was completed. When Pierre he took all the architectural plans with him. Washington thought all was lost but Banneker had the plans for the whole city memorized. He drew up the plans as they were in just two days. Banneker was well known throughout America and Europe as a brilliant mind because of this and his almanacs. He died at the age of seventy-five October 25, 1806 on his farm in Maryland. ...

Changing Worlds essays

Changing Worlds essays Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy is a novel in which the protagonist, Julian West, is able to experience a whole new century through a deep, mesmerizing sleep. He is hypnotized one day in the middle 1800s before he goes to sleep. When Julian awakes, he finds himself back in Boston, but in the year 2000 and in a completely different society. As he experiences the new ways of life such as a new government controlled industry, free higher education for all, and an equal distribution of the common wealth, he begins to like this new utopian society. Bellamy predicts many different ways of life in his then futuristic and radical novel, creating two completely contrasting environments. The twentieth century brought with it many economic changes, including the elimination of private ownership of businesses. The new government now controls all of industrial America and the marketplace. Competition between businesses has been wiped out completely, and successful business now runs off cooperation. This system works well with supply and demand. Since there are no competing businesses, the government can easily calculate what will be needed and what wont be. This means little is wasted. Even products which arent in high demand can be manufactured as long as there is someone willing to pay the money for the product. The government is the sole distributor and manufacturer of all goods and services. They bring in all the revenue and then they distribute the wealth. The second most prevalent difference under the new economy is that there is an even distribution of the wealth. This system bridges the gap between the rich and poor, thus eliminating any class system. Everyone works for the government, and everyone receives a line of credit with the government. There is enough credit to go around for all, so the standard of living has been raised significantly. Because there is no rich or poor, no one is looked d ...

Dickens's Treatment of Social Mobility and Education in Our Mutual Essay

Dickens's Treatment of Social Mobility and Education in Our Mutual Friend - Essay Example .... as public figures, Dickens and Thackeray were more than just novelists, and even more than just literary figures. Throughout his career, Dickens lent his backing to a number of reform causes: reform of prison conditions, emigration policy, education, the civil service". (Knezevic,2003) Though Our Mutual Friend received mixed reviews at the time of its publication, it is known today as one of the best social novels by Dickens, whose concern for the ailments of his contemporary society was unflagging and remained undiminished till the end. Of course, through the comic genre Dickens has sought to vanquish the prevalent negatives of education and social mobility. His weapons of choice are humor and scarcely restrained sarcasm. But in this novel more than in any other, the attack is directed not so much at the logistical problems facing education and vertical social movement, but at the moral problems behind them: "Our Mutual Friend may be a searching attack on contemporary society, but it is one which is much more moral than Marxist". (Fielding, 1958) All Dickensian novels include an aspect of social mobility, whether in the aspirations of Pip in Great Expectations, or the plight of Nicholas in Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens had always felt compelled to examine the phenomenon of social mobility in the Victorian times. And this is a compulsion he retained to the very end, in Our Mutual Friend. This could be because it was so much in evidence in the Victorian times and also because social mobility by its nature is very complex and fascinating,: "Social mobility processes are integral to the very metabolism and core regulation of societies, both to their continuity and change over time. It is through such processes that basic social structures of class, status, and situs (branches of industry) are reproduced or transformed, emerge or disappear; that societies themselves move forward, consolidate or splinter, that institutions and enterprises recruit, that families launch their children, that individuals imagine and seek personal fulfilment in their lives".(Bertaux, Thompson, 1997) Britain during Dickens' life and times was a rapidly evolving nation, the very first in the world to be industrialised, and its society was changing in pace with this industrialisation. Social mobility was not only possible in such times of flux, it actually came to be expected, and indeed, taken for granted. The prevalence of social mobility produced the likes of Podsnap, Headstone, Bella and Charles Hexam, each an individual shaped by the socio-economic forces, who Dickens satirised in an effort to highlight the evils of social mobility without at least a degree of moral application. Dickens himself had moved up in life from having had to work in a shoe-black bottling company as a child, to becoming one of the most prominent personages in Victorian Britain. Social mobility and its various aspects were thus naturally reflected in a major part of his extensive body of work. But in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens takes his concerns regarding social mobility to a new level and examines it with great intensity, and also to quite a great extent: "We see in Our Mutual Friend what Dickens thinks of wealth for its own sake and how the rich