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George Washington Whistler
George Washington Whistler (May 19, 1800 – April 7, 1849) was a prominent American civil engineer best known for building steam locomotives and railroads. He is credited with introducing the steam whistle to American locomotives. In 1842, Tsar Nicholas I hired him to build the Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway, Russia's first large-scale railroad.Gasparini, D. A., K. Nizamiev, and C. Tardini. "GW Whistler and the Howe Bridges on the Nikolaev Railway, 1842–1851", American Society of Civil Engineers, ''Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities'' 30.3 (2015): DOI link:04015046.https://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000791 One of Whistler's important influences was the introduction of the Howe truss for the Russian railroad's bridges. This inspired the renowned Russian engineer Dmitrii Ivanovich Zhuravskii (1821–1891) to perform studies and develop structural analysis techniques for Howe truss bridges. He was the father of American artist James McNeill Whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Inman (painter)
Henry Inman (October 20, 1801 – January 17, 1846) was an American portrait, genre, and landscape painter. Early life He was born at Utica, New York, to English immigrant parents who were among the first settlers of Utica. His family moved to New York City in 1812. Beginning in 1814 and continuing for the next seven years, he was an apprentice pupil of John Wesley Jarvis in New York City, along with John Quidor. Career He was the first vice president of the National Academy of Design. He excelled in portrait painting, but was less careful in genre pictures. Among his landscapes are ''Rydal Falls, England'', ''October Afternoon'', and ''Ruins of Brambletye''. His genre subjects include ''Rip Van Winkle'', ''The News Boy'', and ''Boyhood of Washington''. His portraits include those of Henry Rutgers and Fitz-Greene Halleck in the New York Historical Society. He also painted portraits of Angelica Singleton Van Buren, Bishop White, Chief Justices Marshall and Nelson, Jac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forts Of Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne was a series of three successive military log stockades existing between 1794 and 1819 in the Miami Indian village of Kekionga, on the portage between the St. Mary's and St. Joseph Rivers in northeastern Indiana, in what is now the city of Fort Wayne. The fort succeeded the original Fort Miami, which originated as a French trading outpost around 1706. The first fort with that name was built in 1794 by Captain Jean François Hamtramck under orders from General "Mad" Anthony Wayne as part of the campaign against the Miami Indians during the Northwest Indian War. It was constructed to secure the territory gained in the Battle of Fallen Timbers, in which Wayne had recently been victorious, and was named after him. Wayne may have chosen the name himself—the fort was dedicated the day after he left it. The fort was officially occupied by the US Army on October 21, 1794. It later saw service in the War of 1812. After the war, settlements started growing up ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Survey Act
The General Survey Act was a law passed by the United States Congress in April 1824, which authorized the president to have surveys made of routes for transport roads and canals "of national importance, in a commercial or military point of view, or necessary for the transportation of public mail." While such infrastructure of national scope had been discussed and shown wanting for years, its passage shortly followed the landmark US Supreme Court ruling, ''Gibbons v. Ogden'', which first established federal authority over interstate commerce including navigation by river. The US president assigned responsibility for the surveys to the Corps of Engineers (USACE).Improving Transportation , |
Lake Of The Woods
Lake of the Woods (french: Lac des Bois, oj, Pikwedina Sagainan) is a lake occupying parts of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and the U.S. state of Minnesota. Lake of the Woods is over long and wide, containing more than 14,552 islands and of shoreline. It is fed by the Rainy River, Shoal Lake, Kakagi Lake and other smaller rivers. The lake drains into the Winnipeg River and then into Lake Winnipeg. Ultimately, its outflow goes north through the Nelson River to Hudson Bay. Lake of the Woods is also the sixth largest freshwater lake located (at least partially) in the United States, after the five Great Lakes, and the 36th largest lake in the world by area. It separates a small land area of Minnesota from the rest of the United States. The Northwest Angle and the town of Angle Township can be reached from the rest of Minnesota only by crossing the lake or by traveling through Canada. The Northwest Angle is the northernmost part of the contiguous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Superior
Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh water. The northern and westernmost of the Great Lakes of North America, it straddles the Canada–United States border with the province of Ontario to the north and east, and the states of Minnesota to the northwest and Wisconsin and Michigan to the south. It drains into Lake Huron via St. Marys River, then through the lower Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River and the Atlantic Ocean. Name The Ojibwe name for the lake is ''gichi-gami'' (in syllabics: , pronounced ''gitchi-gami'' or ''kitchi-gami'' in different dialects), meaning "great sea". Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this name as "Gitche Gumee" in the poem '' The Song of Hiawatha'', as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song " The Wreck of the ''Edmund Fitzgerald''". Accordin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Columbus
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ("to make"). From very early history to modern times, defensive walls have often been necessary for cities to survive in an ever-changing world of invasion and conquest. Some settlements in the Indus Valley civilization were the first small cities to be fortified. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae (famous for the huge stone blocks of its ' cyclopean' walls). A Greek '' phrourion'' was a fortified collection of buildings used as a military garrison, and is the equivalent of the Roman castellum or English fortress. These constructions mainly served the purpose of a watch tower, to guard certain roads, passes, and borders. Though smaller than a real fortress, they a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topography
Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary science and is concerned with local detail in general, including not only relief, but also natural, artificial, and cultural features such as roads, land boundaries, and buildings. In the United States, topography often means specifically ''relief'', even though the USGS topographic maps record not just elevation contours, but also roads, populated places, structures, land boundaries, and so on. Topography in a narrow sense involves the recording of relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the identification of specific landforms; this is also known as geomorphometry. In modern usage, this involves generation of elevation data in digital form ( DEM). It is often considered to include the graphic representat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fisher Ames
Fisher Ames (; April 9, 1758 – July 4, 1808) was a Representative in the United States Congress from the 1st Congressional District of Massachusetts. He was an important leader of the Federalist Party in the House, and was noted for his oratorical skill. Personal life Ames was born in Dedham in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. His father, Dr. Nathaniel Ames, died when Fisher was but six years old, but his mother, Deborah Fisher resolved, in spite of her limited income, to give the boy a classical education. He belonged to one of the oldest families in Massachusetts and in his line of his ancestry was Rev. William Ames. At the age of six he began the study of Latin, and at the age of twelve, he was sent to Harvard College, graduating in 1774 when he began work as a teacher. While teaching school Ames also studied law in the office of William Tudor. He was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Dedham in 1781. He had a brother, also named Nathaniel Ames. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirk Boott
Kirk Boott (October 20, 1790 – April 11, 1837) was an American Industrialist instrumental in the early history of Lowell, Massachusetts. Biography Boott was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1790. His father had emigrated to the United States from England in 1783, and worked in Boston as a wholesale merchant. After studying for a time in Boston schools, the son attended Rugby School in England, and later went to Harvard College (class of 1809). Before graduation, Boott left Harvard for England to study civil engineering with the goal of joining the British army. When he was 21, a commission as lieutenant in the British army was purchased for him. With his regiment, the 85th light infantry, he took part in the peninsular campaign against Napoleon, landing in Spain in August 1813. After Napoleon had been sent to Elba, Boott's regiment was detailed for service against the United States, and took part in the attacks on Washington and on New Orleans. Boott, however, was excused ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William McNeill Whistler
William McNeill Whistler (July 22, 1836 – February 27, 1900) was an American physician and a medical army officer for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. He was the younger brother of artist James McNeill Whistler. Early life Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the second son of George Washington Whistler and Anna McNeill Whistler. His father was a former West Point graduate who abandoned a military career to become a civil engineer specializing in railroad construction. In 1842 Czar Nicholas I hired him to build the Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway, and he brought his family out to Saint Petersburg the following year. The Whistlers would spend the next five years in Russia, leaving in 1848 to escape a cholera epidemic that would claim the life of George Whistler the following year. Anna Whistler returned to the United States with her two sons, settling in Pomfret, Connecticut. Whistler attended Christ Church School in Pomfret, and St. James College i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His signature for his paintings took the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail. The symbol combined both aspects of his personality: his art is marked by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting, '' Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1'' (1871), commonly known as ''Whistler's Mother'', is a revered and often parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his theories and his friendships with other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Gibbs McNeill
William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Liam, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
