The Stagecoach

A stagecoach clatters into a western frontier town and pulls to a stop, sending up a cloud of dust. The excited townspeople crowd around it. They crane their necks to see passengers step off the coach, and they watch as mail and packages are unloaded. The stagecoach is their link to the outside world.

The stagecoach got its name from its long trip in stages, stopping at stations for fresh horses, food, and rest. Stagecoach lines were introduced in Europe in the seventeenth century. In the early days of the United States, they were important links between eastern cities.

As Americans moves west, stagecoaches did too. They were the only means of cross-country transportation in the West until the railroads replaced them in the late 1800s. Western coaches carried six to nine passengers and were pulled by four to six horses. The driver sat outside, and luggage was strapped on the roof. Sometimes coaches were attacked by bandits or Indians, so an armed assistant rode “shotgun” next to the driver. But on most runs, as the coach jolted along rough, dusty trails, a backache was a bigger risk than robbery.

The Overland Mail Company began to carry mail from St. Louis, Missiouri, to San Francisco, California, in 1857. It’s stagecoaches me the trip in 25 days.

New England Town Meetings

“Hear ye, hear ye!” A gavel slams and a New England town meeting beings. Town meetings have been a New England institution since the seventeenth century. At these meetings, voters elect officials, approve local laws, and levy taxes on themselves. Thus colonists began a strong tradition of self-rule and community responsibility that has continued to the present day.

Town meetings were held at least once a year and were attended by each town’s “freemen”---male property owners. The election of the town officials usually came from prosperous, highly respected families. But all the men in the community were expected to take a turn at some public office---constable, tax collector, fence inspector, or hog reeve (the catcher of runaway pigs).

After the election, the freemen would debate other issues such as proposed new laws, taxes, and public projects. Town meetings served to nourish the New England colonists’ passion for democracy. Not surprisingly, they soon began to resent any interference from a distant king or country.

Today’s town meetings ramain the basic unit of self-government in many New England towns. One major change is that they are now attended by all registered voters, including women and people who don’t own property.

Because of population growth, some towns have “representative town meetings” with attendees elected by their neighbors.

M*A*S*H

On February 28, 1983, the biggest audience in television history watched the final episode of a beloved comedy series. That series was M*A*S*H, which ran for 11 years on CBS and is still seen in reruns around the world. All together there are 255 episodes of the show.

M*A*S*H tells the story of the doctors and nurses of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. In many episodes, helicopters bring wounded soldiers to the M*A*S*H unit, where the surgeons and nurses care for them. To keep their sanity under grim circumstances, the M*A*S*H personnel break military rules and engage in a a constant stream of wisecracks, pranks, and loony activities. The show’s underlying message is that war is cruel and inhuman, but the human spirit cannot be extinguished. The fact that a real war was raging in Vietnam at the time of M*A*S*H’s debut made its message especially meaningful.

Among the shows memorable characters are Corporal Kinger, who wears women’s clothes in the hope that he will be sent home; “Hot Lips” Houlihan, the head nurse; and “Radar” O’Reilly, the farm boy who serves as the company clerk.

The heart of M*A*S*H is “Hawkeye” Pierce, a surgeon played by Alan Alda. His brash manner and practical jokes, combined with his compassion for people and hatred of war, are the center of a unique show that touches the heart while provoking laughter.

Mountain Men

They wore fringed buckskin clothes decorated with porcupine quills. Around their necks they carried sacks filled with salt, coffee, tobacco, gunpowder, and other necessities. They ate whatever they could catch or gather, including buffalo mean, roots, berries, and even ants. During the harsh winters, they often lived with Indians, who taught them survival skills.

These adventurers were known as the Mountain Men. They were hired in the 1820s by the Rocky Mountain Fur Company “to ascend the Missouri to its source” and to send back beaver pelts and other fur. The life of a Mountain Men was hard, but he had a chance to make a lot of money, and he lived free human law and restrictions. Each year in late summer, the Mountain Men gathered at one meeting place, a “rendezvous.” There they traded for furs for supplies and money. Then they celebrated for days with dancing, drinking, target shooting, and storytelling.

By 1840, the fur trade began to decline. The trappers had done such a thorough job that there were few beavers left to catch. Many Mountain Men abandoned trapping and served as army scouts or guildes for the settlers moving to the Far West.

When Mountain Men could find nothing else to eat, they made soup from their moccasins.

Marquis de Lafayette

He was called “the hero of two worlds” because of his important role in both the American and the French revolutions. He was the Marquis de Lafayette, a French nobelman who devoted his life to fighting for liberty under law.

Lafayette came to America in 1777 to help the 13 colonies in their revolt against England. At first the colonists were suspicious of the 19-year-old Frenchman, but Lafayette volunteered to serve without pay in the colonial army. He fought bravely and was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. He lived through the hard winter with George Washington at Valley Forge and became one of Washington’s closest friends and most successful generals. But more important was his key role in convincing the French government to provide support for the colonials.

Lafayette was present at Yorktown, Virginia. In October 1781, when a large British army was trapped by American troops and French forces that had come to help the colonials. The British surrendered, bringing the Revolution to an end. Lafayette returned to France and worked for the liberty of his own countrymen. When he died in 1834, flags flew at half-mast all across the U.S. in honor of the Frenchman known as “America’s Marquis.”

Lafayette visited the U.S. in 1824. When he returned to France, he took with him a box of American soil. Ten years later that soil was used to cover his grave.

The Early Movies

In the early 1900s, all you needed was a projector, a sheet to use as a screen, some chairs, and an empty storefront. Then you could open up a “nickelodeon” and collect five cents apiece from all the people who wanted to see the newest form of popular entertainment, the movies.

The first movies, just a few minutes long, showed everyday scenes: a sneeze, a kiss, a train. But then the “flickers” began to tell stories. In 1903, crowds flocked to see the Great Train Robbery, which tells, in 12 minutes, the story of a gang of outlaws who rob a train and are then chased and gunned down by a posse. By 1908, there were more than 10,000 nickelodeons in the U.S. alone, serving more than 25 million customers each week. Movies grew longer and more ambitious. And ornate theaters called “picture palaces” were built to show the expensive dramatic epics created by D.W. Griffith and others.

People went to the movies for thrills and laughter. Audiences especially loved the slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett at the Keystone Studios in Hollywood beginning in 1912. Those films featured the wacky “Keystone Kops,” and always included a wild chase during which everything that could go wrong did. Audiences didn’t care that the films were silent; they often laughed too loud to hear dialogue.

Charlie Chaplin, the great comedian began his career in Sennett’s Keystone comedies.

The Wright Brothers Learn to Fly

On the morning of December 17, 1903, on the windy dunes at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. Orville Wright made the first manned and powered flight.

Orville and his brother Wilbur operated a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. They had been dreaming about flying since the 1890s. They were not trained scientists or engineers, but they made a scientific study of the problems of flight. They built and tested gliders to understand the principles of flying. They created a wind tunnel in the bicycle shop to test wing designs, and they studied propeller designs, and control mechanisms. Their machinist built a 12-horsepower gasoline engine for them. By 1903, the brothers had built a twin-winged airplane, the Flyer, and they felt confident it would fly.

At Kitty Hawk, they constructed a wooden track down a hill to provide a smooth surface for takeoff. With Orville at the controls, Wilbur guilded the plane down the track, and it bounded into the air. After covering 40 yards in 12 seconds, it landed gently in the sand. Before the day was out, the brothers had made three more flights, one of which lasted almost a minute. Man, at last, had learned to fly.

The Wright Flyer had twin pusher propellers drive by two bicycle chains from the brother’s shop.