Armstrong-History

Goodyear, who was by then obsessed with rubber, was not discouraged. He began experimenting, mixing dry powders into the rubber in order to make it less soft and sticky.

Madison studied law at home but had no passion for it.

In 1776, he became a delegate to the revolutionary Virginia Convention and would later push through statutes on religious freedom, among other measures, that he had worked on with Thomas Jefferson.

For three years, he argued vigorously for legislation to strengthen the loose confederacy of former colonies, contending that military victory required vesting power in a central government.

Based on her interpretation of Scripture, Sarah advocated full equality for women in education, vocation, politics, and finances. She became a role model for many women who later became leaders in the suffrage movement, and is still a role model for many today. Sarah Moore Grimké confronted racism and prejudice within church, society, and herself.

In 1838 the sisters persuaded their mother to give them, as their share of the family estate, slaves, whom they immediately freed.

15th Amendment ratified (1870). Section 1. "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

She was later employed by the Continental Congress to make flags and colors of various kinds. There is no evidence, however, that she had anything to do with the design or the manufacturing of the American flag, contrary to popular myth.

The next 11 he spent in the backwoods of Wisconsin, working through the daylight hours, clearing the forest, holding a plow to a straight furrow behind a team of oxen, digging wells through hard bedrock, and taking an adult's part in subduing wild nature.

He also prepared throughout his childhood for his life as a naturalist by a close attention to the wonders of nature. Everything, it seemed, drew his eye and his mind, and all creatures drew his sympathy, whether the mice that ate the grain he had wrung from the earth by the sweat of his brow or the intelligent old ox Buck, who figured out how to open pumpkins to feast on the succulent inner flesh. As a teenager, he had no time for school and little opportunity for formal study.

Sakakawea, my grandmother, died at the trader's place, seven days after that."

While admitting that historians agree that there are no primary sources to support the Ross tale, the Revolutionary War Archives present the "overwhelming circumstantial evidence in support of Betsy."

In 1868 the Grimke-Weld trio served as officers (with Sarah as a vice president) of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association; two years later Sarah and Angelina led a group of Hyde Park women in unlawful attempts to cast ballots in a local election. On one occasion the 79-year-old Sarah tramped up and down the countryside distributing copies of John Stuart Mill's Subjection of Women. Her involvement with Massachusetts suffrage crusaders continued until her death in Hyde Park. Grimke's contribution to antislavery agitation was pivotal, not only because of her considerable talent as a writer, speaker, teacher, and pamphleteer, but also because of her sex, southern nativity, and uncommon courage. As leaders of the female antislavery movement, Sarah and Angelina regularly risked physical harm and slander. They were the only women to brave social custom and charges of "heresy" in the 1837 speaking tour of New England; with Abigail Kelley, Frances Wright, Maria Stewart, and several others, Sarah made it possible for later generations of women to occupy public spaces without fear (as happened on one occasion) of having to run a gauntlet of jeering men and boys. Sarah's elegant mapping of similarities (and, occasionally, of differences) between white women in America and African-American slaves--and especially her insistence that white women learn to empathize more completely with black women--elevated her to the first rank of social reformers and Christian-feminist theoreticians. As historian Larry Ceplair put it, Sarah Grimke and her devoted sister were genuine "revolutionaries" in a land not given to revolutionary change, "increasingly conscious that they were blazing a public path for women of courage who had seen a light or heard a voice of truth" (Ceplair, p. xi).

He experimented endlessly, kneading various chemicals into the raw rubber.

Born: November 25, 1835Died: August 11, 1919Andrew Carnegie's life was a true "rags to riches" story. Born to a poor Scottish family that immigrated to the United States, Carnegie became a powerful businessman and a leading force in the American steel industry. Today, he is remembered as an industrialist, millionaire, and philanthropist. Carnegie believed that the wealthy had an obligation to give back to society, so he donated much of his fortune to causes like education and peace.

John Smith Individual The English soldier and adventurer Capt. John Smith not only helped to found the Virginia colony but also, through his bold and vigorous leadership, played a crucial role in its survival. Born the son of a farmer in Willoughby, England in 1579 or 1580, Smith left home at an early age to seek adventure as a soldier in Europe. While serving with the eastern European forces that were fighting the Turks, he was captured and sold into slavery. After a dramatic escape and further adventures abroad, Smith returned to England. There, by his own account, he helped organize the Virginia Company of London for the purpose of starting a colony in Virginia. In December 1606, Smith was one of the 108 colonists who sailed for America in three ships. Landing in Virginia in May 1607, the colonists founded a settlement at Jamestown, 40 miles up the James River. From the start, Jamestown was wracked by disease and internal dissension. Unlike Smith, who at the age of 27 was already a tough and experienced captain, most of the settlers were ill-prepared for the serious business of establishing a colony. They had come expecting to make their fortunes through the discovery of gold and silver and were unwilling to work to feed and defend themselves. As a later settler observed, the colonists "would rather starve in idleness . . . than feast in labor." Smith quickly emerged as a natural leader by virtue of his energy and resourcefulness. He traded with the Powhatan Confederacy for corn to feed the starving settlers and went on several voyages to explore the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. On one expedition, undertaken in December 1607, Smith and seven companions were ambushed by Native Americans, and Smith was taken prisoner and brought before their chief, Powhatan. According to Smith, he was saved from death through the intervention of Powhatan's 11-year-old daughter, Pocahontas. In this and subsequent dealings with the Native Americans, Smith showed himself a shrewd strategist. He drove a hard bargain and generally got what he wanted through bluff and a show of force but very little bloodshed. Upon his return to Jamestown in January 1608, Smith found that rival leaders had assumed control. Held responsible for the deaths of two of his men, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to hang. Only the timely arrival of a supply-laden English ship, with a high official on board (who restored Smith as a leader of the colony), saved Smith from the gallows. The following fall, Smith managed to defeat his rivals and get himself elected president of Jamestown's governing council. He soon put the colony under what amounted to martial law. Declaring that the settlers "must be more industrious or starve," Smith made them farm and work at other constructive tasks, including strengthening the settlement's defenses against Indian attack. Smith's term as president lasted just a year. In September 1609, he returned to England. That winter, the colony was nearly wiped out by starvation and Indian attacks. In 1614, Smith again sailed for America, this time to explore the area around Cape Cod, which he named "New England." He returned with a valuable cargo of fish and furs, along with accurate maps of the region. Smith's second and last voyage to America ended when he was captured by pirates. Escaping and making his way back to England, he devoted himself to writing accounts of his travels. His most important book was The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624). In it, Smith emphasized the importance of products like fish, furs, and timber; criticized the fruitless quest for gold and silver; and urged that future colonists be willing to work hard. His information and maps were most helpful to later settlers. A colorful, near-legendary figure, Smith has inevitably been the subject of much controversy. Although in the past historians discounted Smith's overblown accounts of his exploits, modern research has largely substantiated his claims to fame. Smith died in England on June 21, 1631.

While the rubber industry in America seemed destined for failure, Charles Goodyear had not lost faith. He had no scientific training, but by 1835, he had spent two years experimenting with rubber and was completely obsessed with it.

He experienced a sudden curiosity and wonder about this mysterious material. "There is probably no other inert substance," he said later, "which so excites the mind."

Goodyear was determined to solve the problems inherent in natural rubber. With no formal training in chemistry, his work was based on trial and error, experimenting with different methods of processing and additives such as magnesia.

He had spent five years, since going bankrupt in hardware, trying to make something useful from natural rubber, which is gooey in the summer and brittle in the winter. His idea had been to coat it with a powder to make it less sticky, but by dropping the mixture onto the stove he had invented "vulcanization" (Vulcan, Roman god of fire) and created the elastic form of rubber upon which we increasingly depend.