Contents Introduction 5 Chapter 1 The Animal Kingdom 9 Chapter 2 What You Wear 17 Chapter 3 Getting Around 29 Chapter 4 Fun and Games 45 Chapter 5 Personal Hygiene 61 Chapter 6 Odds and Ends 73 Chapter 7 A Handful of Stories 83 An Afterword 93
Introduction The earliest settlements in America were surrounded by a vast seemingly impenetrable forest that covered the east coast from Florida to Canada and went inland for hundreds and hundreds of miles Few people lived here then roads were wretched when they existed and communications were virtually nonexistent When William Bradford described the New World in his 1630 history Of Plymoth Plantation he called it a hideous and desolate wilderness full of wild beasts and wild men How did men and women cope with these strange harsh surroundings Many didn’t Some died the result of disease an occasional hostile Indian or simple stupidity Others waited for the next ship and fled back to their homelands in civilized Europe Most however chose to stay and face obstacles with stubborn determination They confronted their problems head on for a very good reason either they solved them or they went hungry Logical ingenuity often helped ensure survival and the development of the Kentucky long rifle is a perfect example of this Before the Kentucky long rifle the gun the colonists used was the primitive matchlock a weapon requiring over fifteen steps to set off and so heavy it had to be mounted on a stand When the rifle fired something not at all guaranteed in rain or snow it made a great noise and flash Unfortunately it was so inaccurate that hitting any target especially one that moved was more a matter of incredible luck than skill But Americans needed a more reliable weapon in order to survive a fact that might seem strange to many people today Just remember that there were no supermarkets or shopping malls back then and no standing army or police either Settlers living apart from a village had to have a way to defend themselves game was often their only source of meat while animal furs and skins had to be used for shoes and clothing JIM MURPHY 5
As the population increased to 300,000 by 1710 so did the demand and the market for better rifles It was this possibility of profit that prompted German settlers in western Pennsylvania to fashion a different sort of rifle around 1720 They improved the firing mechanism so the rifle would always go off They also lengthened the barrel to four feet and cut spiral grooves inside it called rifling European gunsmiths knew about rifling in the sixteenth century but had never applied the concept with much determination Rifling made the bullet spin which allowed for more precise aim One problem with rifling was that the bullet had to fit very snugly for it to catch in the groove and spin The German craftsmen’s solution was straightforward and brilliant they wrapped the lead shot in a patch of greased leather The resulting tight fit worked What’s more a backwoodsman could make his own shot without too much concern for exact tooling The final product was a nine-pound rifle easy to carry and fire and accurate up to 300 yards The Kentucky long rifle was an early attempt to confront and control the wilderness through invention Other attempts followed In fact Americans have produced more than 4 ½ million patented inventions over the past 200 years one of the greatest outpourings of practical creativity in history The list is endless but includes such well-known items as the safety pin telephone elevator screw-top jar baseball glove airplane barbed wire and record player What follows is a quiz involving forty-five of the lesser-known though much funnier inventions including several from Europe proof that inventiveness and humor existed elsewhere Patent drawings and magazine illustrations give the visual clue A written clue plus a number of possible answers are provided to aid you in your guessing Study the clues carefully try to imagine how the gadget might have worked and what the inventor was thinking when he assembled it Then turn the page to see if your answer is correct Don’t be afraid to laugh during the quiz After all these inventions aren’t called weird and wacky for no reason On the other hand try not to judge these machines too severely no matter how outrageous they may appear Each represents an individual’s attempt to make life a little easier or safer or more fun A visitor to the United States Alexis de Tocqueville noted this unstoppable drive It would seem he wrote in his book Democracy in America 1835-1840 6 BAFFLING BIZARRE INVENTIONS
as if in the United States every man’s power of invention was on the stretch to find new ways of increasing the wealth and satisfying the needs of the public And maybe more than anything else it’s this spirit of inventiveness coupled with our willingness to laugh at ourselves that truly unites us even today JIM MURPHY 7
