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showing 876 library results for '1800'

Barons of the sea : and their race to build the world's fastest clipper ship /Steven Ujifusa. "There was a time, back when the United States was young and the robber barons were just starting to come into their own, when fortunes were made and lost importing luxury goods from China. It was a secretive, glamorous, often brutal business--one where teas and silks and porcelain were purchased with profits from the opium trade. But the journey by sea back home to New York could take six agonizing months, and so the most pressing technological challenge of the day became ensuring one's goods arrived first to market, so they might fetch the highest price--making their sellers some of the first millionaires. Barons of the Sea tells the story of a handful of cutthroat competitors who raced to build the fastest, finest, most profitable clipper ships to carry their precious cargo to American shores. They were visionary, eccentric shipbuilders, debonair captains, and socially ambitious merchants with names like Forbes and Delano--men whose business interests took them from the cloistered confines of China's expatriate communities to the sin-city decadence of Gold Rush-era San Francisco and from the teeming hubbub of East Boston's shipyards and to the lavish sitting rooms of New Yorks Hudson Valley estates. Elegantly written and meticulously researched, Barons of the Sea is a riveting tale of innovation and ingenuity that draws back the curtain on the making of some of the nation's greatest fortunes, and the rise and fall of an all-American industry as sordid as it was genteel"--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 629.123.13(73)
Not made by slaves : ethical capitalism in the age of abolition /Bronwen Everill. "'East India Sugar Not Made By Slaves'-with these words on a sugar bowl, consumers of the early nineteenth century declared their power to change the global economy. Bronwen Everill examines how abolitionists in the Atlantic world shaped emerging ideas of ethical commerce to fight the system of plantation slavery that had become an engine of modern capitalism. How did consumers define ethical commerce? How did producers create markets for their products? Everill focuses on the everyday economy of the Atlantic world rather than on the more familiar boycott movements against slave-produced goods. Different approaches to making money in ethical commerce-through commercial agriculture, government contracts, international trade, and money management-shaped the relationship between production, consumption, and morality in ways that determined how slavery and freedom came to be defined in the market economy. Companies such as Macaulay & Babington in Sierra Leone, Roberts & Colson in Liberia, and Forster & Smith in the Gambia used commercial networks and government subsidies to make 'legitimate' commerce pay. Ethical commerce was also promoted by former slaves in such organizations as the Colored Free Produce Society, which promoted the idea that consumers bore responsibility for the plight of the slave and could change their buying behavior. This book illuminates global consumer society and industrial capitalism at the turn of the nineteenth century, as well as underscores the roles of slavery and antislavery movements in the development of international capitalism. It also reminds us that concerns over fair trade and labor conditions remain relevant today"--Provided by publisher. 2020. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 174/.409182109034
Neptune : from grand discovery to a world revealed : essays on the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Couch Adams /editor-in-chief, William Sheehan ; Trudy E. Bell, Carolyn Kennett, Robert W. Smith, editors. "The 1846 discovery of Neptune is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of astronomy. However, the events surrouding this discovery have long been mired in controversy engaging European and American astronomers alike. Who first predicted the new planet? Was the discovery a triumph of Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation, or was it just a lucky fluke? Written by an international group of experts, this path-breaking volume explores in unprecedented depth the contentious history of Neptune's discovery. Drawing on newly discovered documents and re-examining the historical record, the authors reveal new insights into kew individuals and the pressures acting on them. Moreover, using modern tools in celestial mechanics developed in the last twenty years, the book discusses Newton's ideas about gravity and re-examines the calculations that prompted the discovery of Neptune. This process also reveals why the approach that proved so potent for Neptune's discovery could not produce similar discoveries, despite several valiant attempts. The final cahpters recount how the discovery of Neptune marked the end of one quest - to explain the wayward motions of Uranus - and the beginning of another: to understand the outer Solar System, whose icy precincts Neptune, the outermost of the giant planets, bounds."--Provided by the publisher. 2021. • BOOK • 1 copy available. txt
The Napoleonic Wars in cartoons / Mark Bryant. "Napoleon Bonaparte, the junior artillery officer of the French Revolution who became emperor and dictator of nearly all of western Europe, was the most caricatured figure of his time, with almost 1000 satirical drawings being produced about his exploits by British artists alone. Long before the advent of illustrated daily or weekly newspapers these hand-coloured prints were a major source of news and opinion and had considerable impact on the public at large. From the battles of the Nile, Copenhagen, Trafalgar, Austerlitz, Jena and Leipzig to the Peninsular War, the invasion of Russia, exile on Elba and his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the actions of Napoleon and his opponents were the main focus of graphic satire worldwide for nearly twenty years. The Napoleonic Wars were also the main topic of interest for some of the greatest cartoonists of all time, making this period part of the 'The Golden Age of Caricature' which spanned the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The diminutive emperor was a gift to cartoonists and James Gillray's transformation of him into the Lilliputian character 'Little Boney' was immensely popular. He also appeared as various kinds of grotesque creature - from ape, serpent and dragon to earwig, toadstool and crocodile - forever battling the mighty John Bull, Britannia and the British Bulldog as well as the Russian bear and the Austrian and Prussian eagles. The Allied monarchs and military commanders themselves were also custom-made for caricature. The Duke of Wellington's nose, General Blucher's flamboyant moustache, the one-armed Lord Nelson, the pug-faced (and mad) Tsar Paul of Russia, the portly Prince of Wales and the wiry Prime Minister, William 'Bottomless' Pitt all feature prominently. "Napoleonic Wars in Cartoons" is divided into chapters each prefaced with a concise introduction that provides an historical framework for the work of that period. Altogether more than 300 drawings from both sides of the conflicts, in colour and black-and-white, have been skilfully blended to produce a unique visual history."--Dust jacket. 2009. • FOLIO • 1 copy available. 741.5:355.49"1793/1812"(42:44)
Britain against Napoleon : the organisation of victory, 1793-1815 /by Roger Knight. "For more than twenty years after 1793, the French army was supreme in continental Europe. Only at sea was British power dominant, though even with this crucial advantage the British population lived under fear of a French invasion for much of those two decades. How was it that despite multiple changes of government and the assassination of a Prime Minister, Britain survived and eventually won a generation-long war against a regime which at its peak in 1807 commanded many times the resources and manpower? There have been innumerable books about the battles, armies and navies of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This book looks beyond the familiar exploits (and bravery) of the army and navy to the politicians and civil servants, and examines how they made it possible to continue the war at all. It shows the degree to which, because of the magnitude and intensity of hostilities, the capacities of the whole British population were involved: industrialists, farmers, shipbuilders, cannon founders, gunsmiths and gunpowder manufacturers all had continually to increase quality and output as the demands of the war remorselessly grew. The intelligence war was also central: Knight shows that despite a poor beginning to both gathering and assessment, Whitehall's methods steadily improved.No participants were more important, he argues, than the bankers and international traders of the City of London, who played a critical role in financing the wars and without whom the armies of Britain's allies could not have taken the field. Knight demonstrates that despite these extraordinary efforts, between 1807 and 1812 Britain came very close to losing the war against Napoleon - not through invasion (though the danger until 1811 was very real) but through financial and political exhaustion. The Duke of Wellington famously said that the battle which finally defeated Napoleon was 'the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life': this book shows how true that was for the Napoleonic War as a whole."--Provided by the publisher. 2013. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 355.49"1793/1815"(42:44)
Recaptured Africans : surviving slave ships, detention, and dislocation in the final years of the slave trade /Sharla M. Fett. "In the years just before the Civil War, during the most intensive phase of American slave-trade suppression, the U.S. Navy seized roughly 2,000 enslaved Africans from illegal slave ships and brought them into temporary camps at Key West and Charleston. In this study, Sharla Fett reconstructs the social world of these "recaptives" and recounts the relationships they built to survive the holds of slave ships, American detention camps, and, ultimately, a second transatlantic voyage to Liberia. Fett also demonstrates how the presence of slave-trade refugees in southern ports accelerated heated arguments between divergent antebellum political movements--from abolitionist human rights campaigns to slave-trade revivalism--that used recaptives to support their claims about slavery, slave trading, and race. By focusing on shipmate relations rather than naval exploits or legal trials, and by analyzing the experiences of both children and adults of varying African origins, Fett provides the first history of U.S. slave-trade suppression centered on recaptive Africans themselves. In so doing, she examines the state of "recaptivity" as a distinctive variant of slave-trade captivity and situates the recaptives' story within the broader diaspora of "Liberated Africans" throughout the Atlantic world."--Provided by publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 326.1
Farewell to old England forever / Doug Limbrick. "The author's objective is to explain, describe and evoke wonder about those people who chose to leave family and friends forever and sail half way around the world in a small vessel in order to emigrate to a remote place they had little knowledge about. In order to understand this story the reader needs to know what it was like in the colonies in the nineteenth century, how the home and colonial governments felt about emigration/immigration, what was involved in emigrating, the reasons why people emigrated, who decided to emigrate, what the emigrant vessels were like, what the emigrants experienced on this long sea passage and the experience on arrival.Researched and written over a period of some eight years the book draws on a large number of original and old documents, manuscripts, monographs, letters, journals, diaries, ships logs and newspaper articles and a considerable amount of old and contemporary published material found in a number of the major Australian Libraries. The research work included investigating the vast amount of material copied onto microfilm as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project by the National Library of Australia and the State Library of NSW. As a result of this research the book includes many quotations from letters, diaries, newspaper articles and old documents to illustrate points and bring a nineteenth century perspective. The use of personal stories also adds interest and reality for the reader."--Provided by the publisher. 2017 • BOOK • 1 copy available. 325.2(94)
'I was transformed' : Frederick Douglass: an American slave in victorian Britain /Laurence Fenton "In the summer of 1845, Frederick Douglass, the young runaway slave catapulted to fame by his incendiary autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, arrived in Liverpool for the start of a near-two-year tour of Britain and Ireland he always called one of the most transformative periods of his life. Laurence Fenton draws on a wide array of sources from both sides of the Atlantic and combines a unique insight into the early years of one of the great figures of the nineteenth-century world with rich profiles of the enormous personalities at the heart of the transatlantic anti-slavery movement. This vivid portrait of life in Victorian Britain is the first to fully explore the 'liberating sojourn' that ended with Douglass gaining his freedom - paid for by British supporters - before returning to America as a celebrity and icon of international standing. It also follows his later life, through the American Civil War and afterwards. Douglass has been described as 'the most influential African American of the nineteenth century'. He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education and the abolition of capital punishment. But he devoted most of his time, immense talent and boundless energy to ending slavery. On April 14, 1876, Douglass would deliver the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park."--Provided by the publisher. 2018. • BOOK • 1 copy available. 92DOUGLASS, FREDERICK