A Nice Award, a Great Honor, at the State House

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I was about to call for an Uber to take me downtown Tuesday when I looked at my watch and thought: Take the T. I was going to the State House to collect a nice award for “The Race Underground” from the Massachusetts Center for the Book, as one of its Non-Fiction Books of the Year (I was not the category’s big winner, that went to Elizabeth Kolbert for “Sixth Extinction).

So I walked up to the JFK/UMass station and took the Red Line to Park Street, which, of course, was the second station that the first subway in America stopped at on September 1, 1897, after first passing through the Boylston Street station. Park Street was also where a Boston Globe reporter stood in the early 1890s to count the street traffic as part of the subway debate. It was, needless to say, very congested. This is what I wrote about that moment:  A reporter for the Globe went out one afternoon, stood at the busy downtown corner of Park Street and Tremont Street in front of the towering, white Park Street Church and counted 303 streetcars passing by in a single hour, or five every minute.  A “mile an hour pace” is how the paper described the scene. 

Insert joke here about how much it’s changed now that those streetcars are underground.

That corner is also a historic spot for another reason. The same construction engineer, Solomon Willard, who built the Bunker Hill Monument oversaw the look of the Park Street Church in 1809. And it’s where “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” was first sung in public and where William Lloyd Garrison spoke out against slavery for the first time.

Okay, history lesson over. Back to the awards.

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It was a really terrific ceremony, in a beautiful part of the State House, what’s called Nurse’s Hall, beneath the golden dome. There were about 30 authors there, from categories like non-fiction, fiction, poetry, children’s and young adult. And all of us got certificates like these, really nice, signed by our legislators. And some of the local lawmakers even came and honored their local winners, like Sonia Chang-Diaz from Jamaica Plain (below, right). IMG_4240 IMG_4239

 

 

 

 

 

Below left was a fellow author I sat with and had a terrific chat with, Katherine Howe. She’s from Marblehead, and wrote what sounds like a terrific young adult novel called “Conversion,” about a present-day North Shore private school and a mysterious illness that brings back memories of Salem and witches. Katherine and I took the pictures of each other getting our awards.

All of the writers got a moment to speak and just thank the Mass Center for the Book for organizing the event and luncheon. I said a few words about the vital importance of libraries in our communities, for research, but also just for our kids, to constantly encourage them to browse the stacks and get lost in their imagination.

I did not do any T-bashing, tempting as it may have been. It’s hard to believe that two years after “The Race Underground” was published in hardcover and a year after the paperback that these moments are still happening for me. But I’m not complaining.

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NYPL releases new, high-res photos of America’s first subways under construction

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If you’re anything of a history geek like me, this is cool news. The New York Public Library, a place where I spent many long days and nights researching “The Race Underground,” in particular using its private papers of  engineering titan Frank J. Sprague, has released digitally more than 180,000 photos, postcards, maps and other items in the public domain. And in releasing them, the library is eagerly inviting people to do what I am doing right now: Download high-res-files, grab them and use them.

Naturally, I went poking around for any cool subway photos and found a bunch, one from Boston and lots from New York. Click on each image to see it larger. I’ve seen a few of these, but they are never easy to get access to. As the New York Times, a lot of these images have been available, just not in great resolution.

Here is what a library official told The New York Times: “We see digitization as a starting point, not end point,” said Ben Vershbow, the director of NYPL Labs, the in-house technology division that spearheaded the effort. “We don’t just want to put stuff online and say, ‘Here it is,’ but rev the engines and encourage reuse.”

I grabbed a few that appealed to me quickly, including one below in color of an early train coming out of Boston’s first subway, near Arlington Street, which I had never seen before (and trust me, I saw a lot of photos!). The others are mostly of New York’s subway under construction. My book has a lot more image (sorry, shameless plug), but these are pretty cool. Enjoy.


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Who was the first Boston subway conductor, in 1897?

First_car_into_Tremont_Street_Subway,_pictured_at_Allston_carhouseReading today about the Red Line train taking off without a conductor (“Red Line Train Leaves Station Without Conductor”) made me think about the first Boston subway ride, and who was the conductor on that train. Here is a passage from the chapter of The Race Underground where I describe in great detail that historic day in Boston, September 1, 1897, when Bostonians got their first ride underground.

I love some of the details I was able to collect from that ride, especially the story of the Somerville gentleman, C.W. Davis:

EACH CAR WOULD HAVE A MOTORMAN AND A CONDUCTOR, one to drive, the other to collect the tickets from the passengers.  Strapping James Reed, or Jimmy as he was known, short and muscular with a thick mustache and bronzed face after almost thirty years of railway driving, and Gilman “Gil” Trufant, one of the oldest and gentlest conductors in Boston, were two of the most experienced transit men in the city, and so it was decided that their Pearl Street-Allston car should be the first through the tunnel.  Reed grew up in a small brownstone on Tyler Street and attended public schools downtown until his family moved to the grittier Charlestown neighborhood.   He enlisted in the army for the Civil War, but when he was told he wasn’t old enough to shoulder a gun, he was made a drummer.  He came home frustrated after his enlistment ended, feeling like he had not done his part, but he quickly grew bored and re-enlisted, this time as a private, and his second stint earned him his stripes by taking part in some of the war’s fiercest battles.  When the war ended he came home to Boston and took up in the railway business.  He drove his first railway car in 1868 for the Middlesex railroad company, from Boston up to Malden, and later joined the Metropolitan and the South Boston companies, before Whitney’s West End merger eventually swallowed him up.  When the day arrived for Boston to unveil its subway, he was a natural choice to man the first trip.  He had a trustworthy face, weathered from years of being battered by the sun and snow and wind and rain.  And he knew his job so well he would entertain his passengers with a joke or by telling them exactly how many railroad ties there are in a mile, a trick he taught himself through three decades of driving. 

The night before, Reed had joined a big group of employees of the West End Street Railway company at the Public Garden entrance for a walk-through of what to expect.  Cars were loaded up with employees and driven through the tunnel in a chain, as instructors shouted out the regulations to follow about collecting tickets, stopping at stations, entering and exiting the tunnel and how to handle confused, unruly or other types of troublesome passengers.   

 

“CONCH SHELL TINTS streaked the eastern sky,” when the day’s earliest risers gathered at the depot in Allston.  When Jimmy Reed walked into the shed, looking nattier than usual in a new, trim-fitting uniform, a single-breasted dark blue coat with seven gold buttons and a cap with a straight visor and two bands of gold, he greeted his passengers and confessed with no hesitation that he was tired after a restless night of sleep.  Dreams of his trolley rushing to reach the subway tunnel first and on time kept him awake, he said.  He needn’t have worried.  One of the last passengers to arrive was the chief inspector for the West End Street Railway Company, Fred Stearns, who took up a spot on the car’s footboard so that he could warn boarding passengers to keep their hands and heads inside to avoid bumping any posts or trees.  He was the one who needed to worry.  After one final inspection to make sure the car was ready, the doors to the garage opened and the passengers let out a hearty cheer as the electric motor sent the Allston trolley on its way.  The nine rows of benches were not filled yet, but they would be soon enough.  Outside, a small group of onlookers waved their handkerchiefs and shouted out words of encouragement at the popular motorman.  “Get there, Jim, old man, and don’t let any of ‘em get ahead of you,” one cry went out.

Reed smiled.  But he turned serious right away as his car rounded a bend and he braked to a stop to allow another dozen passengers on board.   “All aboard for the subway and Park Street,” he shouted with confidence.  “Dling, Dling, Dling,” the bell rang out and the car pulled away again.  The journey from Allston through Cambridge to Boston took about twenty minutes most mornings, but the unusual number of passengers at this hour delayed it a few extra seconds at each stop. 

By the time the car reached Pearl Street in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston, an older gentleman wanting to get on board found there were no seats left and he was told he’d have to wait for the next car.  Not a chance, he shouted up at those on board.  He announced that his name was C.W. Davis, that he came all the way down from Dickerson Street in Somerville to enjoy this privilege and that he deserved to make history with the rest of them.  Why?  Because he said that back in 1856 he had ridden on the first horse-pulled car of the Metropolitan Railway line and that he wanted to achieve another first today.  “The running schedule called for a car every half hour in those days,” he told his audience.  “And that was thought to be fast running.  People have learned to live and move faster in these days.”  The young men on board could not refuse the charming stories of Mr. Davis and they scurried to clear a space for the gentleman, who climbed up and hung on to an upright pole to secure his footing as the car pulled away.  When a photographer hollered at Reed to let the historic trolley sit for a minute at Pearl Street so he could photograph it, the motorman refused, too nervous about falling behind schedule, not to mention missing his opportunity to be the first car into the tunnel.

 

Meet the filmmaker making the documentary about America’s first subways, featuring ‘The Race Underground’

When you’ve spent 18 months traveling from libraries to book stores to senior centers to colleges, high schools and conventions talking about one thing – in my case, subways – it can, believe it or not, start to get old. That’s not to say I don’t get a kick out of talking about “The Race Underground” anymore, because I do, and the best part is always the give-and-take with the people who came out to hear me. Still, I’m only human.

But I recently had the experience of sitting down and talking about subways for six straight hours, in a creaky old wooden chair, to a single person, in a building that dates back to the Civil War. And I didn’t mind it one bit. In fact it was sort of awesome. That’s because I was sitting in the Commander’s Mansion in Watertown, across from Michael Rossi. Michael is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker who was commissioned by “American Experience” to make a film about the first subways in this country for PBS. That documentary will feature my research for “The Race Underground” and include, hopefully, a few minutes from those 6 hours of Michael interviewing me.

Just to be clear, his film is not a documentary version of my book. Rather it’s a book about subways and their history in America. My book will be a featured part of the film. And judging by the pages and pages of research that Michael and the coordinating producer on the film, Melissa Pollard, brought to our interview, they know as much about this subject as I do. You would think after 18 months of questions from readers, I would have heard just about every question imaginable. But as Michael and I sat and talked, he asked some questions that really forced me to think about subways and their importance to urban life in ways I hadn’t previously considered. It was the most fun a guy could have talking about 19th century urban renewal!

I wanted to take a moment to share some background on Michael. We’ve had a chance to talk a few times now and it’s a huge thrill to know that he was chosen to make this film. I’ve spent some time watching clips of his various works, and I watched the entirety of “The Rise and Fall of Penn Station” a documentary about the construction of Pennsylvania Station and the various tunnels in New York. It is, in a word, awesome. So here is some background on Michael:

MICHAEL ROSSI is an independent producer of documentary film and non-fiction television who has spent the last fifteen years producing, directing, shooting, and editing on a variety of programs for public television. In 2012, Rossi received an Emmy Award in the category Best New Approaches for a Children’s Series for his work as Coordinating Producer of the engineering series DESIGN SQUAD. His production credits for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE include: Building the Alaska Highway, The Gold Rush (winner of the 2007 Erik Barnouw Award), We Shall Remain, a five-part television series and multimedia project on Native American history, The Rise and Fall of Penn Station, and The Bombing of Wall Street, which premieres soon on PBS. He also served as embedded filmmaker for the 2011 Student Freedom Ride, and in 2014, produced three films for Freedom Summer @ 50, featuring individuals who participated in the events of 1964’s Freedom Summer. Rossi’s credits for FRONTLINE include The Silence, a thirty-minute documentary, which traces the healing between the small, Yup’ik village of St. Michael, Alaska and the Catholic Church in the devastating aftermath of sexual abuse perpetrated by priests in the 1960s and 1970s.

A graduate of the B.A./M.A. program in U.S. History at Boston College, Rossi’s career at PBS began in the Educational Programming department at WGBH. In addition to public television, he has done a variety of production work on feature films, television shows, music videos, and commercials. His work as a cinematographer is exhibited in the documentary films Before You Know Itand The Many Sad Fates of Mr. Toledano. His first independent feature-length documentary is also in production. The Master Palindromist follows Barry Duncan, a self-proclaimed master of reversibility, who is honing his skills in an effort to reassess his life, and possibly change the world.

Like I said, his track record speaks for itself. What made our day in Watertown so much fun was that it never felt like an interview or work, but more like a conversation. A chat between two guys fascinated by history, and our subways, and their impact on society, both then and to this day. We talked about Henry and William Whitney and William Barclay Parsons and Frank Julian Sprague and former New York Mayor Abram Hewitt and mankind’s fear of the underground and the methods by which tunnels were constructed and so much more, all subjects I wrote about. Did I mention we talked for six hours?

Somewhere in there we had a nice lunch outside on a patio at the mansion, with the film crew, before going back inside to continue the chat on camera. (A side note: I wrestled painfully before the interview with my attire. Black suit or gray? Blue shirt or light purple? Solid or stripes? Tie or no tie? These are important decisions, people!)

The making of this documentary, just like the making of my book, won’t happen overnight. Or in a month. Or two. It will take time to produce it, to edit it, to polish it, and I have no idea when it will eventually appear on PBS. It won’t be next week. So for now, I will just continue to post updates as I learn them. And enjoy the ride.

Tale of Two Book Covers: Race Underground vs. Devil in The White City

Short post. I read today that Leonardo DiCaprio was cast in the lead role for the Martin Scorsese-directed “The Devil in the White City,” the movie being made off of Erik Larson’s tremendous tale of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

When I wrote “The Race Underground,” Larson’s book was one that I re-read, because I enjoyed his structure so much, alternating chapters between two characters. My book unfolded in a similar, but not identical manner, with alternating sections between Boston and New York.

But the other similarity, as many readers have since pointed out to me, was the cover. When I first saw the design of my cover, I immediately pulled out a copy of Devil, a cover that I loved. Even if my book didn’t achieve a fraction of the success that Larson’s did, at least I can pretend it had some comparable qualities. Right? And hey, in case Leonardo is listening . . .

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My other book . . . And lessons learned

heartsI recently received a check in the mail (a very small check, it should be noted), followed by a note on Twitter that have stirred me to post something about an earlier chapter in my life.

Fifteen years before I wrote about trains and subways and tunnels and Boston and New York in The Race Underground, I wrote another book about a very different subject, but one that is still sadly just as relevant today as it was back in 2000. That book was called “Always In Our Hearts.” And it was a horrifically sad story about two teenagers from comfortable surroundings in Northern New Jersey, who came from good homes, and who did an incredibly stupid and criminal thing because they didn’t think they could talk to their parents about their problem. Then I saw this story in today’s Globe, about adolescents today having low self-esteem and how parents should handle it, and the story really came flooding back to me.

Amazingly, as I just learned, that book still sells a few copies, which explains the royalty check I got from St. Martin’s Press, enough for me to take Mimi out for dinner and perhaps one glass of wine! And then a day later, I had this conversation on Twitter:

@GlobeDougMost I just read your book, “Always in Our Hearts.”I remembered when it happened in NJ. I could not put it down. Tears in my eyes. @ClaudiaDeHaan1

@ClaudiaDeHaan1 Thanks Claudia, I still love hearing from readers on that story all these years later, an important subject.

“Always In Our Hearts” was the story of Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson, a couple of teenagers who dated in high school like we all did. Then they went off to separate colleges, like we all did. But they had a secret. Amy was pregnant. And she was terrified about how her parents would react, because in her mind, as I wrote and reported, her parents saw her as the perfect child who could do no wrong, and who certainly was not having sex. The details are not important now, but what happened next is: Amy and Brian kept their secret, from friends, from family, from everyone, and the ending was tragic.

A baby’s life lost. Two bright kids arrested and charged with premeditated murder. And two families devastated.

This was a time before I was married, before I had kids. But there were a lot of lessons I learned in writing that book that remain strong with me today, now that I have two kids, and as I read that Globe article today.

The most important one was this: Make sure that your kids know it’s OK to fail. They are going to fail. They are going to screw up. We did. They will. But the most important thing for them to know is that when they do screw up, they have to tell you. Because you won’t push them away. You’ll embrace them even stronger. Amy Grossberg’s first reaction was to not tell her parents. And she has to live with that decision for the rest of her life.

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‘The Race Underground’ visits Salt Lake City for annual APTA conference

proxyA few months ago I was invited to come speak to the annual conference of APTA, or American Public Transportation Association. On Tuesday that day came and it was a terrific event, at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City.

A quick word about the hotel. grand-america-hotel-court-yardUh, wow. The Grand America was built specifically as part of the city’s hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympics, and it’s a 5-star hotel. Every corner glistens, a harpist plays in the lobby while guests sip their cocktails or tea while munching on scones, and the courtyard beckons, with spectacular views at every turn of the surrounding mountains.

I got out a few times to take in some of Salt Lake. A few highlights included dinner at Squatters, where the burger smothered in bourbon-soaked grilled onions was awesome, breakfast at Eva’s Bakery, which had great muffins, and lastly, I snuck in a few runs. IMG_2817One was a 4-miler over to Liberty Park, which had a nice soft wood chip path that was easy on my tired legs after a long flight, and the other was a brutal climb up into Memory Grove canyon.IMG_3321

I really wanted to get up high to look back over the city and mountains and this was the way to do it, even it meant a little bit of a run-walk. The view was spectacular, looking back on the skyline and the towering Church of Latter Day Saints building. The conference itself was beautifully run and smooth sailing for me.

My talk came at the big luncheon Tuesday and I was on stage with a Bostonian and New Yorker to add a fun element to the whole affair. The Bostonian was Robert Prince, a former MBTA general manager now with AECOM, and the New Yorker was Chris Boylan, a deputy executive director at the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority. They came out with boxing gloves on and we had a ball on stage in front of about 1200 transit executives and officials from around the country.

A final shout to a wonderful local bookstore, Weller Book Works and Catherine Weller, who showed up and sold a few hundred books and helped me get them all signed. Lastly, KellyAnne Gallagher from the organization, APTA, put together a great show. It was a whirlwind 24 hours, in and out, but worth every minute.

‘The Race Underground’ wins 2015 Massachusetts Book Award

This is exciting stuff. The Massachusetts Book Awards have been announced and ‘The Race Underground’ was named one of the five must-reads of 2015. It’s a terrific list to be a part of and news like this never gets old — even 18 months after the hardcover came out, and 4 months after the paperback!

Michael Blanding, The Map Thief (Gotham Books)
Michael M. Greenburg, The Court-Martial of Paul Revere (ForeEdge)
Fred Kaplan, John Quincy Adams (Harper)
Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction (Henry Holt)
Doug Most, The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America’s First Subway (St Martin’s)
Jennifer Taub, Other People’s Houses (Yale UP)

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Gotham Center for New York City History to host talk on ‘The Race Underground’ and America’s subway history

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I have an event coming April 29 I am especially excited about.

In writing “The Race Underground” I built up my own mini-library at home, with approximately 50 to 60 books. Some I only cracked once or twice, others I opened a dozen times, and then there were those that were kept open constantly on my desk. By the time I was done writing, so many pages had been dog-eared, and the cover so tattered, it looked like the book had been through the washing machine.
That was my experience with “Gotham“, the Pulitzer Prize-winning tome by Mike Wallace and Edwin Burrows. It’s an amazing account of the city’s history up to the year 1898, so rich in detail and narrative storytelling it’s easy to forget just how long it is (oh, about 1,500 pages!). 51A0v0-vafL 2

On April 29, from 6:30-8 p.m., I’ll be speaking and signing copies of ‘The Race Underground’ at the Gotham Center for New York City History, which was founded by Wallace back in 2000. From their website, here are the details:

The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America’s First Subway
Wednesday, April 29, 6:30-8 PM
Skylight Room

In the 19th century, cities like Boston and New York grew congested with plodding, horse-drawn carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 crippled the entire northeast, a solution had to be found. Two brothers from one of the nation’s great families—Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York—pursued the dream of digging America’s first subway, and the race was on. Doug Most chronicles the story, as exciting as any ripped from the pages of history. The Race Underground is a great American saga of two rival American cities, their rich, powerful, and sometimes corrupt interests, and an invention that changed the lives of millions.

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Can You Pass Thomas Edison’s Intelligence Test? Um, No.

spragueresignsYou think your boss is tough. Thomas Edison must have been brutal.

Edison plays an important role in “The Race Underground.” He’s a brief mentor to a key character, Frank Julian Sprague, a brilliant engineer from Connecticut who spends one frustrating year working for Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey, before leaving and going on to invent the electric motor that would be used on street trolleys around the country. One of my favorite moments researching my book was holding the very short resignation letter that Sprague wrote to Edison, which is on hand at the New York Public Library (and pictured here).

Edison had a 146-question quiz (yes, 146!) for anyone who came to work for him, mostly trivia questions completely unrelated to the work that went on in his shop and surely designed to humble anyone who thought they might overshadow or outsmart the Wizard of Menlo Park. The quiz questions leaked out in the New York Times in 1921. Were they hard? Um, Albert Einstein reportedly failed the quiz when he couldn’t recall the speed of sound. Duh! (761 miles per hour, give or take, FYI)

Instead of watching the next “House of Cards” episode on Netflix, spend an hour taking this quiz. Go ahead, use Google all you want. Or just cheat all the way and scroll to the bottom. The New York Times was kind enough to answer all the questions.

QUESTIONS

1. What countries bound France?

2. What city and country produce the finest china?

3. Where is the River Volga?

4. What is the finest cotton grown?

5. What country consumed the most tea before the war?

6. What city in the United States leads in making laundry machines?

7. What city is the fur centre of the United States?

8. What country is the greatest textile producer?

9. Is Australia greater than Greenland in area?

10. Where is Copenhagen?

11. Where is Spitzbergen?

12. In what country other than Australia are kangaroos found?

13. What telescope is the largest in the world?

14. Who was Bessemer and what did he do?

15. How many states in the Union?

16. Where do we get prunes from?

17. Who was Paul Revere?

18. Who was John Hancock?

19. Who was Plutarch?

20. Who was Hannibal?

21. Who was Danton?

22. Who was Solon?

23. Who was Francis Marion?

24. Who was Leonidas?

25. Where did we get Louisiana from?

26. Who was Pizarro?

27. Who was Bolivar?

28. What war material did Chile export to the Allies during the war?

29. Where does most of the coffee come from?

30. Where is Korea?

31. Where is Manchuria?

32. Where was Napoleon born?

33. What is the highest rise of tide on the North American Coast?

34. Who invented logarithms?

35. Who was the Emperor of Mexico when Cortez landed?

36. Where is the Imperial Valley and what is it noted for?

37. What and where is the Sargasso Sea?

38. What is the greatest known depth of the ocean?

39. What is the name of a large inland body of water that has no outlet?

40. What is the capital of Pennsylvania?

41. What state is the largest? Next?

42. Rhode Island is the smallest state. What is the next and the next?

43. How far is it from New York to Buffalo?

44. How far is it from New York to San Francisco?

45. How far is it from New York to Liverpool?

46. Of what state is Helena the capital?

47. Of what state is Tallahassee the capital?

48. What state has the largest copper mines?

49. What state has the largest amethyst mines?

50. What is the name of a famous violin maker?

51. Who invented the modern paper-making machine?

52. Who invented the typesetting machine?

53. Who invented printing?

54. How is leather tanned?

55. What is artificial silk made from?

56. What is a caisson?

57. What is shellac?

58. What is celluloid made from?

59. What causes the tides?

60. To what is the change of the seasons due?

61. What is coke?

62. From what part of the North Atlantic do we get codfish?

63. Who reached the South Pole?

64. What is a monsoon?

65. Where is the Magdalena Bay?

66. From where do we import figs?

67. From where do we get dates?

68. Where do we get our domestic sardines?

69. What is the longest railroad in the world?

The Trans-Siberian.

70. Where is Kenosha?

71. What is the speed of sound?

72. What is the speed of light?

73. Who was Cleopatra and how did she die?

74. Where are condors found?

75, Who discovered the law of gravitation?

76. What is the distance between the earth and sun?

77. Who invented photography?

78. What country produces the most wool?

79. What is felt?

80. What cereal is used in all parts of the world?

81. What states produce phosphates?

82. Why is cast iron called pig iron?

83. Name three principal acids?

84. Name three powerful poisons.

85. Who discovered radium?

86. Who discovered the X-ray?

87. Name three principal alkalis.

88. What part of Germany do toys come from?

89. What States bound West Virginia?

90. Where do we get peanuts from?

91. What is the capital of Alabama?

92. Who composed “Il Trovatore”?

93. What is the weight of air in a room 20 by 30 by 10?

94. Where is platinum found?

95. With what metal is platinum associated when found?

96. How is sulphuric acid made?

97. Where do we get sulphur from?

98. Who discovered how to vulcanize rubber?

99. Where do we import rubber from?

100. What is vulcanite and how is it made?

101. Who invented the cotton gin?

102. What is the price of 12 grains of gold?

103. What is the difference between anthracite and bituminous coal?

104. Where do we get benzol from?

105. Of what is glass made?

106. How is window glass made?

107. What is porcelain?

108. What country makes the best optical lenses and what city?

109. What kind of a machine is used to cut the facets of diamonds?

110. What is a foot pound?

111. Where do we get borax from?

112. Where is the Assuan Dam?

113. What star is it that has been recently measured and found to be of enormous size?

114. What large river in the United States flows from south to north?

115. What are the Straits of Messina?

116. What is the highest mountain in the world?

117. Where do we import cork from?

118. Where is the St. Gothard tunnel?

119. What is the Taj Mahal?

120. Where is Labrador?

121. Who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner”?

122. Who wrote “Home, Sweet Home”?

123. Who was Martin Luther?

124. What is the chief acid in vinegar?

125. Who wrote “Don Quixote”?

126. Who wrote “Les Miserables”?

127. What place is the greatest distance below sea level?

128. What are axe handles made of?

129. Who made “The Thinker”?

130. Why is a Fahrenheit thermometer called Fahrenheit?

131. Who owned and ran the New York Herald for a long time?

132. What is copra?

133. What insect carries malaria?

134. Who discovered the Pacific Ocean?

135. What country has the largest output of nickel in the world?

136. What ingredients are in the best white paint?

137. What is glucose and how made?

138. In what part of the world does it never rain?

139. What was the approximate population of England, France, Germany and Russia before the war?

140. Where is the city of Mecca?

141. Where do we get quicksilver from?

142. Of what are violin strings made?

143. What city on the Atlantic seaboard is the greatest pottery centre?

144. Who is called the “father of railroads” in the United States?

145. What is the heaviest kind of wood?

146. What is the lightest wood?

 

ANSWERS

1. What countries bound France?

Spain, the tiny independent state of Andorra in the Pyrenees, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Luxemburg and Belgium.

2. What city and country produce the finest china?

Some say Limoges, France; some say Severes, France; some say Dresden, Germany; some say Copenhagen, Denmark.

3. Where is the River Volga?

In Russia.

4. What is the finest cotton grown?

Sea Island cotton or Egyptian cotton, according to different experts.

5. What country consumed the most tea before the war?

Russia.

6. What city in the United States leads in making laundry machines?

Chicago.

7. What city is the fur centre of the United States?

St. Louis has been the raw fur centre until the month of April of the present year, when New York apparently eclipsed it. It is nip and tuck between the two cities, with New York leading. New York is incontestably the centre of fur manufacturing and retail selling.

8. What country is the greatest textile producer?

Great Britain is so considered, but the United States is a close competitor in volume, and may even be slightly in the lead at present day.

9. Is Australia greater than Greenland in area?

This is a catch question. Greenland looks far bigger on the square, flat maps on Mercator’s projection, which represents the world as a cylinder, exaggerating the size of areas as they approach the poles. Australia is in reality more than three times as large as Greenland.

10. Where is Copenhagen?

In Denmark.

11. Where is Spitzbergen?

In the Arctic, north of Norway.

12. In what country other than Australia are kangaroos found?

In New Guinea.

13. What telescope is the largest in the world?

That at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California.

14. Who was Bessemer and what did he do?

An English engineer. He invented a process for making steel by taking carbon out of molten iron by the air blast.

15. How many states in the Union?

Forty-eight.

16. Where do we get prunes from?

Prunes are grown in the Santa Clara Valley and elsewhere.19

17. Who was Paul Revere?

The Minute Man who spread the alarm of the British march on Lexington.

18. Who was John Hancock?

The first signer of the Declaration of Independence.

19. Who was Plutarch?

A Greek of the first and second centuries A.D., who wrote the Lives” and miscellaneous works.

20. Who was Hannibal?

The Carthaginian General who conquered most of Italy in the third century B.C.

21. Who was Danton?

A French Revolutionary orator, who was sent to the guillotine by the Committee of Terror.

22. Who was Solon?

An Athenian lawgiver, famous for twenty-three centuries for the remark to Croesus (which modern historians say he did not make) to “Count no man happy until he is dead.”

23. Who was Francis Marion?

General Marion was a principal leader of the Revolutionary forces in the Southern States.

24. Who was Leonidas?

The Spartan General who led the heroic defense of Thermopylae.

25. Where did we get Louisiana from?

By purchase from France.

26. Who was Pizarro?

The Spanish conqueror of Peru.

27. Who was Bolivar?

The hero of the South American wars of liberation from Spain.

28. What war material did Chile export to the Allies during the war?

Nitrates.

29. Where does most of the coffee come from?

From Brazil.

30. Where is Korea?

A peninsula on the northeast coast of Asia.

31. Where is Manchuria?

A northeastern province of China touching Korea.

32. Where was Napoleon born?

Ajaccio, Corsica.

33. What is the highest rise of tide on the North American Coast?

Seventy feet in the Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

34. Who invented logarithms?

John Napier.

35. Who was the Emperor of Mexico when Cortez landed?

Montezuma.

36. Where is the Imperial Valley and what is it noted for?

In Southern California on the Mexican border, and noted for melons.

37. What and where is the Sargasso Sea?

A vast tract of seaweed floating in the North Atlantic Ocean.

38. What is the greatest known depth of the ocean?

Thirty-one thousand six hundred feet at Nero Deep, near Guam.

39. What is the name of a large inland body of water that has no outlet?

The Great Salt Lake.

40. What is the capital of Pennsylvania?

Harrisburg.

41. What state is the largest? Next?

Texas. California.

42. Rhode Island is the smallest state. What is the next and the next?

Delaware. Connecticut.

43. How far is it from New York to Buffalo?

Three hundred and ninety-six miles by the shortest route.

44. How far is it from New York to San Francisco?

Three thousand three hundred miles.

45. How far is it from New York to Liverpool?

Three thousand one hundred and sixty-seven and one-half nautical miles.

46. Of what state is Helena the capital?

Montana.

47. Of what state is Tallahassee the capital?

Florida.

48. What state has the largest copper mines?

Montana has the largest single mine in the Anaconda. The mines of Arizona have the greatest combined output.

49. What state has the largest amethyst mines?

Virginia

50. What is the name of a famous violin maker?

Stradivarius

51. Who invented the modern paper-making machine?

The major discovery was made by Robert, a Frenchman, though it is often attributed erroneously to Fourdrinier, who introduced it into England.

52. Who invented the typesetting machine?

Mergenthaler was the first to perfect a highly practical one.

53. Who invented printing?

Nobody knows. Somebody in China, Japan, or Korea. Probably first invented in Europe by Lourens Janzoon Coster of Haarlem.23

54. How is leather tanned?

By immersion in an infusion of oak or hemlock bark or other material strong in tannic acid.

55. What is artificial silk made from?

From cotton or wood pulp treated with acids and drawn into threads.

56. What is a caisson?24

An enclosure to keep water from seeping or flowing into a space where engineering operations are taking place.

57. What is shellac?25

A base for varnish made from lac, which is resinous incrustation formed on certain trees in the East Indies by an insect resembling the cochineal.

58. What is celluloid made from?

Wood pulp primarily.

59. What causes the tides?

The gravitational pull of the moon exerted powerfully on the ocean because of its fluidity, and weakly on the earth because of its comparative rigidity.

60. To what is the change of the seasons due?

To the inclination of the earth to the plane of the ecliptic. In the earth’s revolution around the sun, this causes the sun’s rays to be received at varying inclinations, with consequent variations of temperature.

61. What is coke?

Coal after the more volatile components have been driven from it by heat.

62. From what part of the North Atlantic do we get codfish?

Off the Newfoundland Banks.

63. Who reached the South Pole?

Amundsen, and then Scott.

64. What is a monsoon?

A periodic alternating wind in the Indian Ocean.

65. Where is the Magdalena Bay?

There is a Magdalena Bay in Lower California, one in Spitzbergen and one in Colombia.

66. From where do we import figs?

Mainly from the Smyrna region in Asia Minor, which was formerly Turkish but which since the war has become part of Greece.

67. From where do we get dates?

Arabia, India, North Africa, California, Arizona and elsewhere.

68. Where do we get our domestic sardines?

From Maine and California.

69. What is the longest railroad in the world?

The Trans-Siberian.26

70. Where is Kenosha?

In Wisconsin.

71. What is the speed of sound?

In dry air at freezing it travels about 1,091 feet a second. In water its speed is about 4,680 feet per second. It traveled at 11,463 feet four inches a second through an iron bar 3,000 feet long. Sound moves at a constantly diminishing rate of speed.

72. What is the speed of light?

Approximately 186,700 miles a second in a vacuum and slightly less through atmosphere.

73. Who was Cleopatra and how did she die?

She was a Queen of Egypt, a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony and committed suicide by causing an asp to bite her.27

74. Where are condors found?

In the Andes.

75, Who discovered the law of gravitation?

Sir Isaac Newton.

76. What is the distance between the earth and sun?

93,100,000 miles.

77. Who invented photography?

Scheele, a Swede, discovered the principles about 1780 and Wedgwood, English, first applied them in June, 1802. Daguerre and Neipce, in France, produced the daguerretype, but Dr. John William Draper of New York University, in 1840, first improved it so as to make it practicable for taking the pictures of human beings.

78. What country produces the most wool?

Australia.

79. What is felt?

A clothe made from matted wool, fur or hair, by pressure, as opposed to weaving.

80. What cereal is used in all parts of the world?

No cereal is used in all parts of the world. Wheat is used most extensively, with rice and corn next.

81. What states produce phosphates?

Arkansas, Tennessee and other Southern States.

82. Why is cast iron called pig iron?

Because of a fancied resemblance of the row of channels into which the molten flows to a litter of pigs.

83. Name three principal acids?

Hydrochloric, sulphuric and nitric.

84. Name three powerful poisons.

Cyanide of potassium, strychnine and arsenic.

85. Who discovered radium?

Mme Curie in Paris in 1902.

86. Who discovered the X-ray?

Roentgen, a German, in 1895.

87. Name three principal alkalis.

Soda, potash and ammonia.

88. What part of Germany do toys come from?

Nuremburg and the Nuremburg region.

89. What States bound West Virginia?

Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

90. Where do we get peanuts from?

California, Georgia, Virginia and other Southern States and Southern Pennsylvania.

91. What is the capital of Alabama?

Montgomery.

92. Who composed “Il Trovatore”?

Verdi.

93. What is the weight of air in a room 20 by 30 by 10?

484 86-1,000 pounds.

94. Where is platinum found?

Ural Mountains region separating Europe from Asia.

95. With what metal is platinum associated when found?

Native platinum is found alloyed with copper, iron, gold, iridium and osmium.

96. How is sulphuric acid made?

There are three commercial processes. (a) Chamber process: iron pyrites of sulphur roasted in special furnaces yield sulphur dioxide, which is collected in a lead chamber in the presence of water, oxygen or air and nitrous anhydride. (b) Catalytic or contact process: The raw materials, sulphur dioxide from burning sulphur or roasted iron pyrites and oxygen from the air, produce sulphur trioxide, which, when absorbed by water, gives sulphuric acid. Combination of sulphur dioxide and oxygen is carried on in the presence of a catlyzer, usually spongy platinum or iron oxide from pyrite burners. (c) Much sulphuric acid is made from waste gases of copper and zinc furnaces from ores rich in sulphur by the chamber process.

97. Where do we get sulphur from?

Louisiana and Texas.

98. Who discovered how to vulcanize rubber?

Charles Goodyear.

99. Where do we import rubber from?

South and Central America, Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, Borneo, Java and equatorial Africa.

100. What is vulcanite and how is it made?

A black variety of hard rubber capable of being cut and polished, made from the cheaper grades of rubber from Borneo and Java vulcanized with much sulphur.

101. Who invented the cotton gin?

Eli Whitney.

102. What is the price of 12 grains of gold?

United States Assay Office price, May 12, 1921, was 56.693 cents.

103. What is the difference between anthracite and bituminous coal?

Hard coal is anthracite; soft coal is bituminous.

104. Where do we get benzol from?

The fractional distillation of coal tar.

105. Of what is glass made?

A fusion of silica, usually in the form of natural and, with two or more alkaline bases, such as soda, lime or potash.33

106. How is window glass made?

By immersing a blowpipe in molten glass, introducing compressed air and gradually withdrawing the blowpipe from the molten glass. This produces a large cylinder which is cut open and heated in a flattening oven until flat and then transferred to an annealing oven and gradually withdrawn from the heat.

107. What is porcelain?

A fine earthenware differing from china in being harder, whiter, harder to fuse and more translucent than ordinary pottery. (a) Natural porcelain: A mixture of kaolin and feldspar. (b) Artificial porcelain: Gypsum and bone ash replace the silicious materials.

108. What country makes the best optical lenses and what city?

“A catch question. The city of Jena in Germany, formerly produced the best lenses, but recently the Bureau of Standards in Washington has turned out lenses excelled by none.” — Dr. George F. Kunz of Tiffany & Co.

109. What kind of a machine is used to cut the facets of diamonds?

A diamond lathe where “diamond cuts diamond.”

110. What is a foot pound?

A unit of energy equal to the work done in raising one pound of avoirdupois against the force of gravity the height of one foot.

111. Where do we get borax from?

California, Nevada, Texas and Oregon.

112. Where is the Assuan Dam?

Across the Nile in Upper Egypt.

113. What star is it that has been recently measured and found to be of enormous size?

Betelgeuse.

114. What large river in the United States flows from south to north?

The San Joaquin River in California. The Red River of the North.

115. What are the Straits of Messina?

They separate Sicily from Italy.

116. What is the highest mountain in the world?

Mount Everest in the Himalayas.

117. Where do we import cork from?

Southern Europe and Northern Africa.

118. Where is the St. Gothard tunnel?

Under the Alps.

119. What is the Taj Mahal?

A magnificent mausoleum built at Agra, India, by the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife.

120. Where is Labrador?

A peninsula on the east coast of North America, running from St. Lawrence River to Hudson’s Bay.

121. Who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner”?

John Spofford Smith wrote the music for a drinking song for the Anacreonic Club in London about 1780. Francis Scott Key wrote the words.

122. Who wrote “Home, Sweet Home”?

John Howard Payne, an American, wrote the words. Sir Henry Bishop, an Englishman, wrote the music.

123. Who was Martin Luther?

The principal leader of the Reformation.

124. What is the chief acid in vinegar?

Acetic.

125. Who wrote “Don Quixote”?

Cervantes.

126. Who wrote “Les Miserables”?

Victor Hugo.

127. What place is the greatest distance below sea level?

The Dead Sea. It is 1,300 feet below sea level and is the most depressed accessible part of the earth’s surface.

128. What are axe handles made of?

Ash is generally used in the East and hickory in the West.

129. Who made “The Thinker”?

Auguste Rodin.

130. Why is a Fahrenheit thermometer called Fahrenheit?

It is named after Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, the German physicist, who invented it.

131. Who owned and ran the New York Herald for a long time?

James Gordon Bennett.

132. What is copra?

The dried kernel of the cocoanut.

133. What insect carries malaria?

The mosquito of the genus Anopheles.

134. Who discovered the Pacific Ocean?

Balboa.

135. What country has the largest output of nickel in the world?

Canada.40

136. What ingredients are in the best white paint?

Linseed oil, with a small percentage of turpentine and liquid dryer, together with a mixture of white lead and zinc oxide.

137. What is glucose and how made?

“It is remarkable how few of the apparently well-informed know what ‘commercial glucose’ really is. This is due to the confusion of terms which associate this misnamed starch product with grape sugar and dextrose. It is quite true that dextrose (glucose) is an ingredient of commercial glucose, but the dextrose in the commercial glucose of today is the least important ingredient.” — Rogers’s Manual of Industrial Chemistry. Commercial glucose is made from crude corn starch liquor that is first converted into a liquid by being hydrolized by an acid, then neutralized by a solution of sodium carbonate, and finally filtered and evaporated in vacuum pans.

138. In what part of the world does it never rain?

“People have not been in one place long enough to know for a certainty where it never rains. Some natives of the Sahara Desert, however, have expressed amazement when they heard that water came from the skies. Rain has been reported in regions close to the poles, but neither of the discoverers of the North and South Poles was there any length of time.” — U.S. Weather Bureau.41

139. What was the approximate population of England, France, Germany and Russia before the war?

England, 34,000,000 (United Kingdom, 45,000,000); France, 40,000,000; Germany, 65,000,000; Russia, 180,000,000.

140. Where is the city of Mecca?

In the Kingdom of Hedjaz, 65 miles east of the port of Jedda on the Red Sea.

141. Where do we get quicksilver from?

From cinnabar, the red sulphite of mercury, mined chiefly in California, Texas and Spain.42

142. Of what are violin strings made?

From “catgut,” now usually made from the intestines of sheep.

143. What city on the Atlantic seaboard is the greatest pottery centre?

Trenton, N.J.

144. Who is called the “father of railroads” in the United States?

John Stevens, 1749-1838, of Hoboken, N.J.

145. What is the heaviest kind of wood?

Lignum vitae.

146. What is the lightest wood?

Basswood, at thirty pounds a cubic foot, has been called the lightest, but it has been asserted recently that balsa, or corkwood, found in South America, is the lightest.