When attempting to write a family history one must be cognizant of the different remembrances by various members of the family. There will be facts and there will be some writing that may be closer, at least for some, to fiction.

This history is written with as much hard facts as can be accumulated, a lot of recollections from childhood of members of the family, friends and neighbors. Some will say a generous amount of imagination. It should be fairly obvious from the context which is which.

The period after the Civil War, and especially the last two decades of the century, were very progressive times. The Civil War in the United States was the first war with fairly modern forms of communication, the railroads and telegraph. Previous immigrants, to the Midwest, were getting well established and thousands of new settlers were arriving every day. Fairly modern communication and transportation were developing. A transcontinental train system was in place and along with that the telegraph. The traveling Post Office carriages came into use about the same time as dining cars in 1867. Pullman developed the train sleeper car which was necessary because of the long distances traveled. The first practical dynamo for creating a continuous electric current was developed in 1870 (1; p 342).

Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, dated 1925 describes the advances of the 19th. century.

"Here are three of the changes invention made in the 19th. century alone. The post horse gave way to the telegraph; the sewing machine did away with much of the tedious hand sewing; while the typewriter began to do the bulk of the civilized world's writing."

I'm sure the younger generation might need an interpretation of some of the concepts in that quotation. It may provide an opportunity for a good visit between the generations.

Some other inventions referred to in the same volume are:

--an improved steam engine by Watts(1769), spinning machinery by Hargraves, Arkwright, and Crompton (1763- 1774), the power loom by Cartwright (1785), gas lighting by Murdock (1792), vaccination by Jenner (1796), the steamboat by Fulton (1807), the railway locomotive by Stephenson (1814), the reaping machine by McCormick (1832) , the photograph by Daguerre (1839), the electric motor and dynamo by Faraday (1832), the telegraph by Morse (1844), the sewing machine by Howe (1846), --- the telephone by Bell (1876), the gas engine by Daimler (1884)" (2; p 1801)

The invention of celluloid in 1873 made it possible for Hannibal Goodwin to develop a roll film for photography. Eastman got his patent for roll film about the same time, 1889. The Dunlop Company produced their first pneumatic rubber tire for motor vehicles in 1900.(1; p 729)

Zipper invented in 1891. Smuckers Jam first produced in October, 1897. Hershey's candy bar has not changed since 1899. I like to think that Ole gave his two daughters, Olga and Mable, a Hershey bar before they embarked for Norway in 1899.

Of course, most of these advances made very little difference to the new immigrants who had not much more than the shirt on their backs.

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1. A History of Technology vol.. 5, Charles Singer et al, page 342
2. Comptons Pictured Encyclopedia vol. 4, 1925