August 13, 2007

Models Used in Shaping Mt. Rushmore Group (Dec, 1938)

Filed under: History — @ 9:11 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1938
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Models Used in Shaping Mt. Rushmore Group

Right, general view of work on Mt. Rush-more memorial. Inset, Gutzon Borglum inspecting the sculpture, which calls for carving the faces of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt on the mountainside. Workers’ tiny figures give an idea of project’s size

Left, measuring model in studio helps workers locate same relative spot on mountainside. Multiplying studio readings by twelve gives the correct distances. Right, giant proportions of the memorial are illustrated by measurements of this huge face

July 30, 2007

SHIP-LOADING METHODS IN MANCHURIAN PORTS (Oct, 1923)

Filed under: History — @ 8:00 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1923
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Apparently our country has a long and not-so-proud history of exploiting cheap Chinese labor. “Sure we could use our loading equipment, but it’s so much easier and cheaper to have the coolies do it by hand!”

SHIP-LOADING METHODS IN MANCHURIAN PORTS

American sailors hail with joy the entry of their vessels into Manchurian ports.

There is no work for them at Dairen, the ocean terminus of the South Manchurian Railway, situated 28 miles east of Port Arthur, and full shore leave is allowed. Native coolies, working for 20 cents a day, load and unload the ships. The automatic conveying machinery on hoard the American vessels making this harbor is never uncovered while in port, because coolies perform the labor more cheaply.
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July 14, 2007

The First Machine Age (Jul, 1936)

Filed under: History — @ 2:54 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1936
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The First Machine Age

MAN’S mastery of mechanics which brought about the machine age of today dates back thousands of years to the first machine age when primitive men discovered and applied the two basic principles of mechanics—the lever and the inclined plane—and then invented and used the six elemental machines: the lever and the inclined plane, the wheel, the pulley and the axle—all modified forms of the lever—and the screw, an adaptation of the inclined plane.

Today, in the Seymour H. Knox Hall of Civilization at the Buffalo Museum of Science a unique exhibit titled “Mechanical Power” pays proper tribute to the ingenuity and inventiveness of the ancients. Miniature figures are portrayed using models of the rough, crude, but highly important machines of the first machine age. As the sub-title of the exhibit explains it: “The discovery and application of simple mechanical principles made possible tasks to which muscles alone were unequal.” Thus even primitive man proved the superior power of brain over brawn and paved the way for the machine age of today.
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July 12, 2007

America’s Part in Soviet Engineering Triumphs (Jul, 1935)

Filed under: History — @ 1:38 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1935
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America’s Part in Soviet Engineering Triumphs

FEW people realize, even today, how important a part America played in the greatest drama in history, the Five Year Plan of Soviet Russia.

This octopus-like rebuilding program, which provided mighty power plants, towering steel mills, and humming factories surpassed in size only by the American plants after which they were patterned, was brought to a highly successful conclusion in 1932. The second Five Year Plan of the U. S. S. R., now half-completed, calls for more factories and more machines, but stresses the production and consumption of Soviet-made goods.
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July 2, 2007

The Epic Story of Radium (Dec, 1938)

Filed under: History — @ 12:14 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1938
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The Epic Story of Radium
RADIUM was discovered by Madame Marie Curie, who with her husband found the secret four years after being assigned the task in 1892. Gilbert La Bine found vast fields of pitchblende, from which radium is extracted, in Canada in 1930, thus assuring the world of a steady supply of the deadly life saver at considerably lower cost than had been possible before. There radium is mined in the largest quantities known. More than 12,000 tons of pitchblende ore have to be blasted and put through various processes before a full ounce of radium can be obtained. On these pages is the story of radium, from the mines near Eldorado, Canada, through the refineries 1,500 miles away.

President Roosevelt’s personal plane had an elevator (Sep, 1945)

Filed under: Aviation, History — @ 12:12 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Sep, 1945
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President Roosevelt’s personal plane which is in reality a specially designed Douglas C-54, was used by the late Chief Executive on several historic trips. Elevator made it possible for him to come aboard in his wheelchair easily.

July 1, 2007

THIS WAS GERMANY’S FLIVVER (May, 1945)

Filed under: Automotive, History, Origins — @ 12:55 pm
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1945
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END OF ANOTHER NAZI DREAM . . .
THIS WAS GERMANY’S FLIVVER
“PEOPLE’S CAR” PROMISED BY HITLER IS ERSATZ JEEP

BACK in the thirties, when Germany’s war preparations were weighing heavily on her people, Nazi leaders dangled before the public a vision of a wonderful “poor man’s car” soon to pour from the factories. It was to be an automotive marvel, light, fast, roomy, and inexpensive; and it would reward Germans for the low wages, long hours, and shortages.
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June 18, 2007

Machine-Made “Stars and Stripes” Replace the Flags of Betsy Ross’ Day (Jan, 1924)

Filed under: History — @ 5:57 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1924
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Machine-Made “Stars and Stripes” Replace the Flags of Betsy Ross’ Day

Uncle Sam’s Factory Turns Out Nation’s Colors

IT is a far cry from the handmade flag of Betsy Ross to the production of flags by machinery, and yet the cradle of the “Stars and Stripes” has remained in Philadelphia since the symbol of our nation was born there 145 years ago. The traditional scene of this woman patriot patiently fingering the colors of a new nation, has shifted to the operation of scores of machines, increasing production a thousandfold.
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June 11, 2007

MEXICO BUILDS HER OWN “STATUE OF LIBERTY” (Feb, 1936)

Filed under: History — @ 7:59 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1936
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MEXICO BUILDS HER OWN “STATUE OF LIBERTY”
Larger than the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor is a massive monument recently erected on an island in Lake Patzcuaro, State of Michoacan, Mexico. The upheld right arm is reminiscent of the American Goddess of Liberty, but the striking, angular lines of the Mexican statue are more modernistic in style. The monument is a memorial to Jose Maria Morelos, a leader in the war by which Mexico won her independence from Spain.

May 18, 2007

OIL PIPE LINE CROSSES PALESTINE (Nov, 1933)

Filed under: History, Sign of the Times — @ 12:30 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1933
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Sounds great, what could possibly go wrong?

OIL PIPE LINE CROSSES PALESTINE
Crossing the Tigris, Jordan, and Euphrates rivers and winding for 1,180 miles across the birthplace of Christian civilization, a new pipe line will soon begin transporting oil from the rich fields of Iraq to the Mediterranean sea coast. At some points, the line descends into valleys more than 800 feet below sea level and at others has to rise over mountains. It is estimated that the twin ten-inch pipes of the line will transport 30,000,000 barrels of oil a year. In spite of dust storms, heat, and the rugged nature of the country, gangs of welders have been laying as much as four miles of pipe in an eight-hour shift. Many American methods are in use. Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, is the site of some of the world’s richest oil fields and the new pipe line will cut the cost of getting this oil to outside markets.

May 17, 2007

MOUNT EVEREST ASCENT TO BE ATTEMPTED AGAIN (Jun, 1924)

Filed under: History — @ 7:40 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1924
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I think this might be the expedition in which George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared.

MOUNT EVEREST ASCENT TO BE ATTEMPTED AGAIN
Like aviators who ascend extreme altitudes, mountain climbers often wear special clothing, protectors for the face and eyes, and carry supplies of oxygen to breathe in the rare atmosphere. The height to which they can go frequently depends upon the efficiency of their equipment. Members of the British geographic expedition, who failed by only 1,700 feet in 1922 to reach the top of Mt. Everest, 29,002 feet above sea level, wore goggles to shield their eyes from the intense rays of the reflected sun, carried tanks of oxygen and had costumes especially designed to meet the rigors of the biting winds. They reported that often as early as 8 o’clock in the morning, the heat of the sun’s rays beating down on their backs caused extreme discomfort. Another effort to conquer the peak is to be made this summer. Every device known to science will be used in the effort.

April 28, 2007

The Man Who Opened the Door to Space (May, 1959)

Filed under: History, Space — @ 12:32 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1959
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The Man Who Opened the Door to Space

NO MAN made a greater personal contribution to this fearsome and challenging era of missiles than the late Robert H. Goddard, an ailing, publicity-shy physics professor from Worcester, Mass., who sought only peaceful scientific uses for his epochal inventions.

This month, 14 years after his death at 62, the entire U. S. missile industry will honor him at a conference.

“He was just as surely the father of modern rockets as the Wright brothers were of the airplane,” Henry F. Guggenheim, noted patron of aeronautical research, has declared.
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