THE REVEREND PROFESSOR NARRATIVE HISTORY AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Charles Brooks
1795 October 30, Friday: Charles Brooks was born to Jonathan Brooks and Elizabeth Albree Brooks in Medford, Massachusetts. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Charles Brooks Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project
1812 Charles Brooks of Medford entered Harvard College. NEW HARVARD MEN
1816 Charles Brooks of Medford graduated from Harvard College. For a short period he would be a reader in the Episcopal Church, and then an exposure to the writings of the Reverend Professor Henry Ware, Sr. and the Reverend William Ellery Channing would cause him to lean toward the Unitarians, so he would go back for theological training.
1819 Charles Brooks terminated his professional studies in the theological school of Harvard College and preached his first sermon in the Medford meetinghouse in which as an infant he had been baptized. NEW HARVARD MEN LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? NO, THAT S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN S STORIES. LIFE ISN T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Charles Brooks
1821 Charles Brooks was ordained as pastor of the Third Congregational Society in Hingham, Massachusetts. In his early ministry he would publish a prayer-book, which would have a very extensive circulation.
1825 The Reverend Charles Brooks introduced anthracite coal in the town of Hingham, Massachusetts by helping people learn how this difficult-to-ignite fuel could be set aburning in their hearths. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Charles Brooks
1827 The Reverend Charles Brooks got married with Miss Celia Williams of Brooklyn, Connecticut (she would live only until 1837).
1833 On a visit to Europe, the Reverend Charles Brooks was exceedingly impressed at the Prussian system of education. On his return he would labor to establish boards of education and normal schools. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Charles Brooks
1837 Celia Williams Brooks died in Hingham, Massachusetts.
1838 Despite his lack of scholarly preparation, the Reverend Charles Brooks was elected Professor of Natural History in the University of the City of New York.
1839 September: The Reverend Professor Charles Brooks had gotten married a 2d time, with Mrs. Charlotte Ann H. Lord of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He closed his pastorate at Hingham and the couple embarked for Europe, where the husband would be preparing himself, in Paris, for the position he had been offered at the University of the City of New York, as a professor of natural history a task for which he had no educational background. On his return he would present a copy of a textbook ELEMENTS OF ORNITHOLOGY to the library of Harvard College.
1843 Back from his 4-year European honeymoon, it was time for Reverend Professor Charles Brooks to devote himself to fulfilment of his new role as Professor of Natural History at the University of the City of New York. Soon he would resign attributing this to failure of his eyesight. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Charles Brooks Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project
1845 The Boston and Hingham Steamboat Company built Steamboat Wharf at the head of Hingham s harbor, east of Barnes Wharf. (The Reverend Charles Brooks had initiated the plan for a line of steamboats between Boston and Hingham, previously known as Bare Cove, Massachusetts.) CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Charles Brooks Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project
1847 Up to this point the only American publication on ornithology had been ORNITHOLOGY: THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. THIRD-BOOK OF NATURAL HISTORY (Philadelphia and New York), produced in 1842 by Dr. William Samuel Waithman Ruschenberger (and, of course, the various follow-on editions of this textbook). The Reverend Charles Brooks therefore prepared, on the basis of French sources such as Henri Milne- Edwards, Linnaeus, Buffon and Cuvier, ELEMENTARY COURSE OF NATURAL HISTORY, BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO ZOÖLOGY: INTENDED FOR THE COLLEGE AND PARLOR. ELEMENTS OF ORNITHOLOGY (Boston: James Munroe & Company, 134 Washington Street; New York: C.S. Francis & Co.; 25 plates plus illustrations in text, 324 pages). The author would present a copy to the Harvard Library. WHAT I M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Charles Brooks Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project
1851 August 22, Friday: In the hot weather a tornado funnel touched down in Waltham and moved across what is now Belmont Hill, crossing Pleasant Street near the present Belmont Line, demolishing the icehouses at the northwest corner of Spy Pond, passing to Medford, crossing the Mystic River and passing on out to sea. As this storm crossed Spy Pond it took up a great deal of water and this, mingled with the sand and gravel of the railway embankment and the dust of the highway, splashed everything near with a liberal coating of gravelly mud. In a very few minutes in Arlington, $25,000 worth of damage was done. William Blasius would spend five weeks inspecting its entire 2½-mile track across West Cambridge, Massachusetts, and would then give a lecture on tornados at the Concord Lyceum which Henry Thoreau would attend. Refer to THE TORNADO OF 1851, IN MEDFORD, WEST CAMBRIDGE AND WALTHAM, MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASS., BEING A REPORT BY REV., AND REPORTS BY OTHER COMMITTEES (Boston: J.M. Usher, 37 Cornhill. 1852) THE TORNADO OF 1851 as well as to William Blasius (1818-1899) s 1875 monograph STORMS: THEIR NATURE, CLASSIFICATION, AND LAWS. WITH THE MEANS OF PREDICTING THEM BY THEIR EMBODIMENTS IN THE CLOUDS.
1853 April 5, Tuesday: Michigan signed a contract with the Fairbanks Scale Company to dig a canal at the Soo. The Syracuse Daily Standard attempted to understand why women s wages were so low. The problem can only be due to the fact that American women are so ignorant and/or supine (see following screen). SEXISM SEWING
Generally there were four groups of needlewomen. At the highestpaid stratum stood the dressmakers, who earned as much as $1.00 a day. Their apprentices usually earned nothing for the first six months of training and had to board themselves; some had to pay the dressmakers $10 to $15 for the privilege of learning the trade. All too often, apprentices never advanced to dressmaker and spent their lives toiling at the lowest wages. So-called journeymen formed the largest group of needlewomen. They worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day, usually sewing garments in their hovels, then returned the finished products at the close of each week. Conditions varied from city to city, but nearly all wages remained low. During an especially long work week in Cincinnati, needlewomen might earn only ninety cents. Market prices generally rose from 1848 to 1854, while wages fell. Work that had earned about ninety-two cents in 1844 paid only about thirty-eight cents the following year. Typical of the most oppressed workers, only scattered strikes developed against these deplorable conditions. Unable to support themselves and their families, many of these needlewomen resorted to prostitution. Samuel Joseph May bitterly remarked that while her base, heartless seducer escaped the villainy he deserved, society rejected his poor victim as a fallen woman. He believed that for all their vaunted praise of women, Americans possessed about as much real respect for them as slaveholders feel for their slaves. As the feminist Caroline H. Dall scornfully observed, the nation had given the needlewomen the miserable options of death or dishonor....in an attempt to head off unionization of city needlewomen, the Syracuse Daily Standard... explained that with so many marginally trained women seeking the same tailoring jobs, wages had to fall: The law of supply and demand which God has established in the affairs of civilized society inevitably makes slaves of all who either ignorantly or supinely submit themselves to its relentless curse. The paper advised its readers that women, like boys, must be told to turn their attention to industries short of workers, conveniently ignoring the fact that women could not obtain other training because of popular prejudices against working women.
CAROLINE H. DALL April 5: The bluebird comes to us bright in his vernal dress as a bridegroom. (Cleared up at noon, making a day and a half of rain.) Has he not got new feathers then? Brooks 1 says the greater number of birds renew their plumage in autumn only; if they have two moults, spring and autumn, there is still but one of the wings and tail feathers. Also says that in the spring various birds undergo a change of color unaccompanied by any moult. I have noticed the few phœbes, not to mention other birds, mostly near the river. Is it not because of the greater abundance of insects there, those early moths or ephemeræ? As these and other birds are most numerous there, the red-tailed hawk is there to catch them? 1. The Reverend Professor Charles Brooks of Medford and Hingham, after retiring from active life due to deteriorating eyesight, authored a number of works for juveniles, including ELEMENTS OF ORNITHOLOGY: PREPARED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES... WITH 400 CUTS... INTENDED FOR THE YOUNG (J. Munroe & Co., 1847).
1855 The Reverend Professor Charles Brooks s HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630 TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855 (Boston: James M.
Usher). MEDFORD UP TO 1855 (UPDATED AS OF 1886) (In about 1856 Henry Thoreau would copy from this into his Indian Notebook #10, and into his Fact Book.) By this year, also, the author had developed while on tours to the Bahamas and to Martha s Vineyard a decided opinion as to the undesirability of intermarriage of near blood relatives. He delivered a lecture, The Evil Results following the Marriage of Near Blood Relatives, in Providence, Rhode Island, which seems to have
rather amused a local reporter: Inhabitants of the Bahamas haven t much brains and are homely as sin. Reason, they intermarry. At Martha s Vineyard, they have a particularly bad time. The island is sea girt. The youths cannot go courting elsewhere because of the rolling billows, and so they content themselves with Marthas in the Vineyard. The island is in consequence, according to our author, full of illustrations. Their minds, says Mr. Brooks, mildly, are moderate. Their health is feeble.
1869 November: Charlotte Ann H. Lord Brooks died in Hingham, Massachusetts.
1872 July 7, Sunday: Charles Brooks died in Medford, Massachusetts in his 76th year. MAGISTERIAL HISTORY IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Charles Brooks
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this read-only computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace resulting in navigation problems allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. It s all now you see. Yesterday won t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. Remark by character Garin Stevens in William Faulkner s INTRUDER IN THE DUST Prepared: May 26, 2014
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT GENERATION HOTLINE This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot Laura (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary writerly process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world. First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.