AtDDtA(15): Alonzo R. Meatman

Sat Aug 11 10:55:02 CDT 2007

On 8/10/07, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Alonzo Jackman and his 'vision" HAS to be behind Alonzo Meatman, yes? Great
> Find, great.

In Russia, party finds YOU ...

Seriously, I just happened to be carrying around that Carolyn Marvin
book at the time, and it just happened to have tumbled down on me in a
minor bookslide recently, so ...

I actually posted that last fall/winter, and FORGOT about it 'til I
went searching in the archives for something else.  There's a LOT that
was posted in the initial rush that really should be brought back to
our attention.  I'm trying, but, if anyone recalls something we didn't
get to jump on the first time around, by all means, bring it BACK to
our attention, esp. now that we've all either finished, or are at
least up to speed, with the book.   But, wow, my typing was worse than
ever there.  My copyediting apparently hasn't gotten any better,
either ...

And that visionof the new resurrection?
>
> The Promis of Science this time?
>
> Which Miles knows is Bad...
>
>
> Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 8/7/07, Dave Monroe wrote:
>
> > "Time did not so much elapse as grow less relvant. At length Chick
> > saw the recently vanished 'contact' reappear from vacant space, now
> > bathed in hues of apricot and aquamarine.
> > "'You again.'
> > "'Little trick of the trade. Had to see how serious you were,'
> > said Alonzo Meatman (for it was he)." (AtD, Pt. II, p. 412)
>
> From Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about
> Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York:
> Oxford UP, 1988), Ch. 5, "Annihilating Space, Time and Difference:
> Experiments in Cultural Homogenization," pp. 191-231 ...
>
> "The most admired feats of the telephone, cinema, electric light
> photograph, amnd wireless were their wonderful abilities to extend
> messages effortlessly
> and instantaneously across time and space .... But wherever these
> extraordinarily sensitive new nerve nets extended, there was little
> genuine sense of cultural enconuter and exchange.... Those who
> controled the new electrical technologies not infrequently dismissed
> vastly different cultures as deficient by civilized standardsm lacking
> even the capacity for meaningful communication." (p. 191)
>
> "An early prophet of transoceanic telegraphic communication, Alonzo
> Jackman, offered a more explicit cultural vision of the salvation of
> the world through instantaneous long-disance communication in a 'new
> era' of evangelism. 'Heathenism would be entombed, and the whole
> earth would be illuminated with the glorious light of Christianity.'"
> (p. 192)
>
> Citing ...
>
> Alonzo Jackman, letter to the editor of the Woodstock (Vermont)
> Mercury, Aug. 14, 1846, in "Some of the Early History of Telegraph
> Cable Manufacture," Electrical Review, Nov. 23, 1889, p. 2 (p. 259, n.
> 2)
>
> http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/?view=usa&ci=0195063414
>
> Alonzo Jackman
>
> In a letter to the Vermont Mercury in August 1846, American academic,
> engineer and soldier Alonzo Jackman claimed that through the advent of
> a Transatlantic
> Telegraph between England and America, 'all the inhabitants of the
> earth would be brought into one intellectual neighborhood.' ...
>
> http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/training_skills/publications_resources/summaries_brochures/linking_thinking.htm
>
> Gen. Alonzo JACKMAN, LL. D., was born in Thetford, Vt., March 20,
> 1809. He was the son of Joseph and Sarah (WARNER) JACKMAN. Alonzo's
> father, a worthy farmer, died when he was only three years old, and
> left his mother in destitute circumstances with three small boys,
> Enoch, Alonzo, and Joseph. Young JACKMAN's early life was spent in
> hard labor for his support, and with but little opportunity for
> schooling. In 1820, at the tender age of eleven years, he and one
> brother left home never to return again, with this parting admonition
> from their mother: "Go for yourselves and remember there is a God."
> She had married Eli CLARK in 1816. At the age of twenty-one Alonzo
> received from his employer the munificent sum of $4, and two days'
> provisions for six years' hard labor. The contract with his employer
> was that he should have three months each year at school, which he
> received only in part. He passed the next three or four years at
> labor, with an occasional term at school. About December 1, 1833, he
> entered Franklin Seminary, at Norwich, with the determination of
> pursuing a regular course of study. While he was pursuing his own
> studies in the academies he taught mathematics, his favorite branch,
> to pay his way. Norwich University had been opened in 1834, and in
> December, 1835, he entered the senior class of that
> institution, and graduated with the degree of A. B. in August, 1836.
> He was the only graduate that year, and the first from that
> institution. Soon after he accepted the chair of mathematics in the
> "N. U.," and remained in connection with the university, with the
> exception of two periods of about three years each, until his death,
> February 24, 1879. He wrote and published an article on the subject of
> a submarine oceanic magnetic telegraph, in which he gave detailed
> plans for the construction and the method of laying the cable across
> the Atlantic. The same year (1846) Hon. Amos KENDALL, president of a
> telegraph company at Washington, D. C., communicated through a
> Philadelphia paper the difficulties of crossing large bodies of water
> with a telegraph. Mr. JACKMAN wrote Mr. KENDALL how all difficulties
> could be surmounted, and sent the article to periodicals in
> Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, but the editors
> refused to publish it as too visionary. He procured its publication in
> the Vermont Mercury, of Woodstock, Vt., in the number issued August
> 14, 1846. He sent copies of this number to scientists and prominent
> men in the United States, Canada, England, and France. Thus he secured
> the credit to himself of being the originator of the plan of this
> gigantic and beneficent enterprise.
>
> Prof. JACKMAN was an excellent tactician and drill-master, and
> was appointed by the governor of New Hampshire brigade drill-master
> with the rank of major, and drilled the officers of the militia of
> that state in 1847 and '48. In 1857 the cadets of Norwich University
> were organized as an infantry company under
> the malitia law, and Prof. JACKMAN was commissioned captain. In 1859
> he was commissioned colonel of the Second Regiment, and the next year
> the Vermont militia were consolidated into one brigade and he was its
> brigadier-general. At the beginning of the late war Gov. FAIRBANKS
> summoned him, with Generals BAXTER and DAVIS, to St. Johnsbury, for
> consultation. The Governor offered Gen. JACKMAN any position in his
> power to grant if he wished to go to the front, but wished him to
> remain and prepare others for duty. In this field he was untiring. He
> prepared and got the old militia in readiness, organized new regiments
> and sent out cadets to drill new companies in all parts of the state,
> and gave clear, precise, and thorough instruction to officers. Honor
> is therefore due the
> General for the good results for the state and Union.
>
> http://www.rootsweb.com/~vermont/WashingtonNorthfield.html
>
> The splendid service of Norwich University at this crucial period, as
> well as that of General Alonzo Jackman (one of the first graduates of
> the school and at this time occupying the chair of military science,
> mathematics, and civil engineering in that institution), deserves
> commendation.
>
> At the breaking out of the Civil War, General Jackman was
> brigadier-general of the State militia; and he was now offered the
> command of the first regiment of
> volunteers....
>
> http://vermontcivilwar.org/1904history.php
>
> Norwich University moved to Northfield from Norwich, Vermont in 1866
> when the South Barracks at the older location burnt down. Jackman Hall
> was the first
> building to be constructed at the new site. The building was erected
> in 1868, and named Jackman Hall in 1907 to honor General Alonzo
> Jackman, a graduate of
> 1836 and a faculty member. It served as housing for cadets.
>
> http://www.norwich.edu/about/map/ncinfo1c.html
>
> Discovered in a box of discarded books being sold at a church rummage
> sale in Montpelier, a Bible belonging to Brigadier General Alonzo
> Jackman has made its way back to Norwich. The University's first
> graduate and later a member of the faculty, Jackman is an indelible
> part of Norwich history....
>
> http://www.norwich.edu/about/news/2005/bible.html
>
> Alonzo Jackman, librarian and professor of civil engineering, military
> tactics, mathematics, and natural philosophy at Norwich University,
> Vermont, wrote an unpublished and undated manuscript in the 1870s
> entitled 'A Novel Telescope'. This paper was intended for the Norwich
> U. 'Reville' campus newspaper. Jackman describes a shallow vessel or
> cistern of mercury, with a diameter of twenty feet, spun at a uniform
> velocity by 'suitable machinery' to produce a parabolodial surface.
> The central portion of the mercury vessel was replaced by an elevating
> 'contrivance' with an observer's chair that could be carried to the
> focus of the optical surface. This focal point could be adjusted by
> altering the speed of revolution of the vessel....
>
> http://www.europa.com/~telscope/LMT.txt
>
> Jackman, Alonzo A Treatise on The Doctrine of Numerical Series, both
> Ascending and Descending: Also the Binomial Theorem, with Integer and
> Fractional Exponents. Claremont, NH, Published by the Author, 1846.
> first edition, octavo, 55, [1] pp., original stiff printed wrappers,
> some minor erosion on spine, some spotting, otherwise a very good
> clean copy. The author could as well have titled the work "Practical
> Algebra." The author was appointed as instructor of mathematics at
> Norwich University of Vermont in 1836, and appointed professor of
> mathematics there in 1837, he resigned his position in 1846. American
> Imprints 46-3670, five locations.
>
> http://search.abaa.org/dbp2/book61629897.html
>
> "Sam Fleischmann" - "Meatman" or maybe "Fleshman" ...
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0303&msg=77296
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0408&msg=92511
>
> Cf. ...
>
> "For Case, who'd lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace,
> it was the Fall. In the bars he'd frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the
> elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh. The
> body was MEAT. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh."
>
> [...]
>
> "Seven days and he'd JACK in. If he closed his eyes now, he'd see
> the matrix."
>
> http://www.lib.ru/GIBSON/neuromancer.txt
>
> Emphases added. But do see as well ...
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112550
>
> Originally posted @ ...
>
> http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=113355
>
>
>
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