M & D Read

[Becky Lindroos]

I think science and reason offered another way up - this was also the very beginnings of the industrial revolution so there were some jobs helping the inventors and entrepreneurs and businessmen as well as the usual lawyers and doctors, etc.   George Washington (from a much better station in life) was a surveyor so that was not drudge work.  

 If a bright and hard-working lad were also fortunately situated, knowing someone who had some strings, he could possibly find someone who would pay his way to betterment.  We also have Alexander Hamilton, born in very dire circumstances,  who had the right connections (very lucky) - and Ben Franklin who was only a couple shades above Hamilton’s situation.    The military and the clergy were sometimes possibilities for a talented and hard-working lad - showing your stuff there could make a promotion.  But someone had to pay your way into the training or you could read a  lot (like Franklin and others) and get a job in printing, surveying, doctoring, lawyering,  other things. 

The church was often seen as the way to a better life for both men and women. You could get some education there,  learn to read, do the maths,  some higher-up might take notice.  

Becky   

> On Feb 12, 2015, at 3:32 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> So, a possibility as the Renaissance began, at the end of the
> encrusted Middle Ages? Kicking in
> noticeably around the Age of Reason, mid-sixteen hundreds and, more
> than once in M &D
> is the development of science/technology shown as one way up?
> 
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 6:21 AM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I suppose so, but there've always been the likes of Shakespeare and Wolsey
>> who've ascended past their designated social station.
>> 
>> 
>> On Thursday, February 12, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> p. 73. "How did a baker's son get to be Assistant to the Astronomer Royal?
>>> Etc.
>>> 
>>> Upward mobility, a generally new thing for the times.
>>> 
>>> That paragraph ending with "Or are we being used, by Forces invisible
>>> even to thy Invisible College?"
>>> 
>>> ???
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l