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Whitney's Cotton Gin
A cotton gin (machine), invented by Eli Whitney (1765-1825) in the United States in 1794 during the Industrial Revolution. The machine was used to clean raw cotton and separate it from sticky seeds by pulling the cotton balls through a comb...
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The Textile Industry in the British Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840), textile production was transformed from a cottage industry to a highly mechanised one where workers were present only to make sure the carding, spinning, and weaving machines never stopped. Driven...
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Maya Spouted Jar
This spouted vessel is one of the most elegantly sculpted stone containers in the corpus of Maya art. Its form with the vertical spout parallel to the central axis of the main chamber is known from the late 1st millennium B.C. and is especially...
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The Orange Trees by Caillebotte
An 1878 oil on canvas, The Orange Trees (aka The Artist's Brother in His Garden) by Gustave Caillebotte (1848-96) the French impressionist painter. The subject here is Martial, the artist's younger brother with whom he later shared a house...
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Native American Bear Dance by George Catlin
Bear Dance, hand-colored lithograph by George Catlin, 1844.
Whitney Western Art Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, USA.
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Milling Machine
The milling machine was once thought to have been invented by Eli Whitney (already famous for his cotton gin) c. 1818, but as with many other inventions of the Industrial Revolution, the truth may be more complex regarding who invented what...
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Pieces of Eight from the Whydah
A quantity of silver pieces of eight taken from the Whydah shipwreck. The ship was captained by the pirate Samuel Bellamy, aka ‘Black Sam’ Bellamy, who died in the wreck off Cape Cod in 1717. The wreck was re-discovered in 1984. (Image taken...
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Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice by Canaletto
A c. 1730 oil on canvas painting, Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, by the Italian artist Canaletto (1697-1768). (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)
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Traces Through Time: Natchez Trace Parkway
Journey along the Natchez Trace Parkway, which winds 444 miles from the southern Appalachian foothills of Tennessee through the emerald forests of Alabama to the bayous and swamps of Mississippi. It roughly follows the "Old Natchez Trace,"...
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The First Ghost Stories | Dr. Irving Finkel
Learn how the near-universal belief in ghosts goes back to the beginning of time. Discover how the oldest known writing, in cuneiform script on tablets of clay, gives us a full picture of the ancient Mesopotamian ghost experience: who might...