Clipper Ship
Hornet – an American clipper ship of the 1850s
DATE INVENTED/BEGAN: 1851
PLACE INVENTED/BEGAN: Boston, MA
DATE ENDED: 1869
PLACE ENDED: Suez Canal
CATEGORY: Technology
DISCIPLINE: Invention
ASSESSMENT: It radically changed ship-borne trade and passage
DETAILS:
In 1851 the first clipper was developed (from the earlier fast coastal packet known as the Baltimore Clipper) by the Canadian-born ship-builder Donald McKay*, in his yards at East Boston, MA.
The ship’s radical new design included a projecting bow, a streamlined hull, and an unprecedentedly large spread of sail on three or more tall masts. The need for speed reflected the money to be made by bringing back the first tea of the season from China and by taking passengers from New York to San Francisco faster than by the overland route.
Clippers sailed all over the world and although most of them were American or British, there were also French and Dutch versions.
The last surviving example (Cutty Sark) is berthed at Greenwich, near London, England.
ONELINER: The Clipper Ship
EXTRA-CONNECTIONS:
George Francis Train made his first real money as a teenager by organizing a line of clipper ships that carried would-be gold miners from Boston to San Francisco. He went on to amass a moderate fortune by betting on the success of railroads along routes that most other investors didn't consider viable. He ran for President against Lincoln in 1864, but no votes in his favor were recorded. While running again for President in 1868, he made a trip around the world in 80 days and was apparently the inspiration for the character of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's novel, Around the World in Eighty Days (record beaten byNellie Bly).
A supporter of the Fenian movement, who were Irish immigrants who opposed English occupation of Ireland and formed an army within the U.S. with the aim of invading Canada to force England to pull out of Ireland (a series of five armed raids were actually attempted). Train claimed to have invented perforated stamps, erasers attached to pencils and canned salmon, but he was also a devoted and effective supporter of women's suffrage and the temperance movement to ban alcohol.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Carl C. Cutler,* Greyhounds of the Sea* (1930, 3rd ed. Naval Institute Press 1984)
Wikipedia (extensive)