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Abraham Lincoln the Early Adopter

Hugh Pickens writes "On the 200th anniversary of his birth, President Abraham Lincoln's popular image as a log-splitting bumpkin is being re-assessed as historians have discovered that Lincoln had an avid interest in cutting-edge technology and its applications. During the war, Lincoln haunted the telegraph office (which provided the instant-messaging of its day) for the latest news from the front; he encouraged weapons development and even tested some new rifles himself on the White House lawn; and he is the only US president to hold a patent (No. 6469, granted May 22, 1849). It was for a device to lift riverboats over shoals. 'He not only created his own invention but had ideas for other inventions, such as an agricultural steam plow and a naval steam ram, [and] was fascinated by patent cases as an attorney and also by new innovations during the Civil War,' says Jason Emerson, author of Lincoln the Inventor. But Lincoln's greatest contribution to the war effort was his use of the telegraph. When Lincoln took office the White House had no telegraph connection. Lincoln 'developed the modern electronic leadership model, says Tom Wheeler, author of Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph To Win the Civil War. At a time when electricity was a vague scientific concept and sending signals through wires was 'mind boggling,' Lincoln was fascinated by the telegraph and developed it into a political and military tool that allowed him to project himself to the front to monitor and track what was going on. 'If he were alive today, we'd call him an early adopter,' says Wheeler."

6 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Re:he also used the word nigger a lot by jcr · · Score: 1, Troll

    Heh.. So, you've never met one of the lefties who loves to wallow in guilt, eh?

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  2. Re:Log-splitting bumpkin, huh? by nurb432 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Booth was willing to die for what he felt was an attack on his country.

    The primary purpose sig is just to make one think, and how relative the terms such as patriot and dissident are. Its about who wins the war and gets to write ( their version of ) history. The sig wasn't to judge if booth was right or wrong in his actions, just that he did act, in the name of his country.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  3. Re:Attention! by Hubbell · · Score: 0, Troll

    Why not look at the fact that if other racial groups voted teh same way that blacks did, McCain would have won by a landslide. Black voted 95+% for Obama, and I've yet to hear of one who didn't say that a major reason was cause they wanted a 'brother in the white house finally' or some derivation thereof. Yet, if you were white and DIDN'T vote for Obama, you were a racist? Maybe I'm fucked up in the head here, but blacks voting for him CAUSE he's black and NOT for mccain cause he was white is the racist part, seeing as almost all across teh country wherever ballot initiatives or other races were occurring and people with the same 'stances' as obama were running, blacks voted against them majoritively.

  4. To the idiot that modded me down by zymano · · Score: 0, Troll

    Afraid of the truth?

  5. Re:Attention! by JackieBrown · · Score: 0, Troll

    Thank you.

    In San Antonio the bulk of the people are hispanic.

    The only one I know that was voting for McCain was treated as a sell out. No mention of issues just racial pride and loyalty were issues for a lot of minorities. (I guess that was considered an issue then.)

  6. Re:Attention! by Hubbell · · Score: 0, Troll

    Exactly. Anyone who wasn't white was suddenly voting on race almost entirely, instead of on the issues. Any black who publicly supported mccain/was against obama was riddled with death threats and hate mail simply for not supporting the messiah Obama. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous.