All Articles Tagged '1890s' (9)

"I was a rather sickly, rather timid little boy, very fond of desultory reading and of natural history, and not excelling in any form of sport. Owing to my asthma I was not able to go to school, and I was nervous and self-conscious, so that as far as I can remember my belief is that I was rather below than above my average playmate in point of leadership; though as I had an imaginative temperament this sometimes made up for my other short-comings. Altogether, while, thanks to my father and…

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Welcome to the Saturday Matinee on Dieselpunks.



In the spirit of Halloween, we're showcasing the diesel and steam era's biggest supernatural picture shows. This week, we have Le manoir du diable (The Haunted Castle).



Directed and produced by Georges Méliès in 1896, Le manoir du diable is a fun romp through the first generation of theatrical special effects.





Run time: 3 minutes, 18… Continue

Happy birthday, HG Wells!

As "the man who invented tomorrow," HG Wells is very important to both the steampunk and dieselpunk aesthetics. Along with Jules Verne and George Griffith, HG Wells helped to invent the genre of the scientific romance (a precursor to science fiction) while capturing the spirit of adventure in an age of adventure.

In honor of his birthday, here are some gifts we can all share. May you be inspired to create in…

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Okay, folks. This one took forever and a day to complete, but it's done. Continue

Servizi Espressi Transatlantici, La Veloce Navigazione Italiana a Vapore, vers 1889.

Le Bateau est le Nord America.…

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Silver certificates are an older form of U.S. currency; their value was backed by silver held in the U.S. Treasury, and they could be redeemed at the Treasury for silver dollars. An 1886 Act of Congress authorized the creation of a new series of silver certificates, and so it came to pass that the Secretary of the Treasury gave the Bureau of Engraving and Printing the task of designing and printing the new currency.

Claude M. Johnson, then Chief of the BEP, had definite ideas about…

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I stumbled across this hilarious article about Nikola Tesla from Badass of the Week and thought I'd share.



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Pretty much everybody even remotely associated with real-time strategy games has heard the name Tesla before – the Serbian God of Lightning's omnipresent, ever-zapping coils have been ruining the lives of digital Allied soldiers and gibbing U.S. war machines into spare parts since the release of… Continue

1865 Web Offset Printing

William Bullock introduced a printing press that could feed paper on a continuous roll and print both sides of the paper at once. Used first by the Philadelphia Ledger, the machine would become an American standard. It would also kill its maker, who died when he accidentally fell into one of his presses.



1867 Barbed Wire

Lucien B. Smith of Kent, Ohio, invents the product that will close down the open cattle ranges by closing in cattle onto… Continue