Past Footnotes @PastFootnotes

Bristol Museums notes that Mary later left for Philadelphia, returned to Britain, and eventually lived in Bristol under another name. Source: museums.bristol.gov.uk/narratives.php… Image: Edward Bird sketch, public domain via Commons: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cara… 4/4

The reveal came when Mrs. Neale saw the newspaper picture. The “princess” was Mary Baker (née Willcocks), a cobbler’s daughter from Devon. The language was invented from imaginary and Romani words; the biography was a role. 3/4

In 1817, a woman appeared near Bristol speaking a language no one recognized. She seemed to be a shipwrecked princess from an island called Javasu. Local gentry took her in. Newspapers spread the mystery. Then someone recognized the portrait. 1/4

The line ran about ten miles in County Kerry from 1888 until 1924—one of history’s oddest passenger railways. Source: Lartigue Monorail museum: lartiguemonorail.com Image: Commons, c.1900 postcard, public domain: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lart… 4/4

That meant balance became a daily operating problem. A load on one side needed a matching load on the other. If freight, people, or animals were uneven, the train had to be arranged like a moving set of scales. 3/4

In 1888, an Irish railway opened that looked like a train riding a fence. Passengers did not sit over two rails. The whole line balanced on one raised rail between Listowel and Ballybunion. The strange part was what that did to everything loaded aboard. 1/4

Source: NIHF on Strowger and the automatic telephone-dialing system: invent.org/inductees/almo… Image: US Patent 447,918 drawing, public-domain patent scan via Google Patents: patents.google.com/patent/US44791… 4/4

His 1891 patent turned dialing into motion: pulses from the caller stepped a selector through contacts until it reached the right line. The first commercial Strowger exchange opened in La Porte, Indiana, in 1892. 3/4

In the 1880s, a Kansas City undertaker had a problem that sounds petty—until you realize it helped redesign the telephone network. His calls went through human operators. The story is that one operator kept sending business somewhere else. 1/4

The dream stalled amid politics, panic, and competing elevated-rail schemes. The station was eventually buried in redevelopment. Sources: Museum of City of NY + PBS American Experience. Image: Scientific American, Mar. 5, 1870 / Linda Hall Library, public domain. 4/4

The car was pushed one way by a giant fan and pulled back by reversing the airflow. It was a demo, not a network—but it proved that a city street could hide passenger transit below it. 3/4

In 1870, New York had a subway most people never got to ride. It hid under Broadway, ran for about 300 feet, and moved one luxurious car with air pressure instead of a locomotive. Then it vanished. 1/4

Then the problem became maintenance: seals, valves, pumping costs, coordination. The elegant no-locomotive railway was too fussy for daily service. Source: gracesguide.co.uk/Atmospheric_Ra… Image: Illustrated London News, 1844, public domain. 4/4

It was not a toy. Grace’s Guide calls the Kingstown–Dalkey line the first commercial application of the vacuum system. The idea spread to other experimental atmospheric railways, including Brunel’s South Devon line. 3/4

In the 1840s, Dublin had a railway that ran without a locomotive. Passengers rode from Kingstown toward Dalkey while a stationary engine sucked the train along through a pipe between the rails. The future briefly sounded like a giant vacuum. 1/4