In literature, the expression “they live on the other side of town” (or “the wrong side of town”) is an example of figurative language, not just a description of location.

Authors use this phrase to:

• Show class differences (rich vs. poor)
• Show racial differeneces
• Explain why characters may be treated differently
• Create conflict between characters or groups
• Help readers understand the society in the story

The expression teaches readers that judging people by where they live is unfair. Good authors often use this phrase to encourage readers to think critically and to show that a person’s value does not depend on their neighborhood.

Robert Fulton's steamboat began traveling the Mississippi River in 1811 which made travel up and down the river easier for passengers and freight. Further improvements on the design of the steamboat increased the number of boats and, therefore, the number of passengers. In 1814, there were only 20 trips to New Orleans by steamboat. By 1834, there were 1,200!

The truly big advance in travel came with trains, however. In 1827, the first stone was laid for a railroad from Baltimore, Maryland to Ohio. Train travel was much faster than other forms of travel and spurs, or rails off of the main branch of the railroad, to smaller or out of the way towns became possible. Railroads were being built all over the country with the first coast-to-coast railroad being completed in 1869.

The tables below show how much improvement there was in the time it took to travel from New York City. The dark lines show travel time in weeks, the lighter color lines show travel time in days. If you look at the very southern (or bottom) tip of Florida, for example, you can see that it took about 3 weeks to travel there in 1830 since it is past the "2 wks." line. By 1830, it had improved to 2 weeks because it is past the "1 week" line. By 1857, it took only 4 days to travel to the southernmost tip of Florida as it is past the 3 day line.

The following information is taken from the USDA, the Alabama Agricultural Museum, and Cornell University's data sets on crops. 

The following table is the price per pound for cotton. It is not adjusted for inflation, so these are the actual prices paid at the time.

Many places in Connecticut share a similar name: Charter Oak Bridge, Charter Oak State College, Charter Oak Park. Why are so many places and things in Connecticut named “Charter Oak”? The name comes from one of Connecticut’s most famous legends.

Despite Connecticut’s efforts to resist, it became part of the Dominion of New England for the next two years. In 1689, James II was overthrown and Andros lost power in the colonies. The Connecticut Charter emerged from hiding and was used to govern Connecticut until 1818.

On August 21, 1856, the Charter Oak, estimated at nearly 1,000 years old, fell down during a violent storm. Because it was such an important part of Connecticut history, people used the wood to carve chess pieces, chairs, and many other items. Original artifacts made from its wood, along with numerous images, are on display at the Connecticut Historical Society.

Though this solved the problems in older calendars that were used, it wasn't quite accurate enough because the actual time between the beginning of one spring to the beginning of the next spring is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds. This means the Julian calendar was 11 minutes and 14 seconds too slow. This added up to a full day off every 128 years.

By the time Pope Gregory XIII came around in 1572, the calendar was off by ten days, so the first day of spring was happening earlier and earlier on the calendar but really should have been happening on the vernal equinox (Latin for "equal night"), which is the date in the spring when there is the same amount of daylight and darkness.

Pope Gregory did two things to fix the problem. First, though he kept the 365 day calendar with a leap day every four years, he added a new rule: there would be no leap year in years ending in "00" unless those years were divisible by 400. Therefore, the years 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2100 would not be a leap year but the years 1600 and 2000 would. This change was so accurate that today, scientists need only add leap seconds every few years to the clock in order to keep the calendar correct. Secondly, since the Julian calendar had fallen ten days behind over the centuries, Pope Gregory XIII said that October 4, 1582 would be officially followed by October 15, 1582. Not only would the new calendar be used, but ten days would be "lost" forever, and the new year would now begin on January 1 instead of March 25.

Though Pope Gregory's new "Gregorian calendar" was developed in 1572, it took centuries for it to be adopted worldwide. Great Britain finally decided to adopt the calendar in 1751 and their government said September 2, 1752 would be followed by September 14, 1752. Because they took so long to change to the new calendar, they had to add eleven days instead of ten. At that time, America was under British rule, so the American colonies changed their calendar then, too.

Because people were so aware of the changes, for many years after, dates were written using both the old and the new calendars. Before 1752, the new year began March 25, and after, it changed to January 1st. Therefore, Washington's birthday was in 1731 on the old calendar and 1732 on the new calendar since it was in February. And, since his birthday on the old calendar was February 11 and they added eleven days to the calendar, his birthday became February 22nd.