Documents in Year 1847                    

Links of Interest:

• James K Polk, Eleventh U.S. President

(1845-1849)

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• The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen

California is officially a U.S. territory.


• Postage Stamps started in the U.S.

Benjamin Franklin was on the 5 cent stamp and George Washington was on the 10 cent stamp.

• Education: Training Teachers

"Theory and Practice of Teaching or The Motives and Methods of Good School Keeping, by David P. Page, published in 1847, became the standard text in teacher education" in what were called normal schools. "Admission to most normal schools required an elementary education and was free to residents of the state" and lasted for two years.  By 1865 more than 50 normal schools were in operation and by 1900 a reported 350 normal schools were operating in 45 states."  By 1900 normal schools also started training secondary teachers and admission required high school completion and the normal school program extended to three years.  By the 1920s the normal school program extended to 4 years and were being called state teachers' colleges." 

Source: Foundations of American Education, Sixth Edition page 150-151 / L. Dean Webb, Arlene Metha. Published by Pearson Education. 2010

see 1848 for next event...

• Natural Resources: John Muir arrived in California and began to champion saving the

  Sequoia trees

  and

  Yosemite Valley.

BBC Atlas of the Natural World North America Land of the Eagle "Searching for Paradise" Documentary 2006.

Technology:

• In 1831 Cyrus Hall McCormick invented the reaper, "a machine that made possible for the first time mechanical harvesting of standing ripe grain." He sold his first reaper ten years later in 1841. By 1847 he had so many sales that he moved his production facility to the frontier town of Chicago. Source: Harvester World 27, no 7 (July 1936).