In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette

by Hampton Sides

Something was happening in America, some new energy, an efflorescence of native talent. An American style of manufacturing seemed to be emerging—one that relied on automation, on interchangeable parts, on machine-made machines that fed still other machines. The Times of London gushed, “The American invents as the Greek sculpted and the Italian painted: it is genius.” Other English observers struck notes of quiet despair. “If we are to be judged by the comparison with the Americans in 1876,” a prominent British engineer named John Anderson wrote in an official report on the Centennial Exhibition, “it would be to confirm … that we are losing our former leadership and it is passing to the Americans.”

Good-by, with a thousand kisses. With God’s help I shall yet do something to make you proud of bearing your husband’s name. Do not give me up, for I shall one day or another come back to claim my wife and child. May God keep and bless you, wherever you are, and save your love for me. If by any mischance we should never meet again in this world, be assured that in everything, word and deed, you have always been to me the truest, best, and most loving wife a man ever had. My whole heart and soul go out to you … my precious, darling, good-by.

They were, he thought, “better behaved than white men, and not half so greedy, shameless, or dishonest … These people interest me greatly, and it is worth coming far to know them.”