There was a thread not long ago asking what you could teach the people of 1000 years ago. The obvious flaw would be that nobody on Earth could understand English and you would come across as quite the gibbering imbecile.
So I propose this. You are randomly transported with no forewarning, with nothing but what you have about your person, to March 7th, 1809, to the same geographic locality. What do you do?
My plan of action would probably again be to go down the medical path, although with the medical profession a lot more regulated than it was I imagine it’ll be a bit tougher. But I should be able to shoehorn the idea of penicillin (not ‘discovered’ properly until 1928) and the notion of disease causing bacteria (bacteria being coined in 1838) and the importance of vitamin consumption (not realised until the 20th century). My last point might have quite some impact in these times when seafaring was prominent; I could wipe out scurvy in one fell swoop. Oranges! Take oranges with you! Idiots.
However, there’s the strong possibility that the medical profession would tell me to sod off, in which case I would be a writer and write Sherlock Holmes stories/Lord of the Rings. I’m sure I could think of some other future culture to plagiarise and claim as my own.
How are you going to initially survive? Reading and writing are no longer rare skills. Uncommon, maybe, but not rare. But the forthcoming booms are in international banking - the Rothschilds - and railways.
Hmm, good point. Take any job going (being literate would I image still set you out from menial labour) and set myself up in a BnB, before launching my grand plans.
200 years ago, would be 1808 eastern Connecticut. My town had been incorporated already for 105 years.
Hm, I can teach the classics - reading, writing and arithmatic, comportment and running a household for ladies of gentle birth, sewing of clothing and durable goods, embroidery and forms of embellishment - candlewicking was a very popular form of embellishing bed coverlets, draperies and pillowcases. I can teach practical stillroom keeping including the making of soft and hard soaps, tincturing and extracting plant oils, and cooking. I can teach basic conversation in french, english and spanish. I can teach several period dances [mainly bransles and reels]
I suppose I could open up a finishing school for young ladies of good birth=)
If push came to shove, I can clean, scour, comb, spin and weave cotton, wool and flax. I know how to use an inkle loom, backstrap loom and several types of floor loom. I know the ‘gordian knot’ used in making oriental carpets. I know how to dye and what plants make what dyes and the best mordants for them. This area was known for its thread and woven goods mills =)
I suppose in a pinch I could work as a sempstress as I actually know how to make slopers to make the patterns for the clothing of the period. I can make the clothing, and I can do limited lacemaking [primarily reticella lace. I hate tatting/pin lace] and as I can weave cording, and ribbanding, I would be able to make a good living for myself=)
If I was transported to the same locality 200 years ago I would most probably die, unless some Indians found me. I live smack dab in the middle of the country, in Kansas, and it wasn’t settled by English speaking people then. And I wouldn’t know how to live off the land without help.
This would be a top priority for me, too. On the plus side, San Francisco has already been around for a while, so I’m better off than if I still lived in Oregon, but I don’t know that there’s a whole lot that’s of practical use. I’d probably have to pass myself off as a traveling American or somesuch - unfortunately, I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about 1800’s politics, so I’d probably want to be from somewhere far, far away
Beyond survival, I think my best bet would be (re)inventing the typewriter. I’ve done enough work refurbishing them that with a little trial-and-error I think I could build one from scratch. It’d be a bit early, but not so much that the infrastructure wouldn’t be in place, I think. Of course, there’s the question of whether demand would be in place that early, but that or some other mechanical thingy is probably my best bet. Incandescent lights, mebbe? The main problem there is that anything I’d be ‘inventing’ would probably still need a fair amount of work to figure out how to make them given local resources. That means I need time and materials for a while before anything useful shows up, and that means I need some moolah. I’m a bit stumped as to how I get that initial capital.
Well, I suppose I’d start walking to Melbourne. It’s 100 miles away, but that’s ok - it won’t be settled for another 26 years anyway. Or I could just linger around here until the 1840s and try to influence the name of the town when it’s settled so we end up with something easier to spell than Traralgon. Cazzletown has a nice ring to it. Not quite sure how I’d survive, but I guess learning the language of the Gunai people would be a good start.
Living outside Washing, D. C., I suppose I could impress people with my amazing ability to predict the outcome of every presidential election. On the financial side, I would make a fortune by building flush toilets, which existed in Britain at the time, but not in America.
Oranges would not work because first, they’d rot after the first few days at sea, and second, they couldn’t be grown at northern latitudes. Captain Cook managed to fend of scurvy among his crew by forcing them to eat raw onions and cabbage.
200 years ago in exactly the same place? I’d walk over to the university administrative building and ask for my job back.
More seriously, Mr. Kobayashi is off to a good start; there’s a lot of low hanging fruit in the domain of medicine. Other really basic things.
The periodic table. It’s blindingly obvious once you see it but damn hard to generate if you haven’t.
Atomic structure/nature of light.
Various developments related to warfare (more tactical and strategic than technological - the weapons are about where you’d want them to be).
Basic cryptography.
Assembly line production
My own areas of interest and psychology and (somewhat) neuroscience. Fairly hard to apply in that day and age, but certainly worth writing a book about.
Sort of my situation, Carson City, NV. I couln’t get over the Sierras to any settlements in California. It’s a long way to anywhere else settled, Santa Fe might be the closest. There are some indians around here, no idea how they’d respond when I showed up with no usable skills, unable to communicate, dressed just a tad oddly and wanting a place to hang and something to eat.
Though as I think of it the being oddly dressed might be the thing that saves me. I might be able to do a little trading. My very oddness might be enough to get them to let me hang around, maybe.
I don’t imagine that there is anything I could convince them, even if we could communicate, that I knew that they’d profit from knowing.
Me three. There was a tent city in around 1915, but in the 1800s, the area was mostly only settled by Dena’ina indians, along the entire Cook Inlet area, so no telling where they’d be in reference to where I live or work nowadays.
Hmm, maybe dried Rosehip. Rich in Vit C and would last a long time.
“Just try it Captain, I bet you a hundred pounds that taking this with whatever slop you normally eat will get rid of scurvy! Hyuk hyuk.”
You’d also probably be carrying a nice dose of penicillin-resistant bacteria with you. I always feel like these go-back-in-time scenarios have the potential to end up as a massive apocalyptic disaster…
In 1809, Texas was still part of Mexico. I’d find a way to survive, probably by teaching and/or practicing medicine.
I’d do this until August 19, 1836, then go stake a claim of several thousand acres about five miles southwest of where White Oak Bayou flows into Buffalo Bayou. That would pretty much put me owning the Medical Center, Rice University, Hermann Park and the University of Houston.
I’d then go say hello to the Allen Brothers the next day.
It was already common knowledge in 1808 that fresh fruit and vegetables were a treatment for and would prevent scurvy, so ships were already carrying fresh fruit for such purposes. You could, however, go to London, and thank Dr. Gilbert Blaine, who, as chairman of the Sick and Hurt Board of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, made sure that Royal Navy Ships carried citrus juice for the treatment of scurvy (hence the nickname “limey” for a British sailor)
