December 16, 2017 Saturday
Bedtime Story
Life of Joseph Jacquard Before Jacquard Loom
However, not surprisingly, only Joseph and
a sister of his survived to adulthood.
Joseph lost his mother when he was just ten
and father when he was twenty.
Joseph received no schooling and till the
age of 13 he was a pure and total illiterate.
It perhaps was more common for children to
illiterate rather than be educated in those days even in Europe, or perhaps
more so in Europe.
After the loss of his parents, he inherited
everything that his father had, including the house and the loom business.
Although historically Jacquard is known for
his loom work, in actual fact he was a multi-tasker who did all sorts of work.
He worked as a book binder even as a child
much before he could read following which he was engaged in the business of
making of printer’s type.
Besides trying his hands into these two
crafts, he indulged in several other crafts and vocations in his later years
that included straw hat making, weaving, cutlery making and even making lime
for mortar.
So it was certain that he was not a specialist
of any sort and did whatever he could get his hands on to survive.
Even after inheriting quite a bit from his
father, he was not a very successful entrepreneur.
In the business that he started, he lost so
much money that he had to sacrifice all of his inheritance to pay off the debt.
Even the dowry that his wife had got for
him had to be given away in lieu of his financial fiascos.
Yes Sir, dowry it seems is not exclusive to
South Asia and is not just limited to our times.
Very surprisingly, he reproduced just once which
astonishes me as humans like any living creature have a general tendency to
maximize reproduction.
What is even more amazing that both the
father and son fought together in a European battle that goes by the name of
Rhine Campaign of 1795.
The father then was 42 and his son just 16,
and there they were waging war against Hapsburg forces just to escape some kind
of revolution that had broken out in Lyon.
This revolution that was happening in Lyon
and perhaps all over France was mainly because of economic crisis and the
collapsing commerce all around.
Jacquard lost his only son and one would
expect the father to be devastated.
Devastated or not I have no idea, but soon
after the war and personal loss staring his face, he devoted all his residual
energy most productively.
Starting from 1800 or so Jacquard all of a
sudden started inventing all sorts of new devices.
All this at the ripe age of 48; mind you
mon ami, in those dark ages where there was no antibiotics and vaccines, even
to survive till this age after having gone through a war was a miracle.
You would recall that seven of Jacquard’s
siblings never lived to see their adulthood.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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