"What Madness Is This?" Volume I: The Union Forever
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
It looks smaller in 1826, or am I seeing things wrong? It looks taller, but thinner.
Maine should be nubby, like this OTL map:
That green part on top is the disputed land that was settled OTL with Britain in ?1818? I believe.
SuperZtar64
Banned
I made it as close as I could get to to that original disputed area border. I may have made it slightly smaller but it's supposed to represent that.
1842, Webster-Ashburton treaty. 1818 was the Anglo-American Treaty that got us the modern-day US-Canada border.
The AFC is already going crazy. No sane man would want more than one wife (imagine if tbey had their periods at the same time). But that's just my opinion.
Polygamy feels both in and out of place in-universe. Maybe split the difference and say that plural marriage is reserved only for “Heroes of the Union” and Patriot-Saints, as they’ve clearly shown themselves to be the the best “Betters of Society” and clearly need to spread their “greatness” through the gene pool. Could line up with the RU and AFC going full eugenicist and work as a handy dandy way for the corrupt to justify their infidelity and affairs.
AeroTheZealousOne
Monthly Donor
Already can't wait. I mean, with everything going on in this soon-to-be dumpster fire that is human civilization, I am sure to many people socialism in some form will actually be an attractive ideology to those non-brainwashed peoples who aren't already loyal to [insert monarch or Republican dictator here].
Oh my gosh, this is so awful that it's great.
Was wondering why it wasn't threadmarked. That's what I get for being late on the draw. Probably for the best, though.
As always looking forward to what 1826 has in store. Europe, what are you planning...?
I guess the Epiphany of 1826 will concern the "work will set you free" aspect and the AFC creating the classification of Inferiors. I do like your idea of a war in 1850/60ish where maybe the Union gains Maryland. The losses of the war could maybe cause the AFC to "discover" a Fifth Book of Manifest Destiny encouraging polygamy for the Betters of Society (especially the upper class and Heroes of the Union). Regardless, I look forward to seeing what you do with it.
Now, as for phrenology, is that still going to be factoring into Union ideology relatively soon? If so, I can only imagine how that goes....
Now, as for phrenology, is that still going to be factoring into Union ideology relatively soon? If so, I can only imagine how that goes....
you know i kinda have to wonder, with Polygamy and all their massive conquests, would the leaders and soldeirs start taking war brides to show how awesome they are or would that be mixing with infeirors and banned?
Just read the original and now this. Interesting stuff, yeah I'd say the 1820s is way too early for polygamy to take in. Maybe once the Church is established within a few decades, then the more crazy stuff can come into effect. I wonder if this RU/NUSA will still end up conquering Britain. Seems inevitable since the British state was fully dismantled in the Napoleonic Wars, and I see an America-Germany and England-Austria analogy here.
This is a great little fun video that helps shine a light on why the Union just absolutely, like, really totally hates Irish, you guys.
THE EPIPHANY OF 1826
Revised 1826. It focuses on the so-called inferiority of well... the Inferiors. Also has a teaser to what I have planned for the Congress of Vienna in 1826! America, represented at the Congress by Charles Goodyear of course, actually gets some small pieces of Canada this go-round, with Napoleon likely thinking he has territory to spare and maybe it will make America a friendlier neighbor and they'll forgive the "Great Backstab." Spoiler alert: It won't.
THE EPIPHANY OF 1826
THE FOURTH BOOK OF MANIFEST DESTINY
(from left to right) Edward Everett, Aaron Burr, and Milo Miles being visited by the Angel of Destiny in 1826
It was early on the fall morning of October 1, 1826. The Prophet Burr, Boston Reverend Edward Everett, and their newest protege, Reverend Milo Miles of New York, were taking a stroll through the property surrounding Burr's massive estate in Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love was capital to not only the Republican Union, but also the stronghold of the American Fundamentalist Christian Church. The spires of the ever-enlarging National Church, located just a block from the Liberty Bell, gleamed in the distance, their new copper jackets reflecting the sunset of that cool, clear day.
Burr, Everett, and Miles were engaging in an intense debate over whether or not the Southrons could ever be brought back into the fold without wholesale slaughter, when Burr began slurring words and acting strange. The other two men, thinking he was having some sort of a stroke or seizure, quickly put their arms under Burr's. Slowly, Burr's eyes rolled up in his head and he sank to his knees. Crimson blood dripped from his ears and nose, just as it had in 1777. Then, as his eyes closed, the Prophet spoke to the two preachers. "Gentlemen, let us pray. For we are in the presence of an Emissary from the Trinity. Beg for your unworthiness to be spared destruction." Immediately, true believers that they were, the two men began feverishly praying as Burr chanted in tongues. In about two minutes of time, Burr spoke again:
"OH! Angel of Destiny! We are your humble servants! Pray tell how we humble mortals can be of any use for your holy deeds! Lo! For Manifest Destiny shall heal our wounds and sorrow, so sayeth the Angel of Destiny those many years ago! I do hope, dear holy one, that I have followed my God's instructions to spread the Word of the New Jerusalem!"
No one present actually saw or heard anything except Burr, but Everett and Miles would insist until their dying days that they had experienced epiphany and "holy visitation."
The Angel spoke (according to Burr):
"Be at peace, Aaron my Prophet. Thou hast done well. Verily every word have you followed and spread to the masses. But thy life is not yet over. Thou art needed by Our Father to write a new book! A Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny shall flow from thy pen, and indeed Brothers Everett and Miles shall spread this Book and its teachings. Yea, for long after thou hast returned to dust shall thy brothers spread the Good News of this Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny."
Burr, paralyzed in place, his glasses resting atop his thinning gray hair, begged of the Angel, "Oh joy of joys, dear Angel of the Lord! Show me the words that I may write!"
The Angel responded, saying to him, "Faithful servant, thou shall lift thy pen this night and every night for seven nights. Only then shall the Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny be completed. Go, do these things in God's name now, and Everett and Milo shall soon useth their silver tongues to preach these words to the Holiest Nation upon the earth."
Just like that, Burr snapped out of it, the flow of blood from his ears and nose stopping, his eyes rolling back down. The Angel was gone. Neither Everett nor Miles wanted to admit they had not seen the Angel they believed in so greatly, so both would insist from that day on they heard the Word.
Burr quickly returned to his palatial house, "running like a man possessed" in his old age, with Everett and Miles not even able to keep up, and locked himself away in his study. In one week, on October 8, 1826, Burr finally came out of his study with a stack of papers in his hand. The Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny, The Book of Purity, was complete. He immediately summoned Everett and Miles to come read them. American culture was about to change forever.
"Some have said what the Prophet has recently written on the practice of singling out the undesirable and inferior elements of our society is unjust, or even un-Christian! I say, it is not! The Lord says it is not! I say it is a rebirth of the American experiment! It is God's will and so let it be done! How else should we achieve our Manifest Destiny? Think about it this way, folks: if we let these pope-worshiping Inferiors have rights equal to good Protestant Americans, they will corrupt and bring down our society and crush our dreams and prayers of Manifest Destiny. The Book of Purity instructs this is the only way, in vivid detail in verses 10 through 15, when the Angel of Destiny says to the Prophet, 'May God's Chosen People be fruitful. May they multiply and covereth the face of the earth with their seed. May godly men of the Chosen People take godly wives of the Chosen People in Christ's name and rear up many children. May millions upon millions be brought up with the Word of God in their mouths and hearts, and may they take that what has been prepared for them by the Lord. For the Inferiors breed copiously and degenerately, with no care for marriage or sacred rites, and they shall attempt to drag our people into the muck and mire of sin and misery with their abundant evil offspring. Yea, these Inferiors are working against the Chosen People of God. But those Inferiors that know their rightful place as workers shall be elevated to a higher place in death. For idleness is the Devil's plaything, and may work set them free from the wages of sin and barbarism.'"
Loud hissing and booing filled the meeting place upon mention of the foreign hordes. Everett continued:
"And so I say to you, my fellow Americans, we are in the End of Days and we must gird up our nation to weather this coming storm. The Lord has spoken through his Angel of Destiny, through the Prophet, and I was there for it all! I saw the golden gleam of the Angel speak to the Prophet! I saw it appear and disappear and I saw it's divine power. America needs to change. If we are to build the New Jerusalem we need to purify our society! It is time for America to change forever. We shall move forward, assured of our stance and the knowledge of our God-ordained superiority, and prepare for a glorious future when All shall Hail the name of the Republican Union! My brothers and sisters, go forth and multiply! The New Jerusalem won't build itself!"
Out west, Reverend Milo Miles was having a much harder time selling the Fourth Book to Union citizens. He was chased out of Cincinnati, Ohio, by an angry mob calling him an apostate and liar. Discouraged but not down, he went north to Chersonesus and had more luck in the city of Crawford, formerly known as Detroit. On December 3, 1826, Miles crossed into what America could now refer to as the State of Ontario, as it had been Goodyear's triumph at the World Congress earlier that same year to annex the Ontario Peninsula, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into the Union. There, he spoke to thousands in the City of Toronto, which was not happy to be a part of the Union and very few took the AFC seriously. He was again confronted by an angry mob. Union troops stationed in the city to prevent the newly-annexed region from breaking away intervened, forcing the mobs back and giving Miles a chance to flee.
Next, after Miles crossed Lake Michigan to Milwauckie, Michigania, which had a booming German and Scandinavian population, he had more success with these new revelations. Now leaving race-riots in his path as AFC devout "asserted their superiority" and chased formerly-respected "filthy Inferiors" into the ghettos, he traveled on to Oshkosh. Some of the Inferiors being chased into the ghettos were citizens of the Union in good-standing, far removed from the radical hotbeds of Philadelphia and Boston. However, as religious fervor swept the country, they found themselves more and more being treated like foreigners in their own towns. One man could be a Catholic banker one week, and the next he was running for his life across the Canadian border or forced to relocate into a slum.
Miles kept on pushing, and eventually Federal troops came to "supervise Miles peacefully practice his religious freedom." This was unbelievable to some, who saw it as the government stepping in to officially rubber-stamp the AFC Church for the first time. Yankee troops guarded revivals at several small cities, and a shootout occurred at one in Green Bay between soldiers and several Catholics and anti-AFC radicals. Known as the Green Bay Christmas Massacre of 1826, it devolved into full-scale civil unrest in the region. No one could report with accuracy who fired the first shot, but before the day was over mass rioting and rolling gunfights and looting were widespread.
Reverend Milo Miles dictating to his secretary, a young man named Millard Fillmore
Illustration of the Green Bay Massacre of 1826
When all was said and done and order was returned to the streets in late December, over 100 people had been killed and an entire area of downtown Green Bay had been turned to ash. However, this would prove a boon to the AFC, as newspapers began reporting of "devious hoodlums and assassins trying to kill the honorable Reverend Miles, who was peacefully preaching to the people of Green Bay." Miles was practically martyred and sanctified alive, and when he returned to Philadelphia in February, 1827, he received a hero's welcome. Thousands of AFC loyalists called him a true saint, facing down death itself to spread the Good Word.
As the years would go on, the AFC would gain in power more and more. It was the New America, and the changes weren't over yet. With the creation of the Council of Jehovah in 1829, born of Aaron Burr's closest, most loyal, and most... interesting... disciples, the changes were just beginning. There would be resistance to the "anti-Cardinals" at first, but quickly they would grow into one of the most feared and respected, as as well as mysterious, parts of the American Fundamentalist Christian Church.
THE EPIPHANY OF 1826
THE FOURTH BOOK OF MANIFEST DESTINY
(from left to right) Edward Everett, Aaron Burr, and Milo Miles being visited by the Angel of Destiny in 1826
Burr, Everett, and Miles were engaging in an intense debate over whether or not the Southrons could ever be brought back into the fold without wholesale slaughter, when Burr began slurring words and acting strange. The other two men, thinking he was having some sort of a stroke or seizure, quickly put their arms under Burr's. Slowly, Burr's eyes rolled up in his head and he sank to his knees. Crimson blood dripped from his ears and nose, just as it had in 1777. Then, as his eyes closed, the Prophet spoke to the two preachers. "Gentlemen, let us pray. For we are in the presence of an Emissary from the Trinity. Beg for your unworthiness to be spared destruction." Immediately, true believers that they were, the two men began feverishly praying as Burr chanted in tongues. In about two minutes of time, Burr spoke again:
"OH! Angel of Destiny! We are your humble servants! Pray tell how we humble mortals can be of any use for your holy deeds! Lo! For Manifest Destiny shall heal our wounds and sorrow, so sayeth the Angel of Destiny those many years ago! I do hope, dear holy one, that I have followed my God's instructions to spread the Word of the New Jerusalem!"
No one present actually saw or heard anything except Burr, but Everett and Miles would insist until their dying days that they had experienced epiphany and "holy visitation."
The Angel spoke (according to Burr):
"Be at peace, Aaron my Prophet. Thou hast done well. Verily every word have you followed and spread to the masses. But thy life is not yet over. Thou art needed by Our Father to write a new book! A Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny shall flow from thy pen, and indeed Brothers Everett and Miles shall spread this Book and its teachings. Yea, for long after thou hast returned to dust shall thy brothers spread the Good News of this Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny."
Burr, paralyzed in place, his glasses resting atop his thinning gray hair, begged of the Angel, "Oh joy of joys, dear Angel of the Lord! Show me the words that I may write!"
The Angel responded, saying to him, "Faithful servant, thou shall lift thy pen this night and every night for seven nights. Only then shall the Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny be completed. Go, do these things in God's name now, and Everett and Milo shall soon useth their silver tongues to preach these words to the Holiest Nation upon the earth."
Just like that, Burr snapped out of it, the flow of blood from his ears and nose stopping, his eyes rolling back down. The Angel was gone. Neither Everett nor Miles wanted to admit they had not seen the Angel they believed in so greatly, so both would insist from that day on they heard the Word.
Burr quickly returned to his palatial house, "running like a man possessed" in his old age, with Everett and Miles not even able to keep up, and locked himself away in his study. In one week, on October 8, 1826, Burr finally came out of his study with a stack of papers in his hand. The Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny, The Book of Purity, was complete. He immediately summoned Everett and Miles to come read them. American culture was about to change forever.
***
It was a sunny, crisp morning in Boston. Now at the zenith of fall, it made preaching outside a pleasure. Fresh air was abundant and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Reverend Edward Everett addressed the citizens and churchgoers under the convention awning behind his AFC Church of Boston. Upon hearing he was speaking about the new Fourth Book of Manifest Destiny, just published a week before, thousands came to hear Everett speak about these latest divine revelations.
"Some have said what the Prophet has recently written on the practice of singling out the undesirable and inferior elements of our society is unjust, or even un-Christian! I say, it is not! The Lord says it is not! I say it is a rebirth of the American experiment! It is God's will and so let it be done! How else should we achieve our Manifest Destiny? Think about it this way, folks: if we let these pope-worshiping Inferiors have rights equal to good Protestant Americans, they will corrupt and bring down our society and crush our dreams and prayers of Manifest Destiny. The Book of Purity instructs this is the only way, in vivid detail in verses 10 through 15, when the Angel of Destiny says to the Prophet, 'May God's Chosen People be fruitful. May they multiply and covereth the face of the earth with their seed. May godly men of the Chosen People take godly wives of the Chosen People in Christ's name and rear up many children. May millions upon millions be brought up with the Word of God in their mouths and hearts, and may they take that what has been prepared for them by the Lord. For the Inferiors breed copiously and degenerately, with no care for marriage or sacred rites, and they shall attempt to drag our people into the muck and mire of sin and misery with their abundant evil offspring. Yea, these Inferiors are working against the Chosen People of God. But those Inferiors that know their rightful place as workers shall be elevated to a higher place in death. For idleness is the Devil's plaything, and may work set them free from the wages of sin and barbarism.'"
Loud hissing and booing filled the meeting place upon mention of the foreign hordes. Everett continued:
"And so I say to you, my fellow Americans, we are in the End of Days and we must gird up our nation to weather this coming storm. The Lord has spoken through his Angel of Destiny, through the Prophet, and I was there for it all! I saw the golden gleam of the Angel speak to the Prophet! I saw it appear and disappear and I saw it's divine power. America needs to change. If we are to build the New Jerusalem we need to purify our society! It is time for America to change forever. We shall move forward, assured of our stance and the knowledge of our God-ordained superiority, and prepare for a glorious future when All shall Hail the name of the Republican Union! My brothers and sisters, go forth and multiply! The New Jerusalem won't build itself!"
***
Toronto Riot of 1826
Toronto Riot of 1826
Out west, Reverend Milo Miles was having a much harder time selling the Fourth Book to Union citizens. He was chased out of Cincinnati, Ohio, by an angry mob calling him an apostate and liar. Discouraged but not down, he went north to Chersonesus and had more luck in the city of Crawford, formerly known as Detroit. On December 3, 1826, Miles crossed into what America could now refer to as the State of Ontario, as it had been Goodyear's triumph at the World Congress earlier that same year to annex the Ontario Peninsula, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into the Union. There, he spoke to thousands in the City of Toronto, which was not happy to be a part of the Union and very few took the AFC seriously. He was again confronted by an angry mob. Union troops stationed in the city to prevent the newly-annexed region from breaking away intervened, forcing the mobs back and giving Miles a chance to flee.
Next, after Miles crossed Lake Michigan to Milwauckie, Michigania, which had a booming German and Scandinavian population, he had more success with these new revelations. Now leaving race-riots in his path as AFC devout "asserted their superiority" and chased formerly-respected "filthy Inferiors" into the ghettos, he traveled on to Oshkosh. Some of the Inferiors being chased into the ghettos were citizens of the Union in good-standing, far removed from the radical hotbeds of Philadelphia and Boston. However, as religious fervor swept the country, they found themselves more and more being treated like foreigners in their own towns. One man could be a Catholic banker one week, and the next he was running for his life across the Canadian border or forced to relocate into a slum.
Miles kept on pushing, and eventually Federal troops came to "supervise Miles peacefully practice his religious freedom." This was unbelievable to some, who saw it as the government stepping in to officially rubber-stamp the AFC Church for the first time. Yankee troops guarded revivals at several small cities, and a shootout occurred at one in Green Bay between soldiers and several Catholics and anti-AFC radicals. Known as the Green Bay Christmas Massacre of 1826, it devolved into full-scale civil unrest in the region. No one could report with accuracy who fired the first shot, but before the day was over mass rioting and rolling gunfights and looting were widespread.
Reverend Milo Miles dictating to his secretary, a young man named Millard Fillmore
Illustration of the Green Bay Massacre of 1826
When all was said and done and order was returned to the streets in late December, over 100 people had been killed and an entire area of downtown Green Bay had been turned to ash. However, this would prove a boon to the AFC, as newspapers began reporting of "devious hoodlums and assassins trying to kill the honorable Reverend Miles, who was peacefully preaching to the people of Green Bay." Miles was practically martyred and sanctified alive, and when he returned to Philadelphia in February, 1827, he received a hero's welcome. Thousands of AFC loyalists called him a true saint, facing down death itself to spread the Good Word.
As the years would go on, the AFC would gain in power more and more. It was the New America, and the changes weren't over yet. With the creation of the Council of Jehovah in 1829, born of Aaron Burr's closest, most loyal, and most... interesting... disciples, the changes were just beginning. There would be resistance to the "anti-Cardinals" at first, but quickly they would grow into one of the most feared and respected, as as well as mysterious, parts of the American Fundamentalist Christian Church.
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You know, with the old version of the ORRA having a Sky Marshal title, this just has to be thrown in at some point. I'm surprised I didn't see it, even. 
Also, I do wonder if in the future America'd have to adopt something like a 'One-Child Policy' because of overpopulation, which would put a potentially more pragmatic government in conflict with the AFC.
Also, I do wonder if in the future America'd have to adopt something like a 'One-Child Policy' because of overpopulation, which would put a potentially more pragmatic government in conflict with the AFC.
Jesus just like a post about the AFC. WE'RE DOOMED. lol
Right now, they're underpopulated I would say, so they need lotsss of kids. In the future, if they aim to be as expansionist as the Union from WMiT Classic, they will need millions more. After all, if they eventually land Louisiana, there will be vast empty plain stretching to the Pacific that could support untold millions as well as booming new cities to create on the Mississippi. Not even mentioning if they conquer Mexico as well.
Right now, they're underpopulated I would say, so they need lotsss of kids. In the future, if they aim to be as expansionist as the Union from WMiT Classic, they will need millions more. After all, if they eventually land Louisiana, there will be vast empty plain stretching to the Pacific that could support untold millions as well as booming new cities to create on the Mississippi. Not even mentioning if they conquer Mexico as well.
I don't see either happening this time around. No matter what excuse the RU uses, I feel as though the Southron nations will do whatever it takes to not find themselves totally surrounded by the Union, even if it means Georgia invading Louisiana themselves if France still sells it like in Classic or a united Southern force intervening on Mexico's side during a possible Mexican-RU war.
Those situations would likely result in a bloody war the likes of which the Americas have never seen, not even OTL.
A bloody war exacerbated by the RU having serious burning Hatred for the South ITTL for allying with France and helping cajole them into the War of 1812, which they didn't even want to be a part of in the first place. ...It would be a complete diaster....for the South...
They would approach it much the U.S. approached Korea and Vietnam IOTL...a "war of containment"...only for the RU to give them a feral grin and be all "Thank you for giving us an excuse to end your miserable lives!!!!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I'm just wondering how the church will find a way to bring back race based slavery with out abandoning abolitionist. I could see a slave state priest seeing the arc and makeing a southern version of it.
CHARLES GOODYEAR: THE EARLY DAYS
CHARLES GOODYEAR: THE EARLY DAYS
THE FUTURE TITAN OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY MAKES A NAME FOR HIMSELF
Charles Goodyear was born on December 29, 1800, in New Haven, Connecticut, to Amasa and Cynthia Goodyear. He was a descendant of Stephen Goodyear, one of the original English settlers of the region. However, in 1801, after the Collapse of the Old Republic, Amasa moved his family to Boston. There, the Goodyear family would be some of the earliest followers of Aaron Burr, with Charles being a choir boy. Charles was born at possibly the worst time possible for producing a stable individual, but the best time for producing a xenophobic genius. As a boy growing up in the shadow of the Collapse of the Old Republic, Goodyear resented his family's poverty and had great dreams of building a business empire. Charles hoped to travel to Philadelphia to learn the hardware trade as an adolescent, but the War of 1812 brought untold destruction upon New Haven and his family. Formerly by all accounts a friendly and polite young man of mild manners, the war would set a burning bonfire of hatred and resentment ablaze in his heart. His father Amasa volunteered to fight in 1812 and ended up in the service of General Zebulon Pike. As any schoolchild would know, Zebulon Pike's forces were decimated at the Battle of Mount Greylock in January, 1814. Among the dead lying on the field of battle was Amasa Goodyear, dead from a bayonet through the chest.THE FUTURE TITAN OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY MAKES A NAME FOR HIMSELF
As the Anglo-Canadians and their Indian allies came whooping and shooting their way through New England on Drummond's campaign of decimation, Charles Goodyear, his mother, and his five siblings fled to Philadelphia. Their home in Boston was looted and torched in their absence. Charles tried to volunteer to fight in the war, even as a drummer, to avenge his father, but his mother begged him to stay and keep the family safe as new head of the household. His mother passed shortly after of an illness exacerbated by her grief, making Charles' mind up for him. He stayed in Philadelphia with his siblings, working at a local chemist and drugstore.
The entirety of the war, Goodyear's father and mother told him they would be saved as "French and Southron troops will arrive any day now." When they finally bothered to show up, it was too little, too late. The seeds of hate had been planted in Goodyear and millions of other Americans. Goodyear never got to bury his father, or even retrieve his body, but his mother's grave in downtown Philadelphia never was in want of flowers or tiny crosses he would carve with Bible verses she taught him engraved on the fronts. For his father, he buried next to his mother is father's favorite beaver-fur hat, as it was the only thing he still had of his. Goodyear would later say, "Thanks to our Allies deserting us in a war we should have easily won, thanks to the back-stabbers, I never got to bury my own father. I got to bury a hat."
With the war over, Goodyear's younger siblings went to go live with an uncle in the Ohio Country, leaving Goodyear his own man at age 16. He remained in Philadelphia, trying his hand at different trades before getting hired by the Erie Lake Construction Company, in early 1817. Among the laborers who joined him were throngs of recent immigrants from Ireland and Italy who heard of the need for workers on the project. Goodyear, at only 17 years old, started out as a foreman because of his prior work experience and due to the fact that the old foreman on his team had been killed by a falling tree.
Foreman Goodyear was "disgusted" by the Irish and Italian workers "poor work ethic." He wrote to his sister shortly after construction began in July, 1817, that "These Papist immigrants are of the utmost scum of the earth. Never have a seen before a lazier, more worthless or slovenly bunch of individuals. Sometimes I doubt their humanity, as if they are indeed some sort of white apes. It is most distressing here. I hope to make progress with my team in our duties, but if I am not given greater power to make them actually work, I shall quit. The Negro picks the cotton obediently and with no pay. These free men can't do what the slave Negro does for free." On his breaks, Goodyear would map out on paper different systems of log-pullers to remove the nightmarish amount of trees easily and safely and also worked on a new system of workforce management which he called "the disassembly line." Certain workers would be in charge of axes, others in charge of log removal, others in charge of charting the territory, and so on and so forth. Goodyear presented this new plan for the workers to the company bosses in early 1818, and the heads of the company, distraught by rumors it would take 30 years to create the connection of the Atlantic to Lake Erie, took him very, very seriously. The head of the company, Solomon Bush, agreed that the workers were "unmotivated and lazy" and lacked any sort of true training or organization.
With approval from the bosses to implement his "reforms," Goodyear was placed in charge of "team management" for the entirety of the project. He brought in old war veterans to serve as company goons who would literally beat up workers deemed to be going too slow. Suddenly, 30 year estimates became 4 year estimates. The 18 year-old Goodyear was one of the most powerful men in the entire company, and he became a villain to the workers but a hero to the downtrodden American people as the project looked to be paying off. At the same time, however, measles struck the crew, killing an estimated 1000 worker over a few months. Goodyear himself contracted the disease, but refused adequate bed rest for himself, saying he needed to set a good example of the Christian work ethic. This solidified his status as a hero to American businessmen for generations.
Productivity booms during construction of the Erie Canal thanks to Charles Goodyear
Finally, the measles outbreak died down and work continued as before. In 1821, the Canal was opened for ships and Goodyear was offered a very high position desk job within the company. However, he felt he was capable of even more and turned the job down, taking a generous bonus with him on the way out, as well as a crew of capable loyalists. Instead, he went to New York City, a city on the upswing thanks to the economic boom the Canal had created in the region, and founded Goodyear Enterprises. At first, it was a construction business, using his expertise he had gained from the Canal. However, he soon became interested in the rubber business and the chemist training and business management side of him perked up. Rubber was greatly needed for many reasons, but current rubbers would rot and fall apart. Now, using the funds from his construction company, he opened Goodyear Rubber, the first of many subsidiaries of Goodyear Enterprises. The young man, in 1823, called upon the help of Eli Whitney, an old friend of his fathers, and they formulated the "perfect rubber" that withstood use and abuse and cold and heat. He knew he was about to become one of the wealthiest men in the country, but he didn't want to share the spotlight with Whitney. Whitney turned up face-down in a gutter in Boston several weeks later, and the cause of death was never decided.
Eli Whitney
With Whitney out of the way, the young businessman patented the rubber process under his name exclusively, and the dollars started rolling in. Goodyear Enterprises soon opened up a second office in 1824, and the Titan of Industry had truly come into his own, for better or worse. Goodyear Enterprises was a shot in the arm for the faltering Union economy, and thousands of jobs were created. In 1825, two more offices were opened, one in Boston, and the other in his old birthplace of New Haven, Connecticut. Goodyear's company was constantly plagued by rumors of worker abuse and poor treatment, with mostly Irish, Slavic, and Italian workers being forced to live in crude tenements he would create around the factories and businesses, and they would constantly complain they would work 15 hours at a time with no breaks. Iron-fisted goons would patrol the factory floors, enforcing order and "the Christian work ethic." The goons barely saw the immigrants as human, and almost all were a part of Goodyear's beloved American Fundamentalist Christian Church.This success would have been all most men could have managed in their lifetime, but for Charles Goodyear, it was not enough. He desired to see his form of "workforce management" be implemented all over the Union. He began preaching it as the way forward out of the economic depression. He became one of the most popular figures in the Union before he even turned 30. And in 1826, America wanted a fiery patriot to represent them at the World Congress of Vienna. Who better to send than Charles Goodyear, the penultimate American success story and most business-savvy individual in the Union? And so, off he went with Miles Romney to barter for America's final reward for its sacrifice in 1812. He was determined that the world would finally respect the Union like it deserved, and he would avenge the death of his father once and for all.
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