The Year 1878
In the early part of 1878 the first American bicycle club forms in Boston. Although the “penny-farthing” bicycles of the day were considered quite dangerous, with a large front wheel and a
small rear one, there was a small group of enthusiasts who enjoyed them. Albert Augustus Pope was one such enthusiast who had begun importing penny-farthings from Europe and taking out U.S.
patents. In a little over a decade he would control most of the bicycle patents in America.
Henry Sherwin and Edward Williams were looking to make work a lot easier for painters. Osborn’s Family Paint was the first ready-mix
paint available commercially and it changed the way people painted.
After years of research, William Procter’s and James Gamble’s soap and candle business developed an inexpensive hard white soap equal
in quality to fine olive oil castile. Initially marketed as Proctor and Gamble’s White Soap, it would soon be known by every household
as Ivory Soap.
The Edison Electric Light Company was incorporated in late 1878 and shortly thereafter made electricity available for household use. It
would be in the following year that Edison would introduce a new light bulb with a filament made of cotton thread and lampblack.
Wanamaker’s, a department store in Philadelphia, would be the first store in America to install electric lights, and within a year would
be the first department store with a telephone.
In April, First Lady Lucy Hayes began the tradition of an egg rolling contest on the White House lawn.
Eadweard Muybridge was an English photographer who was a pioneer in animal locomotion. He was the first to demonstrate that a galloping
horse became airborne when all four feet are off the ground simultaneously. He used still photography to capture motion by placing numerous
large glass-plate cameras in line along the edge of a track. As the horse passed by each camera, a thread across the path triggered the
shutter. The images were then viewed in his zoopraxiscope, which was the forerunner of the motion picture projector. His study,
called Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, showed images of the horse with all four feet off the ground in a manner contrary to
contemporary illustrators.
This was the final year for the United States twenty-cent piece. It had been two years since circulation strikes were discontinued
and now it was time for the proof issues to end as well.
