Timeline 1800-1899: the decade 1840-1849

Afghanistan, anarchism, artificial fertilizers, Washington as Zeus, and more.

Clockwise from top left: Re California Gold Rush {1/24/1848 US}: ad for a clipper ship {1846 Sci/Tech} promising miners speedy transportation to the gold fields. Whaling {1846-1852 Sci/Tech}: a Currier & Ives image of the mid-19th century. Re Boole, “Mathematical Analysis of Logic” {1847 Sci/Math}: formula for the sum of residues of a rational function, from “On the Comparison of Transcendent, with Certain Applications to the Theory of Definite Integrals”, 1857. Re Manifest Destiny {1845 US}: in John Gast’s American Progress (1872), the allegorical figure Manifest Destiny leads Americans westward. Harriet Tubman {1849 US}: photo of ca. 1868-1869. Re the Great Disappointment {10/22/1844 Phil}: chart of 1843 calculating the Second Coming.

In this decade:

• Britain fights in Afghanistan - not yet the “graveyard of empires”, but getting there

• Mexican-American War

• Anarchism, socialism, communism

• The surprising effects of life insurance sales

• Artificial fertilizer

• Sewing machines

• Transcendentalism, Kierkegaard, and the Great Disappointment

• “Great Man” theory of history

• Turner prefigures the Impressionists, the Pre-Raphaelites channel the Early Renaissance, and Gothic architecture is promoted as the perfect expression of the 19th century

• Plus: Poe, Three Musketeers, Wuthering Heights, Verdi, and much more

Coming 2/11/2026: Music playlist for the 1840s.