Cultural Updates in the Late 1700's

We all know about the 13 colonies right? Well later on after that is when all of the other states began to join into this union. The states started to spread out from right to left of the map because the other side of North America was owned by other countries. Vermont, even though it was around the 13 colonies was not a part of the union. They later became the 14^th state I the United States. Rhode Island became a part of the union earlier, and then the state Kentucky was officially a part of the union in 1792 right after Vermont. Many of these states became a part of the United States very quickly. That shows how fast the United States of America was growing during that time. But, even though the states developing was a major event happening in the late 1700’s there was many other important matters that were in between all of that.

One of those events was devastating. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in 1791. This was devastating because he was (and still is) the most famous composer during the Classical Era. He was so well known that people still remember him very well today. We even still play some of his pieces now. Mozart was most remembered by how talented he was at a very young age. He inspired many other composers that came after him. Wolfgang from the very beginning was learning the Clavier when he was very young. The clavier was known back then as a keyboard. The only thing was he wasn’t really learning it in the traditional way. Traditionally, someone would teach you during private lessons but he simply watched his sister learn from her father. He quickly caught on and that is when his father (and soon many others) noticed his amazing talent spark. So, that was when his father also started teaching Mozart the instrument. Seeing how talented he was his father couldn’t resist but to show all of Europe his amazing son. They went on tours and that’s when his name started to get out there. Later on, Mozart started learning other instruments as well.

There was one incident that was quite extraordinary for Mozart. He heard this piece that was being played by the Vatican Choir and he took a liking to it. He liked it so much that he copied that whole piece JUST from memory! That was how talented this man was. Unfortunately, Mozart (in the beginning) got in trouble for copying the piece. But, when the Pope heard that he did it all from memory……. He was shocked. He then thought that Wolfgang was amazing and so did many people after that. Sadly, Mozart died at a very young age (35 years old). But he still left an incredible legacy.

There was also another event that happened in the early 1700’s. Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin in 1793. During this time many people owned slaves that harvested their crop. Specifically, most of them harvested cotton. Even though this was just one crop out of the ones they harvested it was a big pain to get it done. The slaves had to hand pick the seeds from the cotton. This was very tedious work. But, Eli Whitney tried to change that and make their lives easier. That didn’t exactly go as planned. See, the Cotton Gin picks the seeds out for you but that made the job actually harder for the slaves than before. Now that the people had this amazing machine they wanted the slaves to pick MORE cotton and put it through the Gin. It was basically creating extra work for them to do. Later on, there were many more inventions including the Cotton Gin that led up to the Industrial Revolution.

These were just a few events that happened during the early 1700’s but there were many more. This was when the United States started growing, and more problems were rising. But throughout all the problems that we see in the past we should just try to learn from them now.