Cronin & Company

Snow Moon

February 18 marks a full moon. It was called the Snow Moon by the Native Americans of New England and the Great Lakes since this time of year brought heavy snowfall. It was also known as the Hunger Moon since the hunting at this time of year often yielded little game.

The Wizard of Menlo Park

Happy Birthday to Thomas Alva Edison. Born February 11, 1847, he was one of the most prolific inventors in history, with 1,093 U.S. patents to his name. He is credited with the inventions that made mass communications, particularly telecommunications, possible. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production to his inventions, making them practical and affordable on a wide scale.

Building on the work of others, Edison created the first long-lasting and economical electric light bulb. It was said that he tried more than 1,000 experiments before settling on the carbonized bamboo filament that would last for 1200 hours. In 1878, he formed the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City, backed by prominent financiers of the day, including J.P. Morgan. Edison made the first public demonstration of the incandescent bulb in Menlo Park, New Jersey on December 31, 1879. It was during this time that he was quoted as saying, " We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."

A Dickensian Day

February 7th marks the birthday of Charles Dickens. Born in 1812 in Portsmouth, England he became the most popular novelist of the Victorian era. Many of his novels were first published in magazines in serial form. Dickens often created the novels as he wrote the individual episodes, frequently ending with cliffhangers to keep his readers interested.

His novels and short stories have continued to be so popular that they have never gone out of print. He has provided  some of the most enduring characters in the English language. Ebeneezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, David Copperfield and Miss Havisham are familiar to generations of schoolchildren. Quotes such as "Bah Humbug!", "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." and "God bless us every one!" have become part of common conversation.

A rose is a rose is a rose

Happy Birthday, Getrude Stein. Born February 3rd, 1874 in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Stein was a well-known thinker and writer who spent most of her life in France. She also became famous for the artists and writers who visited her Paris salon. She was friends with Matisse, Picasso, Thornton Wilder and Ernest Hemingway during the 1920s and is credited with coining the term lost generation to describe many of her expatriate American friends.

Probably Stein's most famous relationship was her romantic involvement with Alice B. Toklas which began in 1906 and ended with Stein's death from stomach cancer in 1946. In one account of their last days, when Stein was being wheeled into the operation room for surgery on her stomach, she asked Toklas, "What is the answer?" When Toklas did not reply, Stein responded, "In that case, hat is the question.?"