Friday / Weekend Open Lines


Early America certainly was a simpler society than that which we have today, but some of today’s familiar institutions were part of the national experience over 200 years ago. On this date in 1795, the city of Baltimore set up a permanent, elected board of health, successor to the nation’s first such appointed agency. The first board was created by Maryland’s governor to cope with yellow fever epidemics beginning in 1792. At one point, the city of Baltimore quarantined or turned away travelers fleeing hard-hit Philadelphia. Board of health or no, Baltimore was affected in 1794 and hundreds died as a result. Across the country, there are nearly 1.9 million people employed in federal, state and local government hospitals and health services. Over 880,000 are working at the local level. Profile America is completing its 18th  year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Saturday, April 25th. On this date in 1954, Bell Laboratories in New York announced the prototype manufacture of a new solar battery, or what we now call a solar cell. The unit represented something of an exponential improvement over existing photoelectric devices. The new cell was capable of a 6 percent energy conversion efficiency with direct sunlight, as opposed to about a 1 percent rate with earlier creations. In a demonstration for the press, the Bell inventors placed the array of several small silicon strips in sunlight. The cell captured the free electrons and turned them into electrical current, powering the rotation of a 21-inch Ferris wheel. In the U.S. today, solar energy powers some 73,000 homes, and manufacturing solar cells is a $1.4 billion a year business. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.

Sunday, April 26th. Many automobile license plates proclaim glories of the issuing states; others spell out something dear to the drivers but indecipherable to anyone else. Those plates and the more basic ones are requirements to drive on public roads. New York was the first state to require license plates on motor vehicles this month in 1901. At the time, there were just fewer than 15,000 sputtering automobiles in the entire country, traveling over muddy, rudimentary roads without a license for the driver or the automobile. Now, there are over 250 million cars, trucks, and buses in the nation, and all sporting license plates. Decorative frames for license plates are a niche product in America’s 37,000 auto parts and accessories stores, which generate $48 billion in annual sales. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at <www.census.gov>.