Opening paragraphs.........................

     By the arrival of the twentieth century in the western Massachusetts city of Springfield, there was a mood of such robust swagger that nothing seemed impossible,  Her citizens considered themselves uniquely energetic, optimistic, and self-reliant.  They bragged about their Yankee ingenuity.  Factories were pioneering in mass production, yielding a torrent of moving things; guns, watches, machine parts, bicycles, motorcycles, tires, toys, ice skates, roller skates, railroad and trolley cars, and both Duryea and Knox gasoline-powered automobiles.  Such a pace encouraged eccentrics and inventors, and, as the population passed sixty-two thousand, tinkering was everyman's pastime, and patents a common dream.


-Judith and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss & Mr. Geisel