Some say that the moment human beings harnessed the ability to responsibly handle fire- to cook, to light the nighttime sky, to give safety and warmth to family and friends, and to warn the enemy of your power and danger- the human race could finally evolve beyond the realm of animalistic survival its primordiality was shackled to for so long. Fire, in other words, to many, serves as the ultimate historical catalyst which allows for modern man to exist.

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  The large petticoat that gave the old-fashioned appearance of an umbrella on the lower half of your body was called a crinoline. Your name was Zela (or Zelia or Cecilia) Gale. You were seventeen years old. Your three sisters were named Adeline (also known as Adeona), Ruth, and Hannah. Respectively, they were nineteen, fifteen, and twenty-two. You and your sisters were excellent performers and the Gale craft proved so potent that international touring, even in 1861, was an available opportunity to you.

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  In 1903, Thomas Edison, the world-famous Midwest inventor of the lightbulb, made one of the earliest contributions to cinematic history. "Electrocuting an Elephant", an Edison Manufacturing Company film, contains the footage of the public electrocution of Topsy, an elephant known for "bad behavior" after killing a drunk that burned her with his cigar. 

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  The word "gauze" comes from the 15th century French 'gaze', which, according to etymologists, very likely takes its name from the Palestinian city of Gaza. The city is believed to be the origin of the weaved fabric used so frequently today. 

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  In between two shots in "Electrocuting an Elephant", one hundred and five minutes pass in which Topsy refuses to cross a bridge onto the small island with Carl Goliath, the appointed elephant handler for the event. Carl looks at Topsy over and over in these few moments they have together on screen. It is very possible that he knows this is something he will regret forever. After a cut, however, she and the possible semblances of empathy hidden within Goliath are each swiftly defeated by the flow of human progress. In the spot that she refused to move from, Topsy is tied down and hooked up to electric wires. She is shocked, and as the body of Topsy lumbers to the ground with stiff limbs, I am reminded that as the speed of light allows us to see, the speed of electricity allows us to see, specifically, how the soul leaves a body hit with great mammothian waves of death.

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  A circus elephant named Columbus stomped on his trainer on the day before Christmas in 1847, snapping the man's leg horrendously. Columbus panicked, and quickly the mayor of Philadelphia ordered a squadron of cannons to kill the frightened animal on 807 Walnut Street. The severity of the trainer's broken leg required a swift amputation. Despite the primordial medical care that was given to the trainer, he died from his injuries regardless. 

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  Of all of the works he had written, Shakespeare's last work that was invented alone without assistance, entitled The Tempest, contains his most elaborate stage direction and the most music of any singular Shakespeare play. There is one female character in this play who speaks lines.

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  "The Trust", a group formed by Thomas Edison, was in charge of destroying cameras that were not working in Edison productions. Edison also, notably, stole the film negatives created by other companies, only for his name to appear on them later with the money going straight into the Edison franchise.

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  Much to the disappointment of everyone desperate to watch Columbus get destroyed, he was calming down, and as a consequence the Philadelphian mayor instructed his squadron to hold their cannonfire. Unlike the trainer, Columbus would move on from this event, seeing again more Christmases over a long life of over a hundred years. As Columbus was one of the only two male elephants in the country at the time, it is very likely that this rarity in the elephant's gender saved his life. Columbus would stay around until his death in the Berkshires in 1851, resulting from a twelve-foot fall from a broken wooden bridge.

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  During the infamous "War of the Currents" between Westinghouse's AC and Edison's DC, Edison enacted, typically in front of photographers and journalists, a series of executions on stray animals- cats, dogs, cows, and horses were featured victims of this event.

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  Women who wore crinolines were mocked by men of their time; the males argued that the large shape of the crinoline forced the masculine presence to be, in a literal sense, pushed out of the dominant space in a room. These same men argued it would be easier for homewreckers to hide under the large cover of the crinoline. Some illustrations of women wearing crinolines during the 19th century portrayed them as large and grotesque monsters devoid of daintiness, pushing men off of the edge of buildings due to the sheer Kaiju-levels of size attainable only through spiteful caricatures. As well, the cage-like structure of the crinoline gave some men the impression that they, themselves, were encaged by this fashion item. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as "crinolinomania".

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  On September 14th, 1861, Wheatley's Continental Theatre on 807 Walnut Street hosted an extremely elaborate ballet edition of Shakespeare's The Tempest. The first act had gone well. The play's storm raged on below as the four Gale sisters climbed a rickety staircase of fifty feet to get to the dressing room directly above the stage, preparing for the second act in which they would greet each other in the aftermath of the shipwreck in Act I. Hannah, Adeona, and Ruth would be painted wildly, dressed in the lush white gauze dresses of crinoline. Your crinoline is struck by the gas lamp as you try to look at yourself in the mirror. When the flames erupt, Zela, you run as quickly as you can away from the others, back down towards the door in front of the fifty feet of treacherous stairs until you are rushed by Hannah and Adeona, running on top of you and trying their hardest with good intentions to stomp your flame out. It catches onto their dresses, too, and Ruth, the youngest and most frightened, decides to act after seeing what is happening to all three of the family members in this strange Transatlantic country with her; she tries to save the lives of her sisters and is quickly inflamed all the same, her scream added onto the desperate pleas of all the others. As you run, your flesh begins to pop and crackle. Your skin begins to blacken as you tumble down the stairs, rushing for help as the dressing room above becomes entirely orange with the infernal screams of young girls trapped in the closest imaginable human experience to Hell itself. William Wheatley is in front of the curtain and all he can do is hear. Not sure himself what is happening in the dressing room of his own theatre, yet nonetheless feeling every single screaming child and young adult, thrashing around as their crinolines spread the flame to every surface above the stage, Wheatley tells everyone to peacefully and quietly leave. As the people exit without seeing the search for Ferdinand in Act II, they (and Wheatley along with them) finally see what made Wheatley so scared and shaking off of the sound alone, trembling and desperate to get people out: Hannah, among other ballet dancers who could not exit the room in time, begin to jump from the second-story windows down to the thick concrete slabs of sidewalk below. Hannah's silhouette glows an unnatural neon orange as she drops to the unrelenting ground with a dense thud. Another ballet dancer, also in flames, is miraculously caught. Some do not jump. They suffocate on the smoke inside, gulping for air that will never come like fish. Others do not die right away such as with suffocation or jumping when they are taken out of the flames crying out for a hospital. Before they are allowed to finally die and be rid of the pain of being seared alive, they are cruelly subjected to the medical professionalism of bourbon and casual supplements of cocaine and opium submerged in cigarette smoke and prayers. From this event, at least nine dancers died, including all four of the Gale sisters. Wheatley himself hosted many of the funerals for those who passed away. He also supplied a monument to be placed over the non-native graves of the four British Gale sisters, in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia, complete with the following on one side:
	
   With a mother's tearful blessing 
   They sleep beneath the sod, 
   Her dearest earthly treasures 
   Restored again to God!

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  After dipping lint and gauze in carbolic acid, now commonly known as phenol, Joseph Lister discovered its potency in wound treatment. Mortality rates in his surgical treatment center dropped by 45%. Lister would go on to publish his results in 1867.

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  Columbus was reluctant to cross the bridge- the massive animal of five tons only moved onto the bridge because he was poked and prodded onto the rickety wood. Stepping onto the bridge was imminent death for Columbus. I imagine that as he fell, all ten thousand pounds crashing into the Hoosic River, that death was forming in his brain already, an almighty DANGER signal screaming at the elephant through his large ears over and over. Regardless, Columbus somehow managed to walk twenty-three miles of the twenty-seven mile route from North Adams to Stockbridge. When he collapsed, it was decided that he would stay in the area at a nearby barn, where he was visited for ten days by many different people until his death.

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  Harold Brown invented the first electric chair. The construction of said chair was secretly financed by Thomas Edison (who, publicly, despised the death penalty). William Kemmler, a man who killed his common-law wife, was the first to be introduced to the new technological marvel: his head reportedly smoked as he screamed in agony. Westinghouse reported on the event, reportedly saying, "They could have done better with an ax."

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  Three more fires broke out in the same location as Wheatley's Continental Theatre: once as Fox's American Theatre in 1867 resulting in the deaths of thirteen people (four of which were volunteer firefighters); the next was Grand Central Theatre, built on top of the ashes of Fox and Wheatley only to succumb to the same ashy descent from another fire. This time, no one died. However, the rebuilt Grand Central Theatre in 1892 would create a violence and panic that resulted in the deaths of fourteen people (the cause was fire, again). They were in line to see The Devil's Auction, trampled by crowds. Others in wait were sliced by a knife-wielder desperate to exit the crowded portal of the second floor. 

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  In West Orange, New Jersey, a fire originating from the film room caused ten of the fourteen buildings in Thomas Edison's laboratory complex to burn down on a cold December night in 1914. Containing the jobs of thousands of workers (the most proficient called "muckers"), the countless prototypes of cameras, voice recorders, and lights, and most importantly, hazardous materials, the buildings and their eruptions brought terror into the hearts of men who worked for Edison. Arriving with his wife to the laboratory as the brick buildings began to crumble and collapse within clumps of rising smoke, Edison on the night of the fire was noted for his lack of grief or seriousness concerning the event. "Thank God we can start anew," spoke Edison. The following day, his employees rebuilt his laboratory complex for him, resulting in immediate double shifts. One worker, William Troeber, was later found in the ash and rubble of one of the collapsed buildings. 

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  In the twenty-first century, 807 Walnut Street in Philadelphia is a parking lot. I have never been to Philadelphia, but regardless my observation of 807 Walnut Street is a place devoid of history, charisma, charm, and personability. It is a perfect design, in complete honesty. A place designed to be disregarded has never looked so utterly featureless before. It is not a location I plan on visiting.

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  Phenol, once referred to as carbolic acid, is highly flammable.