At the dawn of the 19th century, land companies painted glorious pictures of fertile land that awaited settlers in what would soon be called Ohio.  Early settlers, mostly from New England, traveled to the west and began to build lives.  Lack of access to markets quickly became an issue.  The Ohio & Erie Canal was part of the solution.  Construction began in 1825 on a canal that would stretch 308 miles between Cleveland and Portsmouth, connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio River.  Fed by lakes and rivers, the canal allowed the transportation of goods throughout the state and nation.  The canal held four feet of water that supported canal boats carrying 60 to 80 tons of cargo.  Everything from agricultural products to stone and lumber floated on the canal at a speed of four miles per hour.  Horses and mules walking along the towpath pulled the boats up and down the canal.  Canal boats were lifted and lowered using locks.  The locks allowed the boats to negotiate elevation changes without the interference of water currents.  Forty-four locks between Cleveland and Akron carried boats through an elevation of 395 feet.  An especially steep section of the canal in Akron had 21 locks within two miles of the city.  The time it took to navigate these locks guaranteed the city of Akron would flourish, as people waiting for the canal boats to lock through needed grocery stores, inns, blacksmith shops, taverns, and much more.  The path of the canal system determined where cities would grow up throughout the state of Ohio.  And the commerce made possible by the canal helped Ohio become the third richest state in the union.  As time passed, new transportation technology evolved.  By 1913, railroads carried many of the goods and people that the canal once transported.  Early automobiles sped along the towpath as ad hoc roads.  The canal, still used by pleasure boaters and the occasional canal boat, was a quieter place.  The Flood of 1913 would bring an end to the Ohio & Erie Canal.  Over four days, the torrential downpour that swept across the state dropped the equivalent of two-to-three months’ worth of rain.  Every river in the state flooded.  Akron, sitting 395 feet above Cleveland, wasn’t supposed to flood.  It did.  The flood brought devastation to the towns along the canal, but they rebuilt.  The Ohio & Erie Canal was another story.  The state decided not to invest in the extensive repairs needed to revitalize the canal.  Pam Machuga  http://www.ohioanderiecanalway.com/Main/Pages/107.aspx

The P5+1 is a group of six world powers which in 2006 joined the diplomatic efforts with Iran with regard to its nuclear program.  The term refers to the P5 or five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France, plus Germany.  P5+1 is often referred to as the E3+3 (or E3/EU+3) by European countries.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P5%2B1

Humorist, writer, columnist, journalist Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) was born Emma Louise Fiste (1927-1996) in Dayton, Ohio.  Erma Bombeck found the humor in the everyday experiences of being a wife and mother and shared it with her readers.  In junior high school, Erma Bombeck showed early signs of her future work, writing a humor column for her school's paper.  She worked for the Dayton Herald (which later became the Journal-Herald) as a copygirl as a teenager and got her first article published while she was still in high school.  After graduating in 1944, she joined the publication's writing staff and saved money for college.  Bombeck graduated from the University of Dayton in 1949 and returned to the Journal-Herald.  In addition to her column, Bombeck wrote for magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Reader's Digest, Redbook and McCall's.  She also authored several popular books, including such best sellers as The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1976) and If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978).  The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank was later turned into a television movie starring Carol Burnett and Charles Grodin.  Beginning in the mid-1970s, Bombeck also became a television personality, appearing on Good Morning America for more than a decade.  She also tried her hand at creating a television series.  She lived in Los Angeles for a time while working the sitcom Maggie.  The show's family was based on her own, and she wrote several of the episodes.  Bombeck was also an executive producer on the series.  Despite Bombeck's popularity, the show failed to catch on with television audiences and was canceled after eight weeks on the air.  Bombeck was a vocal advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment for women and served on the President's National Advisory Committee for Women in the late 1970s.  In the 1980s, Bombeck tackled a very difficult subject; childhood cancer, with her book I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise (1989).  She visited a camp for children with cancer and spent a lot of time with families with children fighting cancer as part of writing the book.  Like her other work, it found the humor in a challenging situation while making some poignant observations.  http://www.biography.com/people/erma-bombeck-259338  See also http://ermamuseum.org/netscape4.asp

Mar. 9, 2015  Most art collectors own pieces they can hang on their walls to admire and show off.  But for those who are also in it for the money, there’s another option:  owning a share of an art fund.  Funds that pool investors’ money to buy fine art are a tiny sliver of the investment market, with an estimated $1.26 billion in assets under management in 2014, according to Deloitte LLP.  But high-net-worth investors are expressing more interest in them, says Evan Beard, who leads Deloitte’s U.S. art and finance practice.  By investing in a fund, instead of buying art directly, investors gain access to pieces they can’t afford on their own.  And the art market is hot right now, Mr. Beard says, with global sales having tripled between 2003 and 2013 by one estimate.  Investors apparently have taken notice, with some 38% of wealth managers surveyed by Deloitte and research firm ArtTactic reporting demand for art-related services in 2014, up from 11% in 2011.  Jane Hodges  http://www.wsj.com/articles/art-you-can-own-but-not-have-1425870182?tesla=y

"Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."  This simple sentence comprised Section 1 of the EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT (ERA), which was first proposed in Congress by the National Women's Party in 1923.  Amending the Constitution is a two-step process.  First, the Congress must propose the amendment by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate.  After proposal, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.  The House approved the measure in 1970, and the Senate did likewise in 1972.  The fight was then taken to the states.  ERA supporters had the early momentum.  Public opinion polls showed strong favorable support.  Thirty of the necessary thirty-eight states ratified the amendment by 1973.  But then the tide turned.  The leader of the STOP-ERA CAMPAIGN was a career woman named Phyllis Schlafly.  Despite her law degree, Schlafly glorified the traditional roles of American women.  She heckled feminists by opening her speaking engagements with quips like "I'd like to thank my husband for letting me be here tonight."  Schlafly argued that the ERA would bring many undesirable changes to American women.  By 1982, the year of expiration, only 35 states had voted in favor of the ERA — three states shy of the necessary total.  http://www.ushistory.org/us/57c.asp

7 ways writing by hand can save your brain by Yohana Desta  http://mashable.com/2015/01/19/handwriting-brain-benefits/

How Handwriting Trains the Brain:  Forming Letters Is Key to Learning, Memory, Ideas by Gwendolyn Bounds  http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518

What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades by Maria Konnikova  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1276  March 27, 2015  

On this date in 1710, Joseph Abaco, Belgian cellist and composer, was born.  

On this date in 1724, Jane Colden, American botanist, was born.