‘I never think of the future—it comes soon enough.’ — Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
This 1893 lithograph based on a watercolor by noted nautical artist Fred S. Cozzens is a somewhat futuristic depiction of the era’s cutting edge U.S. naval technology. At the time of the painting, of the three ships shown—(from front) the ironclad harbor defense ram Katahdin, coast battleship Iowa (later BB-4), and schooner-rigged gunboat Machias (later PG-5)—only the gunboat had been commissioned. The ram, which most likely never appeared in the white-and-buff paint scheme, was launched in 1893 and commissioned in 1896. Iowa was laid down the year of the painting and commissioned four years later.
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