John Locke built a two-page index that turned a notebook into a searchable memory system

historyThe Public Domain Review1685 · England

John Locke built a two-page index that turned a notebook into a searchable memory system

the gist

In the 1600s, a commonplace book was a notebook for copying quotes and excerpts, a personal encyclopedia. John Locke, who worked on it for about 25 years, formalised a method that made it usable. He placed a two-page index at the front, listing each letter of the alphabet next to each vowel, so that any heading could be located by its first letter and the vowel that followed. Entries were then written under headings in the main pages. The system was clever because it gave structure without the waste of pre-assigned alphabet sections or the disorder of pure chronology. Locke published it in 1685, and it was translated and printed after his death in 1704.

how it works

The index works like a two-level address. The first letter of a heading and the vowel after it point to a number on the index, which directs the reader to a page reserved for that combination. Under the heading, the reader writes notes in order of arrival, so the index does the searching while the pages hold the material.

so what

Locke's method was an early attempt to manage information overload, a problem that has only grown since. It anticipates the idea of organising knowledge so it can be retrieved and cross-referenced, much like later encyclopedias and indexes.

the bigger pattern

Commonplace books were a widespread practice from the Renaissance into the 1800s, and they foreshadowed later tools such as card indexes and databases, which also separate storage from retrieval.

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

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