What was the beginning of steampunk and where did it start, and why was it created?
In Ms. Maxwells class, we are investigating deeper into our topic of steampunk. We also had to create a question about steam punk and investigate it further. The question I ended up with was, what was the beginning of steampunk, where did it start, and why did people create it? I began my research with history of steam punk, where I learned that the word steampunk was first derived from the book Morlock Night, by J.K. Jeter. Jeter used the word to describe a genre of fiction which is based around the advances that came with the discovery of steam, and its technological side.
Nowadays we use the word to describe a artistic movement, not so much the technology with it. Though J.K. Jeter was the first to use the word steam punk, people had been writing and talking about it for decades. Jules Verne, (I’m sure you’ve heard of him!) had been using the aesthetic of steampunk way into the 1900’s. As well as H.G. Wells,
who wrote The Time Machine in 1885. Now that we know what the beginning of steampunk was, I wanted to know where steampunk started and why it was created. I’ll start with the first question, where was steampunk created. I looked everywhere, but could not find a website that told me where steampunk first evolved from, it seems more like a movement than anything. That got me thinking, if its a movement where has this movement gone? New Zealand popped up pretty fast. Apparently one quaint town in New Zealand, became the steampunk capital of the world.
In the article they mention the movement of steampunk taking hold in 2010 and turning a normal town, into the steampunk head quarters. Another search told me that Atlantis US is the most steampunk city in the United States. I could not find much more that that so I moved to the next question, why was steampunk created? What I found was, steampunk was created for people who enjoy to mix the past with the future and wear it. Steampunk is also based on class, and anyone can be the rich Victorian age person they want, without being a rich person in our world today. Another thing is steampunk is economic, it shouts reduce reuse and recycle, and is a very cool way of presenting it. All of these reasons, make up the very iconic steampunk, and finish off my what, where, and why, questions about steampunk. Thanks for reading!
Adlih
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