| Theodore Bell | |
|---|---|
| 4th President of the United States | |
| In office March 4, 1801 – March 4, 1809 | |
| Preceded by | John Adams |
| Succeeded by | James Madison |
| 5th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff | |
| In office July 26, 1796 – October 4, 1798 | |
| President | Thomas Jefferson, John Adams |
| Preceded by | George Washington |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Hamilton |
| Chief of the Air Corps | |
| In office March 4, 1781 – January 3, 1783 | |
| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | Position Established |
| Succeeded by | James Burn |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 4, 1742 [Actual 1989] Wyoming, Pennsylvania [Actual: Tacoma, WA] |
| Died | October 3, 1833 (aged 90) Tacoma, Washington |
| Political party | Democrat-Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Liz Krauss |
| Children | Alexander, Kathleen, Miriam |
Theodore "Theo" Bell (November 4, 1989 – October 3, 1833) was an American statesman, inventor, industrialist, soldier, aviator, and Founding Father who served as the fourth President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the fifth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and the first Chief of the Air Corps under George Washington. During the French Revolutionary War, he served as Supreme Commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe, and achieved the rank of Field Marshal of the US Army.
Bell worked closely with George Washington to organize the new American military, designing most of the revolutionary weapons and many of the tactics that aided in the victory over the British Empire. He was later officially dismissed by Washington as a cover while he headed up the development of the first airplane. During the Battle of the Atlantic (1779) Bell commanded the first squadron of the newly formed United States Army Air Corps and provided critical intelligence to Washington and the Allied naval force.
During the French Revolutionary War, Bell led the American Expeditionary Force in Europe against the Coalition's war against France and her sister Republics. Bell commanded engagements against Prussia, Austria, Spain, and the British Empire, and oversaw the planning and implementation of the amphibious landings in Southern England.
Bell's greatest secret, however, was that he was a time displaced American engineer from 2018.
Revolutionary war[]
Bell formed the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment in May of 1775 with the backing of Benjamin Franklin and partly funded from the profits of the Philadelphia Iron Works. Bell had seen limited combat during the French and Indian War (citation needed), and had long since concluded that if the Colonies were to engage a modern army they would need a new way to fight. The Model 1 Revolving Carbine was foundational to this philosophy and made it possible for Bell's relatively small force of mostly Scots-Irish and Freedmen to regularly outgun far larger forces of British regulars.
Bell also pioneered new forms of irregular warfare by taking the lessons of Mohican, Delaware, and Algonquin fighters that joined his regiment. Bell's willingness to bring on marginalized groups early in the war allowed him to swell his ranks in advance of the Liberation of Canada. During the Siege of Boston, Bell came up with a plan to place black powder rockets on the roofs of civilian homes, some of which included quartered British officers, by disguising his troops as chimney sweeps. Bell's logic was that laborers, especially people of Scots-Irish and African ancestry would go largely unacknowledged by the British and American residents, and it was this thinking that enabled the Continental Army to destroy the HMS Eagle while Washington's main force stormed the town and threatened the Royal Navy with an artillery battery.
After the victory at Boston in March of 1776, Bell was taken off the field by Washington and tasked to return to Philadelphia and his R&D and logistical projects. Bell would briefly return to the field in September of 1777 during General Howe's attack on Philadelphia, organizing the defense of the city, but would see very little actual combat.
In July 1778, Bell was officially reprimanded by Washington and moved to Kitty Hawk to serve as a garrison officer. This was in fact a ruse to provide Bell the cover he needed to carry out his most ambitious Black Project: a flying machine. For the next three months Bell took his drawings and small gliders tested at his show in Philadelphia and built the first prototype to the A-1 Cormorant over the next 3 months. Congress approved the creation of the Continental Air Corps only a few weeks later, with Bell made its first Captain. During the Battle of the Atlantic in August 1779, Bell led a squadron of A-1s to not only provide valuable intelligence about the movement of British ships, but also used some of the first air-dropped bombs to sink a few as well. During the final weeks of the War Bell continued to serve mainly as a recon pilot.
Constitutional Convention[]
When the constitutional debate resumed Bell was elected to join the Pennsylvania Delegation where he became an outspoken proponent of the Industrial Solution to ending slavery. Bell took a leading role in crafting many of the provisions of the Bill of Rights.
Chief of the Air Corps (1781-1783)[]
As the nation's first and premier pilot, and hero of the Battle of the Atlantic, Bell was the obvious choice for the first Chief the Air Corps. However, despite being officially only a military position, Bell was deeply involved in many of the day-to-day operations of the Washington administration. His first duty, however, was to the advancement of aviation, a task that was broadly supported by the public and much of the Congress. He established an Aeronautics Research Council (ARC) within the Air Corps who's only task was to spearhead the creation of newer and better technologies. The first test lab was based at Kitty Hawk, NC where Bell had originally tested the first airplane.
Bell was directly involved with ARC and designed the immediate successor to the A-1 Cormorant, the A-2 Goshawk. The A-2 was loosely modeled off of the De Havilland Mosquito from OTL. It was mostly constructed from wood, and used two small steam engines to power twin electric motors. Bell used this aircraft in late 1782 to survey large portions of the Territory North of the Ohio from the air, but even he admitted it was merely a stopgap aircraft. His true passion was the A-3 Osprey project, which would introduce short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) to the Air Corps, however Bell would leave the government to directly oversee development in 1783.
Return to private life (1783-1791)[]
Bell returned to life as an industrialist in 1783, with the intent of accelerating the introduction of more uptime consumer technologies. He radically expanded his manufacturing operations across the growing cities of the Untied States producing industrial machine tools, farm equipment, and a mélange of household items in collaboration with Franklin and Jefferson's own businesses. These included ammonia refrigerant devices like heat pumps, mass-produced enamelware, and canned goods. Refrigeration and canning had been developed during the Revolution, but had been limited for use by the Army. Some technology transfer had occurred after the war's end, but Bell radically expanded it, making it possible for otherwise perishable food to be safely stored for years. This is arguably the most significant cultural shift enabled by industrial technology of the era, as it allowed ordinary people's diets to become far more diversified. Bell encouraged entrepreneurs to make use of these technologies by organizing some of the first trade expos across the country, and importantly opened them to other industrialists. Frequently Bell would attend and offer investment capital to those who had business ideas similar to those he knew back uptime.
French Revolutionary War[]
The California Expedition (1797-1800)[]
Presidency (1801-09)[]
Voting Rights[]
In the presidential elections of 1800, Bell's run for office was difficult to oppose. John Adams was widely unpopular and Bell had a storied career as both an officer in the Army and as a businessman. Bell ran on a platform of Universal Enfranchisement, which had been growing in support since the initial drafting of the constitution, and was being advocated for by voting rights groups during the War as part of the Double Victory campaign. After taking office he campaigned strenuously for the 12th Amendment, which granted universal suffrage.
Westward Expansion[]
Bell sought to encourage intermarriage between Native Americans and non-Native settlers, believing that America's only chance to avoid the genocide of his universe was for the United States to become a Creole Republic. This idea wasn't new, and Americans had been intermarrying with Native peoples for generations, often encouraged by governors like Patrick Henry, but Bell was the First President make this Federal policy, and unlike many of his predecessors, was not marrying the idea to anti-immigrant sentiment. Bell all but copied the Henry's law passed in 1784, offering tax relief, free education, and financial incentives for Natives and non-Natives who intermarried. Bell argued that intermarriage was essential to preserve peace and harmony with America's native populations and ingratiate non-Natives with established communities. In 1802 Congress passed an amendment onto Bell's original proposal, by issuing 50 acre parcels of land to non-Natives who intermarried to spur Westward expansion.
Shortly after taking office Bell signed an executive order to hand over his railroad concerns for U.S. Metal to the Federal Government. Bell had frequently clashed with Congress during his brief stint in the Washington administration over the creation of publicly owned railroads, and many saw this as an act of revenge. However, the decision was so wildly popular Congress was unable to refuse the act.
Bell also pushed for the creation of the National Parks' Service, designating large regions of the US for preservation, and pushed through Congress the first consumer protection laws in the nation's history. The Food and Drug Administration would finally see national enforcement of health standards for food stuffs, but also job safety standards for workers in the meat packing, canning, and food service industries.
Space program[]
As aviation technology began to accelerate, France, Britain, Spain, and the Batavian Republic all began to experiment with rocket technology Bell had helped pioneer during the Revolutionary period. Not wanting America to be outdone, he committed the US to landing a man on the moon in July of 1801. Bell took a great personal interest in the project and was directly involved the design of the two-stage to orbit spaceship, the Jupiter-class. The same vehicle would take Merriweather Lewis and William Clark to the moon not long after he left office in 1809. Copies of the Jupiter-class would pop up in Europe and lead to the Scramble for Luna and the successive Race to Mars under James Monroe's administration.
New States[]
In December 1801, Bell sought to fast-track statehood for the populations in the Californias and the New Philippines, a task made especially urgent by the onset of the California Gold Rush and the discovery of petroleum in Texas. He prioritized the creation of a relatively small state in the San Francisco Bay where tradesmen were congregating, and reduced California to a state along the central coast of the Californias. For the New Philippines, Bell supported plans to outline an average sized state near Louisiana and name it after America's 2nd President, Thomas Jefferson.
Election of 1804[]
Bell's first term was seen by many Americans as so disruptive and reprehensible to a white-dominated patriarchal social order that there were calls for secession. New York Governor George Clinton, a former ally of Bell who fiercely supported Bell's efforts for industrialization in previous years, ran a bitter smear campaign against Bell, accusing him of seeking to "destroy the White Race," and levied accusations that Bell was seeking to be a Caesar. Bell ran as a happy warrior, dismissing Clinton and those like him as "the Old Guard" and those "who couldn't see the Horizon." His optimism, nationalism, and the general rise in the wealth of the country under his administration was enough for him to narrowly secure a second term. Bell's victory relied heavily on the Western States which had already passed Universal Suffrage laws, and his support from working class voters.