A New and Improved Fair!

Reading Booklet

Production Team: Sous-comité de la Montérégie, Anglais langue seconde

Marie-Josée Noël, ESL teacher, CS des PatriotesPatricia Finnerty, ESL teacher, CSPJulie Proteau, Pedagogical advisor, CSPMartine DuBuisson, ESL teacherFall 2009

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was born July 13, 1863 in Michigan, USA. He lived on a farm with his parents. He enjoyed playing and working with machines. His interest led him to create the Ford Motor Company in 1903.

Later, he invented a car called the Model-T. Henry was not satisfied with what he had accomplished because the car production was very slow. In the 1900s, it took around 12 hours to build one car. His goal was to produce more cars so that more people would have one.

He then decided to create the assembly line where each employee would be responsible of only one step of the car production. Using this assembly line technique, a car was produced every 24 seconds.This innovation made him an international celebrity!

Jacques Plante

Jacques Plante was born on January 17, 1929 in Shawinigan, Quebec. His nickname was “Jake the Snake”. Jacques Plante was one of the most influential goaltender in the NHL (National Hockey League) because he was the first to play with a protective mask during games.

He started to wear the mask because of an incident that happened in 1959. A New York Rangers player shot the puck at Plante’s face and he was seriously injured.

Plante and a team of experts took a piece of fibreglass to make a mask. They left holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. During his career, he developed and tested many versions of the goaltender mask.

Thanks to him, today’s hockey goaltenders have a great facial protection!

Bill Gates

William Henry “Bill” Gates III was born on October 28, 1955 in Washington, USA. He is the co-founder of “Microsoft” enterprise, a very famous software company. Gates revolutionized the world of personal computers.

Computers were not very popular and extremely complicated to use. Bill Gates was teaching computer classes to children and he wanted children to have more time working on the computers. Computers were very complicated so he decided to create simpler computer codes so that more people could use computers without having to take very long classes.

His simpler software like Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Power Point…) became extremely popular and they are now used in a lot of homes, schools and businesses.

Joseph-Armand Bombardier

J.-A. Bombardier was born on April 16, 1907 in Valcourt, Quebec. When he was young, he loved cars and engines. At the age of 19, he decided to open a gas station with a garage.

His garage was opened only during summer, spring and fall. He had to close it during winter because it was impossible for people to use their cars; there was too much snow!

During winter, they used sleighs pulled by horses. Bombardier thought that sleighs were not very efficient and fast, especially when it was urgent.

He decided to create a vehicle with skis instead of wheels. At first, his snowmobile was not very popular. When he died, in 1964, the sales went from 200 to 8200 snowmobiles per year. The snowmobile known as the “SKI-DOO” is still very popular and is a hobby practices by many Canadians.

Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss (Löb Strauss) was born on February 26, 1829 in Germany. In 1847, he immigrated to the United States with his family. When he arrived in California, he started a business with his brothers.

They were selling merchandise to people who worked in the mines. By talking to his clients, he discovered that they needed long-lasting pants that they could wear at work. He decided to use denim, a fabric that is almost impossible to tear. One of his friends, Jacob Davis, had the idea to add rivets around the pockets to make the pants even more durable.

In 1853 they created the Levi Strauss & Company, the first company to manufacture blue jeans. Today, almost everyone has a pair of jeans. Did you know that Levi Strauss never wore a pair of jeans himself?

* long-lasting : durable* Tear (torn jeans):