Kewanee was well known in the steam industry for its boilers. The Kewanee Boiler Corporation manufactured and sold thousands of boilers throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada and the world for well over one hundred years. However, the company failed in its latter years and was forced to go out of business. However, these boilers are still extremely common in the steam industry. An example of a Kewanee steam boiler can be seen in a scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. Specifically, when Cab Calloway's character named Curtis offers to "buy you boys a drink," he takes Jake and Elwood down to the orphanage's basement, where the boiler is easily seen in the background. A Kewanee boiler is also the dwelling place for the character Suzie DeSoto, played by Debra Winger, in the 1982 film version of John Steinbeck's book, "Cannery Row."
Kewanee was also home to the Walworth Company, Kewanee Machinery and Conveyor Company and Kewanee Manufacturing Company - all manufacturers that employed many local blue collar workers in their heyday. Kewanee, once a prominent industrial town, has fallen into silence like many similar communities in the past twenty years.
In physical chemistry, and in engineering, steam refers to vaporized water. It is a pure, completely invisible gas (for mist see below). At standard atmospheric pressure, pure steam (unmixed with air, but in equilibrium with liquid water) occupies about 1,600 times the volume of liquid water. In the atmosphere, the partial pressure of water is much lower than 1 atm, therefore gaseous water can exist at temperatures much lower than 100 C (see water vapor and humidity).
In common speech, steam most often refers to the white mist that condenses above boiling water as the hot vapor ("steam" in the first sense) mixes with the cooler air. This mist is made of tiny droplets of liquid water, not gaseous water, so it is no longer technically steam. In the spout of a steaming kettle, the spot where there is no condensed water vapor, where there appears to be nothing there, is steam.
The Blues Brothers is a 1980 musical comedy directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues, characters developed from a "Saturday Night Live" musical sketch. It features musical numbers by R&B and soul legends James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker, and epic car chase scenes.
The story is a tale of redemption for paroled convict Jake and his brother Elwood, who take on "a mission from God" to save the Roman Catholic orphanage in which they grew up from foreclosure. To do so they must re-form their rhythm and blues band, the Blues Brothers, and organize a performance to earn $5,000 to pay the tax assessor. Along the way they are targeted by a destructive "mystery woman," Neo-Nazis, and a country and western band – all while being relentlessly pursued by the police, and eventually the military and a SWAT team.
The film is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, and also features non-musical supporting performances by John Candy, Carrie Fisher and Henry Gibson.
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