I N D E P E N D E N C E T O 1 9 2 0
US Inventions
CREATED BY Ms. LIU for Mr. Haskvitz’s class
Lightning Rod1752
Benjamin Franklin invented it to protect ships & buildings from lightning
Most Christians were afraid to get it b/c they thought lightning was the wrath of GOD & it shouldn’t be tampered with
Ben Franklin was tired of switching between his near-sighted & far-sighted glasses so he made glasses w/ both concave & convex lenses
Bifocals1784
Given to William Pollard of Philadelphia, his machine roves & spins cotton
First US Patent1790
Eli Whitney patents his Cotton Gin which separates big & small seeds from the cotton
Led to rise of slavery & “King Cotton”
Farmers duplicated his invention w/out his permission
Cotton Gin1794
Fairmount Water Works uses steam-power to supply water for Philadelphia
Steam-Powered Pumping Station1801
Robert Fulton’s Clermont, the 1st full-sized steamboat, goes 150 mi upstream from NY to Albany
Moves more efficiently, against currents & wind, and lower transportation costs
Steamboat1807
Peter Cooper’s small locomotive, Tom Thumb, races against a horse, but lost b/c it broke down
Caused transportation to be more efficient & cheaper
RR Fever-by 1860’s, most major cities were linked w/ RR’s, RR companies grow very powerful in US
Steam Train1830
Replaced the scythe & guts grain faster
Prospered in Chicago selling 10,000 every year
McCormick use new ways (ads, demonstrations & buying on credit) to encourage sales
Mechanical Reaper1831
Samuel F. B. Morse’s telegraph uses electric pulses to send messages through the wire to distant places
In the Morse Code, a series of dots (short pulse) & dashes (long pulse) are used to represent a letter/#
Samuel Morse tried many times to prove his telegraph was genuine & finally succeeded when news of the president candidate for the 1844 Democratic National Convention was wired through the telegraph
Telegraph1832
John A. & Hiram Abial Pitts invented the machine to separate the chaff from the grain for farmers
Threshing Machine1834
Samuel Colt made the revolving firearm which has a rotating cylinder that could hold lots of bullets so people don’t need to reload between every shot
Revolver1836
Electro-Magnetic Motor originally invented by Professor Joseph Henry
Thomas Davenport of Brandon found practical uses for it
He used it to power shop machinery & built the 1st
electric model railroad car
Power Tools1837
John Deere (blacksmith) replaced the iron plows w/ steel making plowing thick soil easier for farmers
Steel Plow1837
Crawford Williamson Long, from Jefferson Georgia, used ether anesthesia to remove a tumor from Mr. James Venable’s neck
He didn’t tell anyone until 1849
Ether Anesthesia1842
In its natural state, rubber melted if it was hot and froze with it was cold
Charles Goodyear found a way to vulcanize rubber by combining it with sulfur so it’s unaffected by temperature
Vulcanized Rubber1843
Walter Hunter invented the 1st sewing machine, but debt forced him to sell the patent to Elias Howe who improved
Isaac Singer improved it further & his company was the world’s biggest sewing machine maker
Sewing Machine1845
Walter Hunt invented the Safety to prevent finders from injury & to pay off his $15 debt
Safety Pin1949
The world gather at the Crystal Palace in London, England for the Great Exhibition
Crystal Palace1851
Henry Bessemer blasted hot air through melt iron to get rid of the other stuff in there & called it the Bessemer Process
Now making steel is faster, cheaper, & more efficient
Bessemer Process1854
Elisha Graves Otisdemonstrates the passenger elevator he invented at the Crystal Palace by cutting its cords as it goes up a 300 ft tower
He new brake system stops the elevator from falling
Safety Escalator1857
Edwin Drake had drilled 69.5 ft into the ground when he striked oil in Titusville, Pennyslvania
Before this, oil was only collected where it seeped through the ground
Oil Well1859
Samuel van Syckel built a 5 mi pump-operated oil pipeline to make transporting oil, a whole lot easier
The Teamsters saw this a threat to their business & destroyed it, but van Syckel repaired it & hire Pipeline Protectors
Oil Pipeline1864
Joseph F. Glidden from Dekalb, Illinois invented barbed wire
Before barbed wire, people used wood, thorny bush, etc. to make a fence, but in the Great Plains there wasn’t a lot of that
Barbed Wire1867
John Roebling, the Engineer in Chief, built the first steel-wire suspension bridge
The bridge was built in New York City
Brooklyn Bridge1869
Christopher Latham Sholes was inspired by the Scientific American article about a Britshattempt to make a typing machine
He sold the prototype to Remington & Sons who mass produced it
Typewriter1873
Edison was trying to use paraffin to improve telephone tape when he accidently found a way to make document copies
Mimeograph1875
The telegraph sends coded messages that only trained people can read
Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone (built with the assistance of self-trained Thomas A. Watson can be used by everyone
Telephone1876
Edison & his team of engineers invent the phonograph in a lab at Menlo Park, New Jersey
The 1st recording made with the device was “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Phonograph1877
Thomas Edison built the durable light bulb, but could only supply electricity to big cities with his power company, Edison Electric
Incandescent Light Bulb1879
William Le Baron Jenneyfinishes his skyscraper a ten-story Home Insurance Co. Building
He was the first to use a steel frame or girder
Skyscraper1885
George Eastman introduces the portable hand-held camera in Rochester, NY
Kodak Camera1888
Horizontal Integration: ownership of businesses producing similar products in the same field
Ex: Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co. provided 90% of US’ refined oil
Vertical Integration: owning all the businesses required to build the product from raw material
Ex: Carnegie owned the iron ore mines, coal fields, & RR’s that supply his steel mills
Horizontal & Vertical IntegrationLate 1800’s
Charles & J. Frank Duryea built the first gas-power car in Springfield, Massachusetts
Gasoline-Powered Car1893
The 1st subway in US opened
It ran from Boston under the Boston Harbor to East Boston
Subway1897
J. P. Holland’s torpedo boat co. launches the 1st submarine for U.S.
Submarine1898
Wilbur & Orville Wright built the 1st motorized plane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
It increases demand for oil
Airplane1903
Henry Ford mass produced interchangeable parts for the Model T & they were put together on the assemble line (picture on the left), making cars afFordable for the general public
Model T (Tin Lizzie)1908
Alexander Graham Bell’s Hydrofoil IV uses underwater fins to elevate boat’s hull, decrease the drag, & make the boat go faster (70 mph, broke the world record)
Hydrofoil1919
the AM station KDKA delivers results of the Harding-Cox election, beginning 1st regular commercial radio broadcasts
KDKA1920