Inventors and Inventions

Recap

• This time period begins just at the end of the Civil War and is called the Industrial Revolution

• The country is continuing to expand Westward• Why it matters– Innovations in technology and new business combinations

help the United States grow into a great industrial power• Main Idea– Inventions improved the transportation and

communication networks that were vital to the nation’s industrial growth

Communication Changes

• Inventions in communication improved and transformed American life

• They helped unify different regions and encouraged economic growth

• Laying the transatlantic cable

Inventions in Communication• Telegraph - Samuel Morse - 1844

• System of dots and dashes called Morse Code

• Used to communicate around the world

• Telephone – Alexander Graham Bell – 1885– Used mostly to speed up business– 1900 – homeowners began to find

it a timesaver

• Wireless Telegraph (Radio) – Guglielmo Marconi – 1895– First used for entertainment in

1906

The Genius of Invention

• Between 1860 and 1890, the United States government granted more than 400,000 patents for new inventions.– Famous inventions:

• The Kodak Camera – George Eastman• Vacuum Cleaner – John Thurman – 1868• Typewriter – Christopher Sholes - 1868• Adding Machine – William Burroughs – 1868

• What might we be without today if these inventions were never created?– Think about what all these inventions may have lead to and

list everything you can think of on the paper below

Thomas Edison

• Most famous inventor of all time• Many of his inventions made life easier for

Americans.– Light bulb quite possibly his most important invention– Phonograph (record player), motion picture projector,

battery and hundreds of others.• The Electric Power Plant– Edison built the first one in New York City in 1882– Soon after, more were built to power homes and

businesses

African American Inventors

• Because of racial segregation many had trouble getting patents

• Lewis Howard Latimer – developed an improved filament for the light bulb and joined Edison’s company.

• Elijah McCoy – created device that oiled engines automatically

• Granville T. Woods – created an electromagnetic brake for trains

• Jan Matzeliger – created a shoe-making machine that performed many steps previously done by hand.

A Changing Society

• In the 1900s, improvements ushered in a new era of transportation

• The Automobile– No single person invented the automobile

• People started building cars in the 1860’s• Only the elite or rich could afford

– Henry Ford changed the industry• Ford introduced the assembly line• Allowed for mass production

– Cars were made more efficiently which made them more affordable

The Automobile

• The automobile changed American culture– People no longer needed to live close to work• The suburbs were born

– People could go out and do more fun things• Socializing was revolutionized (dating changed)

• What other ways did the automobile change the world?

The Airplane

• Invented by the Wright brothers in 1903– Did not attract much attention at the time– Eventually airplane pioneers used their idea to adapt to

make better planes– Changed the world because exotic and remote places

became accessible.