Industry and Inventions
Industrial Revolution
• Manufacturing of
the 18th century
– Hand tools and
small-scale
manufacturing
• Agriculture centered
economy pushed by
the DemocraticRepublicans
• Technology
innovations create a
shift toward largescale production
Technology Revolution
• Spinning jenny
– Produces many spools of yarn at once
• Water frame
– Power machines in factories
• Power loom
– Wove & pressed thread into cloth
• Advances made it possible for any
unskilled workers to produce cloth
• Patent Law
– Passed to protect rights of inventors
Factory System
• Workers and
machines together
under one roof
• First appeared in
New England
• Samuel Slater
– First successful waterpowered textile mill
• Soil was very poor &
difficult to farm
• Economic system allowed
competition
– Minimum government
interference
• Free Enterprise
– Competition, profit, private
property, & economic
freedom
• Many people invested in
industry during the War of
1812
• Businessmen built
factories and grew
wealthy
• Factories did many
tasks in one place
– Increase efficiency
• Interchangeable parts
– Made each part of a
manufactured item
exactly alike
– Reduced goods prices
– Became the industry
standard
Impact on Cities
•
Industrial cities grew the
quickest
– Most were on rivers
– Needed water power
– New England had many fastflowing rivers
•
City disadvantages
– Waste disposal was an issue
• Threat of disease
– Fires were a constant threat
– Overcrowded living conditions
•
City advantages
– Libraries, museums, shops
– Jobs & attractions outweighed
the dangers
Lowell Mills
Francis Cabot Lowell builds a
factory in Mass
Figured out how to work power looms in England
(stole the technology like Samuel Slater)
Factory was so successful he built a
factory town called Lowell
The Lowell Mills
• Lowell mills employed farm girls
• Girls lived in company-owned boardinghouses
– Worked 12 ½ hour days
• Girls came because of high wages
– Between $2 - $4 a week
– Some men making that in factories
• Older women supervised the girls
– Enforced strict rules
• The rise in steam powered factories forced the
mills to close (and others like them who used
water power)
Robert Fulton – creates boat powered by
steam to transport people quicker
Used commercially to transport people up the Hudson
River from New York City to upstate New York
Roads built to connect cities
States charged tolls or fees to drive on
streets of crushed stone
Samuel Morse – creates the telegraph, a machine which sends short
pulses of electricity along a wire that could be translated into letters
The telegraph took seconds to communicate to someone in another city
• John Deere
– Blacksmith by trade
– Invents a lightweight plow with a steel cutting
edge
– Designed for rich and heavy Midwestern soil
• Cyrus McCormick
– Invents a mechanical reaper to cut ripe grain
• Threshing machine
– Separated kernels of wheat from the husks
• New farm equipment opened new markets
to grow food
Industrial Revolution’s Key Inventions
Person
Invention
Date
James Watt
First reliable Steam Engine
1775
Samuel Slater
First successful American textile mill
1793
Eli Whitney
Cotton Gin, Interchangeable parts for muskets
1793, 1798
Robert Fulton
Regular Steamboat service on the Hudson River
1807
Francis Cabot Lowell
First American textile mill to convert raw cotton to finished cloth in
one building
1813
Peter Cooper
American-made locomotive powered by steam
1830
Samuel F. B. Morse
Telegraph
1836
Elias Howe
Sewing Machine
1844
Isaac Singer
Improves and markets Howe's Sewing Machine
1851
Cyrus Field
Transatlantic Cable
1866
Alexander Graham Bell
Telephone
1876
Thomas Edison
Phonograph, Incandescant Light Bulb
1877, 1879
Nikola Tesla
Induction Electric Motor
1888
Rudolf Diesel
Diesel Engine
1892
Orville and Wilbur Wright
First Manned Airplane
1903
Henry Ford
Model T Ford, Assembly Line
1908, 1913