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:
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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.