The Second Industrial
Revolution or Technological
Revolution
• The Second Industrial Revolution or Technological
Revolution was a movement in America roughly from 1865 to 1914 that made America the leading industrial nation and the richest nation on earth by
1900.
• The movement was led by inventors (people who create a product or service for the first time), innovators (people who modify an already used product or service), and Captains of Industry (heads of large corporations).
• The Second Industrial Revolution developed out of the better ability to extract natural resources, increased transportation, massive labor pools, large amounts of capital, use of steel, multiple uses of oil, and the power of electricity.
• Between the 1860s and the 1890s there were over 500,000 patents (license to make, use, and sell an idea or invention) which helped to increase the productivity of the Second
Industrial Revolution.
• Many of these inventions dealt with the development of technology (the use of scientific knowledge to solve a problem or perform a task: practical application) due to a greater understanding of thermodynamics and chemistry
• During the Technological Revolution transportation changed greatly to bring about easier mobility of people and products such as changes in ships
(wooden-iron-steel), trains (steamdiesel), automobiles, and early planes.
• The greatest application to increase mobility was the use of steam and gasoline motors to power the different modes of transportation.
• During the latter parts of the 1800s the growth of big business was increased by the ease of shipping natural resources to make products, goods to market, and directly to the consumer.
• The development of steel ships allowed for larger ships that could transport larger quantities of goods.
• Trains were improved during the time period to increase speed, hailing ability, and most importantly safety.
– Granville T. Woods “Black Edison” improved the ability of trains to communicate with stations and other trains by the development of the Synchronous
Multiplex Railway Telegraph. (cut down on collisions on same tracks)
• As early as the 1700s the development of powered horse carriages had begun in Europe and in America, but they ran off of steam.
(Oliver Evans was the first in America to start working on automobiles)
• Nicolaus August Otto (“Ottomobile”) is credited with the invention of the first internal combustion four stroke engine in the
1860s in Germany.
• Rudolf Diesel is credited with the invention of the first diesel engine in Germany in the
1890s. (more efficient than petro)
• The first practical gasoline (petrol) engine and car was produced by Karl Benz in
Germany in 1885.
• Gottlieb Daimler with Wilhelm Maybach invented the a high speed engine and the first four wheel automobile in Germany in
1888. (also created with the first motorcycle)
• Two inventions helped the development of the automobile industry, Charles
Goodyear’s vulcanizing (hardening) process
(1830s) and John Boyd Dunlop's practical pneumatic or inflatable tire in the 1880s.
• In America Charles and Frank Duryea are credited with the invention of the first working gasoline automobile in 1893.
• At first cars were seen as more of a mere novelty for the wealthy, because fuel was hard to get, breakdowns were often, roads were not yet made for cars, and they were expensive.
• Henry Ford revolutionized the automobile industry through his perfection of the assembly line (products run on a conveyer belt as they are assembled during the process) form of mass production in his Ford
Motor Company with the production of the Model T
Car .
• The Ford Model
Ts led to the rise of mass automobile use in America, due to the fact that more Americans could purchase cars. (also led to more industries in America)
• The early air industry was slow to take flight, with many different designs and ideas of how it should be done. (the start of the airplane was with gliders (planes with no engine, glorified kite)
• Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903 in Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina completed the first manned air flight with their first airplane. (12 seconds for 120 feet at the speed of 6.8 mph)
Orville Wilbur
Communication Invention and Innovation
• Samuel Morse in the 1840s invented the single line telegraph to increase communication.
– In 1850s Ezra Cornell founded the Western
Union Company which became the dominate telegraph company in America.
• Cyrus Field in 1858 laid the first Trans-
Atlantic telegraph cable allowing for quick communication between America and Europe.
• Alexander Graham Bell in the 1870s invented the telephone which allowed people to talk to one another over great distances.
– Bell, Gardiner Hubbard, and Thomas Sanders founded the American Telephone and Telegraph
Company (AT& T), which monopolized the telephone industry for many years.
– Improvements on transmitters where made Thomas
Edison and Emile Berliner.
– Antonio Meucci is also debated as the first inventor
.
• Guglielmo Marconi in the 1890s made the first radio transmission that led to the develop of the radio.
• In the early 1900s Lee de Forest invented the audion which led to the first amplitude-modulated radio (AM) and the growth of radio stations in America. (frequencymodulated radio “FM” did not develop until the 1930s.
Bell speaking into early phone
Marconi and the Spark Gap
Radio
Bell’s idea of cell phone
1890 (photo phone)
• The newspaper industry was able to grow on the large scale due to new ways of paper making.
• Richard Hoe in the 1870s invented the double sided rotary press (process where the image is placed on a cylinder for fast continuous printing) which increased the speed in which newspapers were printed.
• In the 1880s Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the linotype machine which allowed for quick and easy setting of lines of type for printing and became the standard for newspapers and magazines until the 1960s.
• The new inventions made newspapers easier and cheaper to produce, which increased number of newspapers in circulation due to cheaper prices (sometimes three to four a day)
• Competition between the newspapers led to the development of yellow journalism (the use of little researched, over exaggerated, sensational, and sometimes false information about vice, crime, and violence with eye catching headlines to sell more newspapers).
• Joseph Pulitzer (New York World) and William
Randolph Hearst (San Francisco Examiner and new York Journal) became the newspaper tycoons in America.
Yellow
Kidd
Five characteristics of yellow journalism:
1.) scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
2.) lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
3.) use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts
4.) emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips
5.) dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.
• The breakthrough of electricity allowed for the massive growth of the Industrial Age and still today, its effects allowed for the growth of creature comfort goods, the ability of factories and society to work day and night, and a revolution in the way people communicate with each other.
• The major proponent of electricity and electoral products in America was the “Wizard” of Menlo
Park Thomas Edison
• Edison did not only invent things himself but also founded the company, General Electric (GE), known as the “invention factory”, which was the first industrial research laboratory that hired inventors for the sole purpose of creating new products to market to the new mass consumer.
“Genius is 1 percent inspiration and
99 percent perspiration”
Incandescent light bulb
Kinetoscope
Phonograph
Menlo Park lab
• Edison perfected the filament ( the instrument that conducts electricity in a light bulb) within a light build to produce the first incandescent light bulb . (used carbon filament in a vacuum, so it could not burn up)
• To power his new bulbs also in the 1880s Edison and his partners called the Edison Pioneers developed power generating and distribution system known as Direct Current (D/C).
• Edison and his team also developed other inventions such as the Phonograph, motion picture projector, storage battery, dictating machine, and kinetoscope among many others.
• George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla in the 1880s to counter D/C developed the form of electricity known as alternating current (A/C)
• The Electricity Wars was a commercializing battle between Edison (D/C) and Westinghouse (A/C) with each trying to prove the superiority of their distribution system and discredit the others. (A/C won out)
• Nicola Tesla “the wizard of the west” was a man ahead of his time of the late 1800s and today, because his inventions and theories were so revolutionary that at his death the United States government seized all his personal works and papers and locked them up.
• One idea was free power through a system of wireless electrification by using the same principle as radio wave transmission. (because J.P. Morgan could not make money from it, he stopped the project)
• Christopher L. Sholes in the 1870s invented the
“modern day” typewriter with the modern “QWERTY” keyboard, which when used in businesses increased the speed and efficiency of paperwork.
• James Ritty in 1879 invented the cash register to speed up transactions (first used in his saloon).
• William S. Burroughs in 1886 invented the first
“calculating machine” calculator to speed up accounting and other mathematical parts of business.
• Elijah McCoy in the 1870s invented a lubrication cup that continuously lubricated machine parts while running, instead of having to be done manually. (the
Real McCoy)
• William Sellers developed the first unified system of screw threads and nuts to standardize the industrial world.
Business Invention and Innovation
Business Invention and Innovation
• Just as large industries were consolidating into large corporations and becoming national, the suppliers of these industries were also following this trend, growing the local general store into.
• The American marketplace was switching from a mom and pop (locally owned by a family) style of specialty stores to something larger to reach growing and expanding market.
• During this time new types of stores were opened such as department stores (carry multiple specialty products under one roof) and chain stores (stores with branches in more than one city).
Business Invention and Innovation
• A.T. Stewart in 1846 built the “Marble Palace” and
1862 built the six story Cast Iron Palace department store. (Stewart changed the ideas of distribution, merchandising, manufacturing and payment methods, which allowed merchandisers to grow on the large scale )
– James Bogardus developed the cast iron construction, which was the genesis of the idea of the skyscraper.
• John C. Wanamaker opened “The Grand Depot” in
Philadelphia, 1875. (one price, goods returnable)
• Other department stores included: Hecht’s Company
(1857), Macy’s (1858), Bloomingdale’s (1860)
Marshall’s (1881), Belk (1888), and Saks Fifth Avenue
(1898).
Business Invention and Innovation
• Department stores began to branch out of their city of origin, such as Great Atlantic and
Pacific Tea Company (A&P) and Woolworth.
– These chain stores bought large quantities at lower prices carrying over the savings to the consumer, earning them the nickname “Five and Dime" stores.
• The rural market became part of the national trend with the creation of mail-order catalogues (publication containing a list of general merchandise from a company purchased and delivered through the mail)
• Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872 created the first mail order company followed by the Sears and Roebuck company in 1886.
Business Invention and Innovation
• Due to the massive growth of consumer products companies developed professional advertising for mass advertising.
– The advertising companies hired people who knew about statistics and cultural trends to target women that used wholesome images, brand names, and catchy slogans.
– The development of advertising companies was a affect and effect of the growth of consumerism in America.
Inventions and Innovations that changed society
• In the area of photography George
Eastman in the 1880s developed the first “roll film” photography which became the “Kodak” camera.
• In 1876 Melville Bissell invented the push powered vacuum “sweeper”.
• In 1899 John Thurman the first motorized (gasoline) vacuum cleaner.
• In the 1860-70s Thaddeus Lowe invented the first ice machine.
Inventions and Innovations that changed society
• In 1883 Lewis Edson Waterman invented the fountain pen.
• In 1886 Josephine Cochrane invented the first practical dishwasher.
• In 1889 Jesse Reno invented the practical escalator.
• In the 1880s W.L. Judson invented the zipper.
• In 1895 Lumiere Brothers invented the first portable motion picture camera, film processing, and projector called a Cinematographe.
• In 1901 Edwin Prescott invented the “Loop the
Loop” roller coaster.
Inventions and Innovations that changed society
• I.R. Johnson in 1899 patented the modern bicycle frame, which led to the bicycle craze of the Gilded Age
• In 1902 Willis Carter invented the first air conditioner.
• Edward Binney and Harold Smith co-invent crayons
• In 1904 Benjamin Holt invented the first tractor.
• In 1907 Paul Cornu invented the first piloted helicopter.
Inventions and Innovations that changed society
• In 1878 Anna Baldwin invented the first suction cow milking machine.
• In the 188s0s Jan E. Matzeliger invented a machine to mass produce shoes.
• In the 1880s Marvin Stone invented the first modern drinking straw. (natural reed grass was first used)
• In the 1880s the British Perforated Paper
Company developed and marketed the first modern toilet paper roll.
• To show case all the new inventions and innovations, America hosted the
Centennial International Exhibition in
1876 which was a world’s fair of technology. (held in Philadelphia)
• Some of the products that we use everyday were the main hits of the fair. (telephone, typewriter, and root beer)