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FILE CONTAINED: INVENT.TXT
ACTUAL TOPIC: Inventions of the early nineteenth century.
AUTHOR AND RESEARCHER: Big Brother @ The Works (617) 861-8976
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This file was originally researched and typed by Big Brother. All material
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INVENTIONS OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
The art of inventing has been around since remedies have
been needed and solutions have been required to make our
lives easier and more enjoyable. From the time our
forefathers colonized the shores of a new land, up till the
time of the modern day super-conductor: people have created
devices and made discoveries on our behalf to make life
easier for everyone.
Before the early nineteenth century communications
were inadequate. The limitations of our hearing meant that
distant events were known long after they had occurred.
Systems of communication existed which were quicker then the
speed of a messenger - smoke signals, fires lit on hills,
signalling flags. But these methods could only be used for
communicating in code with pre-established sayings rather
than out-right communication. These methods also required
certain meteorological or geographical conditions in order to
function properly.
In the nineteenth century conditions were present that
made the need for new forms of communications indispensable.
Industrial society needed a method of communicating
information quickly, safely and accurately. Artist-inventor
Samuel F.B. Morse holds credit for devising American's first
commercially successful electromagnetic telegraph (patented
in January 1836). The telegraph was a device used to
electrically send signals over a wire for long distances
allowing an established communication link to be made from
one city to another. (And everything in-between.) The basic
principle of the telegraph was the opening and closing of an
electrical circuit supplied by a battery: the variations of
the current in the electromagnet would attract or repel a
small arm connected to a pencil which would trace zigzag
signs onto a strip of paper running under the arm at a
constant speed. This early plan didn't offer great practical
possibilities, mainly because the batteries then available
could not produce a current strong enough to push the signal
great distances.
As an artist and sculptor, Morse had the personal
qualities to succeed as inventor of the telegraph:
intelligence, persistence, and a willingness to learn. What
he lacked was: knowledge of recent scientific developments,
adequate funds, mechanical ability, and political influence.
Like all successful inventors of the nineteenth century,
Morse exploited his strengths and worked on his weaknesses.
Morse used Professor Leonard D. Gale's suggestions of
improving both his battery and electromagnet by following the
suggestions of Joseph Henry. Together they incorporated
Henry's suggestions and stepped up the distance they could
send messages from fifty feet to ten miles. This invention,
no less important than the telegraph itself, was the so-
called relay system, widely used today for automatic controls
and adjustments. Morse introduced a series of electromagnets
along the line, each of which opened and shut the switch of a
successive electric circuit, supplied by it's own battery.
At the same time Morse improved the transmitting and
receiving devices and perfected the well-know signalling
system based on dots and dashes, which is still in use today.
The first telegraph line, connecting Baltimore to New
York, was inaugurated in 1844. Before this however, on May
24th, 1843 wires were strung between Washington and Baltimore
where Morse sent the first message from the Supreme Court
room in Washington to Alfred Vail, Morse's assistant who was
in Baltimore at a railroad depot (41 miles away): "What hath
God wrought?"
On May 29th, 1844 word flashed by wire from the
democratic convention in Baltimore that James K. Polk had
been nominated for the Presidency. People were fascinated by
the "Magic key" and it was decided that the telegraph would
be used for now to report congressional doings.
By 1848 every state east of the Mississippi except
Florida was served be the telegraph; by the end of the civil
war more than 200,000 miles of line were used for business
communications and personal messages as well as news of
battles, politics, and sports results. The telegraph was a
success. Samuel F. B. Morse died in 1872.
While communications were important in the nineteenth
century, there were some other inventions that made life a
little easier. In April of 1849, Walter Hunt patented his
invention which to this day we probably wouldn't get by
without. Hunt invented the safety pin, patented it, and then
without hesitation sold all rights to the pin for $400. In
1846, Elias Howe invented the sewing machine which "was
becoming a fixture in the homes of [all] American newlyweds."
Soon to be followed by industry turning it's attention to the
home by producing labor-saving appliances - novelties that
soon became necessities.
Charles Goodyear, one of the nineteenth century's
greatest inventors and father of today's vast rubber industry
discovered vulcanization, the process that toughens rubber
and rids it of stickiness, in January of 1839.
The riddle of rubber - how to prevent the stuff from
becoming sticky in the summer, brittle in the winter and
horrid-smelling in between. After years of anguish, Goodyear
discovered quite by accident that by adding sulphur to raw
rubber and heating the material from four to six hours at
about 270 degrees F. the rubber would be cured by the sulphur
resulting in increased strength and stiffness while
preserving its flexibility.
After spending many hundreds of hours, Goodyear, in his
make-shift lab adding one substance after another to rid the
rubber of it's natural stickiness using every ingredient he
could get his hands on to put into the rubber mixture, (He
used salt, paper, talcum powder, anything...) one afternoon
when all else had failed, Goodyear dropped by accident a
mixture of sulphur and rubber onto his hot stovetop. Goodyear
looked at the blob in disbelief because it didn't melt as
"gum elastic" always had in the past. Instead, it solidified
and "[the rubber] charred like leather".
Before Goodyear's discovery, rubber's bad qualities
permitted few uses. French savants had studied the new
substance for waterproof qualities; someone had found that
the gray gum rubbed out pencil marks on paper, and thus the
word "rubber" was born.
By 1839 British manufacturers had learned a few other
uses for uncured rubber. Charles Macintosh, a chemist,
patented in 1823 a fabric that included a thin layer of
rubber. From this he made raincoats that in England, the
climate helped satisfy purchasers. In American winters they
hardened like armor, in American summers it they softened
like taffy.
Eldest son of Amasa Goodyear, a New Haven merchant and
sometimes inventor, Charles helped his father sell a
"Patented Spring Steel Hay and Manure Fork" invented by his
father. Amasa manufactured the first pearl buttons made in
America and metal buttons that U.S. soldiers wore in the war
of 1812.
Goodyear foresaw many products - rubber gloves, toys,
conveyor belts, watertight seals, water-filled rubber
pillows, balloons, printing rollers, and rubber bands were
among some of the brainstorms he would jot down, one after
the other into his notebook.
Also envisioned were rubber banknotes, musical
instruments, flags, jewelry, "imitation buffalo-robes," vanes
or "sails" for windmills, and ship's sails, even complete
ships. While the automobile tire did escape his imagination,
it was not without reason - the auto hadn't been invented
yet!
From barbed wire to keep our railways safe, to revolvers
to keep our country safe, the nineteenth century marked a big
boom in inventive history. Soon following all of these
inventions, the civil war became a full blown testing field
for all these inventions. Whether it was the coin operated
hairbrush meant for public restrooms, or the automatic hat
tipper (for when women are near and your hands are occupied,)
the inventions of this time proved to be both interesting and
useful. Well, most of them.
Today, we still use a lot of the inventions of the early
nineteenth century, but technology is passing us by at a pace
we may not be ready for. Inventions are no longer just there
to make life easier, safer, more enjoyable, and more
entertaining, but they give us something to keep us occupied
in this never-ending quest for - "perfectness?"
Maybe in a hundred years someone will be looking back
through their history books, searching though the libraries
of the future and seeing our super-conductors, our computers,
our High Definition t.v.s, our Super VHS video recorders, and
our Digital Audio Tape players. Could they be saying "isn't
that silly" just like the coin operated hairbrush, or the
combination food masher/rat and mouse trap (?) Time will
tell.
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Bibiliography:
Men Of Science and Invention
- Editors of American Heritage
Published American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.
Harper & Row (c)1960
Those Inventive Americans
- Poduced by National Geographic Society Publications Div.
Published N.G.S
N.G.S. (c)1971
Big Brother
- The Works (617) 861-8976
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(c)1990 Homework Helper!
The Picture History of Inventions
- Umberto Eco & G.B. Zorzoli (Translated from italian by
Anthony Lawrence)
Malmillan Co., NY. (c)1963
Various photocopied charts and pictures from other
references were also used.
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Special thanks to Big Brother... since he did all of the actual work for you!
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