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