The Industrial Revolution
1700's -1890's
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| Steam Engine | Loom | Railroad |
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| Cotton Gin | Telegraph | Steamboat |
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Additional Website Links
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The Industrial Revolution was a time where man had a chance to expand his horizons and move on into the next age.
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| The Steam Engine | |
| Thomas Newcomen was a
famous engineer from Dartmouth. He built a steam engine to pump water from
the Cornish tin mines. His engines were also used in the 18th century to
increase the supply of drinking water. |
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This works on the same
Cornish principles as the beam engines but has the pump plunger below the
steam cylinder directly coupled to the piston and therefore has no need of
a beam. The Bull engine is the largest survivor of its type and the only
one in a complete state.
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| The Loom |
| The Power Loom was invented by Edmund Cartwright in 1785. It's purpose was to make spinning and weaving faster and easier for textile workers. |  |
| The Railroad |
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Designed and built by Peter Cooper in 1830, the Tom Thumb was the first American-built steam locomotive to be operated on a common-carrier railroad. Cooper planned to use it to convince the owners of the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that they should use locomotives rather than horses. |
| The greatest historical event in transportation on the continent occurred at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, as the Union Pacific tracks joined those of the Central Pacific Railroad. |  |
| The Cotton Gin |
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In one hour, he turned out
the full day's work of several workers. With no more than the promise that
Whitney would patent the machine and make a few more, the men who had
witnessed the demonstration immediately ordered whole fields to be planted
with green seed cotton. |
| Word got around the district so rapidly that Whitney's workshop was broken open and his machine examined. Within a few weeks, more cotton was planted than Whitney could possible have ginned in a year of making new machines. |  |
| The Telegraph |
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Samuel Morse's
original telegraph transmitter and receiver, 1837 The original Morse telegraph did not use a key and sounder. Instead it was a device designed to print patterns at a distance. The transmitter, in front, had code slugs shaped in hills and valleys. These represented the more familiar dots and dashes of Morse code. |
| The Steamboat |
| In 1807, U.S. inventor Robert Fulton proved the value of his smoke-belching invention, the Clermont steamboat, when it traveled up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany at the then amazing speed of 5 mph. The event heralded a new era in river transport - and also hinted at the possibilities of steam-powered ships for ocean travel. |  |
| Additional Website Links |