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          ARRoGANT                CoURiERS      WiTH     ESSaYS

Grade Level:       Type of Work           Subject/Topic is on:
 [ ]6-8                 [ ]Class Notes    [Report on inventions of ]
 [x]9-10                [ ]Cliff Notes    [19th century.           ]
 [x]11-12               [x]Essay/Report   [                        ]
 [ ]College             [ ]Misc           [                        ]

 Dizzed: 07/94  # of Words:1543  School:Public          State:NY
ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>Chop Here>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ>ФФФФФФФФФ
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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.


__________________________________________________________

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
  Largest Text File Base  (FBBS)  Spam! Spam! Spam!
  (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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