Industrial Revolution

  • Steam Engine

    Steam Engine
    An engine that uses the expansion or rapid condensation of steam to generate power.The steam engine was developed over a period of about a hundred years by three British inventors. The first crude steam powered machine was built by Thomas Savery, of England, in 1698. Savery built his machine to help pump water out of coal mines.
  • Spinning jenny

    Spinning jenny
    The spinning jenny, is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England.
  • Cotton Gin

    Cotton Gin
    A cotton gin is a machine, made by Eli Whitney, that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, allowing for much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The fibers are processed into clothing or other cotton goods, and any undamaged cotton was used for clothes.
  • Telegragh

    Telegragh
    Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse (1791-1872) and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations.
  • Transatlantic steamship service

    Transatlantic steamship service
    The first man to build a steamboat in the United States was John Fitch. In 1787, Fitch built a 45-foot steamboat that he sailed down the Delaware River while members of the Constitutional Convention watched.
  • Sewing machine

    Sewing machine
    Some say that Balthasar invented the sewing machine needle with the eye at the pointed end. Something that a few other inventors, including Elias Howe, would dispute.Elias Howe invented the first American sewing machine in 1846. It was used for fixing clothes at a factory use, and on production lines. The sewing machine was created in September 10,1846.
  • Telephone

    Telephone
    Of course, Alexander Graham Bell is the father of the telephone. After all it was his design that was first patented, however, he was not the first inventor to come up with the idea of a telephone. Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant, began developing the design of a talking telegraph or telephone in 1849.
  • Elavator

    Elavator
    The man who solved the elevator safety problem, making skyscrapers possible, was Elisha Otis, who is generally known as the inventor of the modern elevator. In 1852, Otis came up with a design that had a safety “brake.”
  • Incandescent light bulb

    Incandescent light bulb
    Long before Thomas Edison patented -- first in 1879 and then a year later in 1880 -- and began commercializing his incandescent light bulb, British inventors were demonstrating that electric light was possible with the arc lamp.
  • Air planes

    Air planes
    On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane. The Wrights used this stopwatch to time the Kitty Hawk flights.