invention

Samuel Colt

In 1836, Samuel Colt, inventor of the Colt revolver, broke with tradition when he made his guns using machine-made, rather than handmade, parts. Though his first factory went bankrupt, by 1957 Colt had a factory producing 250 guns a day.

Bessemer process

The Bessemer process was the first method by which steel could be mass produced. Developed and patented in the 1850s by Henry Bessemer, the process made steel that was relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, as well as lighter and stronger than iron. The Bessemer process was succeeded by open-hearth steel production in the late 19th century.

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution, which started before the United States became a nation and lasted until the 1870s, saw a shift to new manufacturing processes that caused a major upheaval in how Americans produced the goods they consumed and exported. In the process, the revolution also redefined how people earned a living, where they lived, and their roles at work.

Union Pacific Railroad

The Union Pacific Railroad served as the eastern portion of the first transcontinental railroad, which was built between 1863 and 1869. In addition to providing a large portion of the route to the West, the railroad was instrumental in developing the prairie states by bringing hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Europe and settling them on land in the Midwest.

Alexander Graham Bell

A person of astonishing ingenuity, Alexander Graham Bell is best remembered for his invention of the "electrical speech machine"—the telephone. The device's influence was so profound that the telephone remains a primary method of communication even today. In addition to the telephone, Bell also made several other significant technological discoveries.

George Westinghouse

A train crash convinced George Westinghouse, inventor and founder of Westinghouse Electric Company, to develop better brakes for the nation's railroads, and from his work emerged his most famous invention, the air brake. Westinghouse ranked among the pioneers in electricity and also patented many other devices.

Cyrus McCormick

Cyrus McCormick revolutionized American agriculture through his invention and manufacture of the reaper. This machine opened vast new lands to farming and provided the food that fed Union soldiers during the Civil War and the urban dwellers in America's burgeoning cities.

cotton gin

Invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney, the cotton gin was a machine that could clean the seeds from 50 pounds of cotton in one day, whereas previously a laborer could clean only one pound a day. The cotton gin was largely responsible for revitalizing the plantation system and making the United States the dominant world supplier of cotton by the 1820s.

Transcontinental Railroad

The transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869, connected the western and eastern United States with a single train track. The Central Pacific railroad company, which built the line from the west, and Union Pacific, which built from the east, met and joined tracks at Promontory Summit, Utah.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison, despite deafness from an early age and a limited formal education, became one of the nation's most prolific pioneers in the development of electronic inventions. Such inventions as the phonograph and means to make the incandescent electric bulb a commercial possibility have transformed the lives of people all over the world.