Early Inventions
Thread-Spinning Mill
• Builder: Samuel Slater
• Year: 1789
• Apprentice in one of Arkwright’s Factories
(Great Britain)
• Produced cotton thread
• Rapid rate of production
Steamboat
• Builder: Robert Fulton
• Year: 1807
• First practical steamboat was called the
Clermont
• Made traveling on river easier and faster
• Canals
• Used for trade and the moving of raw materials
• First oceangoing steamship wouldn’t be
produced until 1850 in Great Britain
Cotton Gin
• Inventor: Eli Whitney
• Year: 1794
• Need for cotton by factories in the North
• A worker could produce fifty time more
cotton fiber
• Increase of slave labor
• “Cotton Kingdom:” owners of large
plantations
Telegraph
• Inventor: Samuel Morse
• Year: 1844
• Revolutionized
communication
• Morse Code
• Factories in the East could
now communicate with
markets in the West
Metal Plow
• Inventor: John Deere
• Year: 1837
• Blacksmith
• Tough plains soil could not be plowed by
cast iron plows (sticking)
• Assisted farmers greatly
Mechanical Reaper
• Inventor: Cyrus McCormick
• Year: 1831
• Cut wheat many times faster
than a human worker could
• Enabled farmers to cultivate
more land with fewer workers
• Great for the prairies of the Midwest
Power Loom
• Builder: Francis Lowell
• Year: 1814
• Improved versions of English machines
• Brought spinning and weaving
• Allowed textile work to be done a lot faster
Sewing Machine
• Inventor: Elias Howe
• Year: 1846
• Made producing clothing efficient
• Made cloths less expensive so even the
lower and middle classes could dress like
the wealthier Americans
• Ties back to cotton
Vulcanized Rubber
• Inventor: Charles Goodyear
• Year: 1839
• Made working with rubber easier (sticking
when hot and hard when cold)
• Removed sulfur and then heated so it
would retained its elasticity