APUSH Topic 6.5 Technological Innovation

Explain the effects of technological advances in the development of the United States over time.

Communication

• telegraph (1844) was a standard part of living

• transatlantic cable (1866)

  • messages could be sent across seas in minutes

  • internationalized markets and prices

Widely used inventions

• telephone (1876)

  • Alexander Graham Bell

• cash register (1879)

• Eastman’s Kodak camera (1888)

• fountain pen (1884)

Steel

• discovery of new process to make steel (more durable than iron)

• Great Lakes region had lots of natural resources → center of steel production

Thomas Edison

• world’s first modern research laboratory (“invention factory)

  • introduced new concept of mechanics and engineers working together instead of independently

• more than a thousand patented inventions

Electricity

• Edison

  • invented dynamo to generate electric power

  • lightbulb

    • revolutionized life

• electric trades employed almost 1 million people (1900)

  • one of biggest and fastest growing industries

George Westinghouse

• more than 400 patents

• inventions made possible the lighting of cities and operation of electrically powered things

New Transportation

• electric trolleys, elevated railroads, subways (1890s)

• Large steel suspension bridges → Brooklyn Bridge (1883)

• people no longer need to live walking distances from their jobs or shops

Skyscrapers

• land got more expensive → building upwards became profitable

• skyscrapers made possible by Otis elevator and central steam-heating system

• skyscrapers very common in cities by 1900

New ways of business

• department stores

  • R.H. Macy

• Mail-order companies

  • Sears

• changed shopping into a form of entertainment

Packaged foods

• packaged foods became common

  • mass produced meat and vegetables

• made possible by refrigerated railroad cars and canning

• changed eating habits of Americans