American Inventions and Inventors

"All aboard!" cries the conductor, and slowly the long train draws out of the San Francisco station on its way to Chicago and the Atlantic coast. Three sleepers, two chair coach...

Our homes and their surroundings are so familiar to us that it is hard for us to realize that our country was not always as it is now. Let us think about it. Have you seen any c...

The Indians, seated in their long community houses around their wood fires, ranging over their hunting ground seeking fresh meat, or stealthily creeping through the forest hopin...

Remembering our experience in the Indian long house--the discomfort of the smoke and the opening in the roof--we shall understand another great improvement in the colonist's hou...

roof with a board and also threw ashes over the coals, to prevent the wooden house from catching fire while they slept. It was the custom in every town, for many centuries, to r...

"What do you burn in the stoves in your houses?" was asked of a class of schoolchildren in a small Pennsylvania town. Hands went up in every direction; one said "kerosene oil";...

The use of coal for heating purposes is so familiar to every one nowadays that probably few have ever thought about the time when it was unknown. Coal was as plentiful three tho...

"Thomas! Thomas! The fire is out! Get right up and go over to neighbor Wallace's and borrow some fire." It was a cold morning, eight degrees below zero, and Mr. Wallace lived th...

Wood and coal, gas and oil, electricity even, aid us in our demand for warm houses. In winter we should suffer greatly were it not for our fireplaces, our stoves, and our furnac...

Nobody can tell when candles were invented. Candlesticks are often spoken of in the Bible, but those doubtless held oil and burned a wick which hung over the side like the Roman...

No one knows when the whale fishery began. Eight hundred years ago whales were caught off the coast of France and Spain, and before the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth the wh...

It was a long step from the smoky and ill-smelling whale-oil lamp to the clear and brilliant kerosene burner. At the present time the best illumination is furnished by gas and e...

Thus far our various methods of artificial lighting have been very simple. At first men burned the pitch from the pine, and it produced a flame; then they burned olive oil throu...

The electric light differs widely from all modes of artificial light previously invented. It is the latest method that man has discovered for the production of light. In its pra...

We have seen that artificial light is needed at night not only in houses, churches, and public halls, but also in the streets of large towns and cities for the benefit of those...

Heat and light--each is necessary for our bodily comfort and well-being. We have seen that much time and thought have been spent during the past three hundred years in providing...

Hunting and fishing did not furnish either sufficient or satisfactory food for the Indians. A portion of their time was spent in cultivating certain products of the soil. Black...

George was determined to be a farmer. He was but twelve years of age, yet he felt sure that he knew his own mind. He said to himself and to his friends that life out of doors, l...

George awoke the first morning at the farm to hear the roosters crowing, the cows mooing, the sheep bleating, and the men cheerily whistling as they hurried about the chores. No...

A little boat was sailing along the north shore of Massachusetts bay. It was a shallop belonging to the fishing hamlet of Cape Ann. In it were Gov. Roger Conant and a few of his...

George Baxter and his wife returned to New York, after a winter spent in California just a week before Mrs. Baxter's sister and her husband were preparing to start for a second...

You all know that the United States of America was formed out of thirteen English colonies scattered along the Atlantic coast. Virginia was the first of these colonies to be fou...

In the quiet times that followed the French and Indian War, two years after the Treaty of 1763, Eli Whitney was born in Worcester County in Massachusetts. During the Revolutiona...

Almost exactly in the center of England is the County of Derby. A few miles north of the city of Derby, on a small river called Derwent, a branch of the Trent, is the little tow...

As civilization has advanced, the clothing of man has improved. To-day a great variety of material is necessary to make up the proper wardrobe for civilized man. Our clothing is...

In the colonial days, as we have seen, the traveling shoemaker was abroad in the land. He was accustomed to travel through his section of the country with a kit of tools and bit...

In the earlier times what was the mantle that covered the human person? How was it made? How was it held together? With what was the sewing thereof? When was thread first used f...

At the very summit of a mountain near Pasadena, California, stands a huge windmill, which may be seen for many miles in all directions. Here the wind blows almost constantly, an...

"Well, Charles, how do you purpose to go to the city to-day? The paper this morning contains some news that ought to interest you. There was a washout at Turk's Bridge last even...

When the Virginia colonists reached the shores of America, they sailed up the James River until they found a peninsula extending into the river and there they built Jamestown. W...

Both by land and by water the methods of travel among the early colonists were extremely rude. From the early days of the settlements until the Independence of the United States...

The idea of payment for transportation is very old. Thousands of years ago we read of vessels sailing upon the Mediterranean Sea prepared to transport persons or freight for sum...

Ninety years ago, two brothers, James and John, found it necessary to make the long journey from their home in New York City to Kentucky. They had frequently traveled through th...

Up to this time progress had been more marked upon the water than upon the land. On the land travelers were still limited to human power and horse power. On the water, however,...

James Greenleaf arrived in Duluth, one bright June day, four hundred and five years after the discovery of America. For nearly forty years he had been a missionary among the Ind...

Soon after the train had started from the Buffalo station conversation began between Mr. Greenleaf and his nephew. "The steam is the same as in my day," remarked the former; "th...

What is the difference between a dog and a boy, or, rather, what is the difference between the brute creation and mankind? It is as natural for a dog to think as for a boy; he s...

The times have changed since King Solomon's day. The art of printing has been discovered. Now it would be possible to make not merely one copy but thousands of copies, not only...

We have already seen that letters may be written and sent by mail to distant countries or cities. To send a letter to any place in our own country will cost us but two cents; to...

The transmission of letters from one point to another always requires time. Even when a letter is dropped into the post office it will not go until the next regular mail. It was...

On the second day of April, 1872, in the city of New York, the life of a benefactor of his race, an aged man who had seen more than fourscore years of mingled trial and triumph,...

The growth of the telegraph was very much like that of the railroad. In 1844, the first line was opened, as we have seen, between Baltimore and Washington, a distance of forty m...

When the telegraph was invented, years ago, it seemed little less than a miracle that a message could be dictated in one city and received almost instantaneously in another city...

We have now considered six groups of topics connected with the growth and development of our country. We have looked into the houses of the Indians and of the settlers in the co...