Trains were invented before the Second Industrial Revolution, but there were frequent accidents because slowing and stopping them was a cumbersome process. Then came George Westinghouse, a largely self-taught engineer who dropped out of college after three months because he was too busy inventing things. Thomas Edison exhibiting a replica of his first successful incandescent lamp, which gave 16 candlepower of illumination, in contrast to the 50, watt, , candlepower lamp.
Thomas Edison, perhaps the most famous inventor in American history, created many of his numerous innovations , from the phonograph and the movie camera to the alkaline storage battery, during the Second Industrial Revolution. But perhaps his most influential breakthrough was his invention and marketing of the first incandescent light bulb that was long-lasting and practical for wide use.
Edison came up with the idea of putting a carbonized bamboo filament inside a vacuum bulb, and then heating it to produce light. He kept tinkering with his creation and eventually improved his bulbs so much that they could last for 1, hours.
At this temperature, the oil broke down into simpler, more useful byproducts. Mark Twain used the system to type his novel Life on the Mississippi , which may have been the first literary work composed on a typewriter. Engineer and architect William Le Baron Jenney devised the design, which utilized steel I-beams rolled at the Carnegie mill in Pittsburgh. It was the first use of steel in a building in the United States, and marked the start of an age in which tall office buildings and office towers would rise in urban downtowns across the nation.
This shift dramatically altered the look of cities and made it possible for much larger numbers of people to live and work in them. Not all of the female inventors on this list received attention for their work in their lifetime, or were able to market their inventions.
But all of them contributed innovations that helped advance technology in their respective fields. In the early s, when a new wave of European immigrants were sailing to the United States, a Philadelphia inventor named Maria E. Beasley designed an improved life raft. Beasley patented her first life raft design in in both the United States and Great Britain, and received a second U. In addition to the life raft, she also invented a foot warmer, a stream generator and a barrel-hooping machine, receiving a total of 15 U.
In , a Chicago inventor and furniture store owner named Sarah E. With her Cabinet-Bed, Goode—who was born into slavery and won her freedom after the Civil War —became one of the first Black women to patent and invention with the U.
Patent and Trademark Office. Josephine G. Cochran was a wealthy socialite in Shelbyville, Illinois when she got the idea to invent a dishwasher. Cochrane employed servants to perform housework in her mansion, but started washing her fine china herself when she discovered some of the servants had accidentally chipped them.
Cochrane found her brief exposure to housework unpleasant, and resolved to build a machine that could wash the dishes for her. The result was the first commercially-successful dishwasher, which Cochrane patented in A series of innovations led to corn heads for combines.
Harvesting corn with corn pickers using open rolls on corn pickers after proved to be dangerous as farmers often needed to clear stalks from the rolls.
In , E. Aiken, Dawson, ND, patented shielded snapping rolls with flat plates above the rolls. K Shedd and E. Collins, Ames, IA, patented a more aggressive shielded snapping device in which was later used on sweet corn pickers.
Begun in to honor George Washington, the structure wasn't completed for over 36 years. Construction and financing problems slowed progress and the Civil War halted it completely.
Warren S. Johnson came up with the idea for automatic temperature control while teaching at Normal School in Whitewater, Wisconsin in the 's.
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