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       FILE CONTAINED:  INVENT.TXT
         ACTUAL TOPIC:  Inventions of the early nineteenth century.
AUTHOR AND RESEARCHER:  Big Brother @ The Works (617) 861-8976
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This file was originally researched and typed by Big Brother.  All material 
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use AS-IS with no modifications other than specifics to cover the actual      
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                        Big Brother's Guide to School

                              The Dreaded Reports

                          actual examples...........


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                   INVENTIONS OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY



             The art of inventing has been around since remedies have

         been needed and solutions have been required to make our

         lives easier and more enjoyable.  From the time our

         forefathers colonized the shores of a new land, up till the

         time of the modern day super-conductor: people have created

         devices and made discoveries on our behalf to make life

         easier for everyone.



             Before the early nineteenth century communications

         were inadequate.  The limitations of our hearing meant that

         distant events were known long after they had occurred.

         Systems of communication existed which were quicker then the

         speed of a messenger - smoke signals, fires lit on hills,

         signalling flags. But these methods could only be used for

         communicating in code with pre-established sayings rather

         than out-right communication. These methods also required

         certain meteorological or geographical conditions in order to

         function properly.

             In the nineteenth century conditions were present that

         made the need for new forms of communications indispensable.

         Industrial society needed a method of communicating

         information quickly, safely and accurately. Artist-inventor

         Samuel F.B. Morse holds credit for devising American's first

         commercially successful electromagnetic telegraph (patented

         in January 1836).  The telegraph was a device used to













         electrically send signals over a wire for long distances

         allowing an established communication link to be made from

         one city to another. (And everything in-between.)  The basic

         principle of the telegraph was the opening and closing of an

         electrical circuit supplied by a battery: the variations of

         the current in the electromagnet would attract or repel a

         small arm connected to a pencil which would trace zigzag

         signs onto a strip of paper running under the arm at a

         constant speed.  This early plan didn't offer great practical

         possibilities, mainly because the batteries then available

         could not produce a current strong enough to push the signal

         great distances.

             As an artist and sculptor, Morse had the personal

         qualities to succeed as inventor of the telegraph:

         intelligence, persistence, and a willingness to learn. What

         he lacked was: knowledge of recent scientific developments,

         adequate funds, mechanical ability, and political influence.

         Like all successful inventors of the nineteenth century,

         Morse exploited his strengths and worked on his weaknesses.

             Morse used Professor Leonard D. Gale's suggestions of

         improving both his battery and electromagnet by following the

         suggestions of Joseph Henry. Together they incorporated

         Henry's suggestions and stepped up the distance they could

         send messages from fifty feet to ten miles. This invention,

         no less important than the telegraph itself, was the so-

         called relay system, widely used today for automatic controls

         and adjustments. Morse introduced a series of electromagnets













         along the line, each of which opened and shut the switch of a

         successive electric circuit, supplied by it's own battery.

         At the same time Morse improved the transmitting and

         receiving devices and perfected the well-know signalling

         system based on dots and dashes, which is still in use today.

             The first telegraph line, connecting Baltimore to New

         York, was inaugurated in 1844. Before this however, on May

         24th, 1843 wires were strung between Washington and Baltimore

         where Morse sent the first message from the Supreme Court

         room in Washington to Alfred Vail, Morse's assistant who was

         in Baltimore at a railroad depot (41 miles away): "What hath

         God wrought?"

             On May 29th, 1844 word flashed by wire from the

         democratic convention in Baltimore that James K. Polk had

         been nominated for the Presidency. People were fascinated by

         the "Magic key" and it was decided that the telegraph would

         be used for now to report congressional doings.

             By 1848 every state east of the Mississippi except

         Florida was served be the telegraph; by the end of the civil

         war more than 200,000 miles of line were used for business

         communications and personal messages as well as news of

         battles, politics, and sports results. The telegraph was a

         success. Samuel F. B. Morse died in 1872.



             While communications were important in the nineteenth

         century, there were some other inventions that made life a

         little easier. In April of 1849, Walter Hunt patented his













         invention which to this day we probably wouldn't get by

         without. Hunt invented the safety pin, patented it, and then

         without hesitation sold all rights to the pin for $400.  In

         1846, Elias Howe invented the sewing machine which "was

         becoming a fixture in the homes of [all] American newlyweds."

         Soon to be followed by industry turning it's attention to the

         home by producing labor-saving appliances - novelties that

         soon became necessities.



             Charles Goodyear, one of the nineteenth century's

         greatest inventors and father of today's vast rubber industry

         discovered vulcanization, the process that toughens rubber

         and rids it of stickiness, in January of 1839.

             The riddle of rubber - how to prevent the stuff from

         becoming sticky in the summer, brittle in the winter and

         horrid-smelling in between. After years of anguish, Goodyear

         discovered quite by accident that by adding sulphur to raw

         rubber and heating the material from four to six hours at

         about 270 degrees F. the rubber would be cured by the sulphur

         resulting in increased strength and stiffness while

         preserving its flexibility.

             After spending many hundreds of hours, Goodyear, in his

         make-shift lab adding one substance after another to rid the

         rubber of it's natural stickiness using every ingredient he

         could get his hands on to put into the rubber mixture, (He

         used salt, paper, talcum powder, anything...) one afternoon

         when all else had failed, Goodyear dropped by accident a













         mixture of sulphur and rubber onto his hot stovetop. Goodyear

         looked at the blob in disbelief because it didn't melt as

         "gum elastic" always had in the past. Instead, it solidified

         and "[the rubber] charred like leather".

             Before Goodyear's discovery, rubber's bad qualities

         permitted few uses. French savants had studied the new

         substance for waterproof qualities; someone had found that

         the gray gum rubbed out pencil marks on paper, and thus the

         word "rubber" was born.

             By 1839 British manufacturers had learned a few other

         uses for uncured rubber. Charles Macintosh, a chemist,

         patented in 1823 a fabric that included a thin layer of

         rubber. From this he made raincoats that in England, the

         climate helped satisfy purchasers. In American winters they

         hardened like armor, in American summers it they softened

         like taffy.

             Eldest son of Amasa Goodyear, a New Haven merchant and

         sometimes inventor, Charles helped his father sell a

         "Patented Spring Steel Hay and Manure Fork" invented by his

         father.  Amasa manufactured the first pearl buttons made in

         America and metal buttons that U.S. soldiers wore in the war

         of 1812.

             Goodyear foresaw many products - rubber gloves, toys,

         conveyor belts, watertight seals, water-filled rubber

         pillows, balloons, printing rollers, and rubber bands were

         among some of the brainstorms he would jot down, one after

         the other into his notebook.













             Also envisioned were rubber banknotes, musical

         instruments, flags, jewelry, "imitation buffalo-robes," vanes

         or "sails" for windmills, and ship's sails, even complete

         ships. While the automobile tire did escape his imagination,

         it was not without reason - the auto hadn't been invented

         yet!



             From barbed wire to keep our railways safe, to revolvers

         to keep our country safe, the nineteenth century marked a big

         boom in inventive history. Soon following all of these

         inventions, the civil war became a full blown testing field

         for all these inventions. Whether it was the coin operated

         hairbrush meant for public restrooms, or the automatic hat

         tipper (for when women are near and your hands are occupied,)

         the inventions of this time proved to be both interesting and

         useful. Well, most of them.

             Today, we still use a lot of the inventions of the early

         nineteenth century, but technology is passing us by at a pace

         we may not be ready for. Inventions are no longer just there

         to make life easier, safer, more enjoyable, and more

         entertaining, but they give us something to keep us occupied

         in this never-ending quest for - "perfectness?"

             Maybe in a hundred years someone will be looking back

         through their history books, searching though the libraries

         of the future and seeing our super-conductors, our computers,

         our High Definition t.v.s, our Super VHS video recorders, and

         our Digital Audio Tape players. Could they be saying "isn't













         that silly" just like the coin operated hairbrush, or the

         combination food masher/rat and mouse trap (?) Time will

         tell.







         __________________________________________________________

         Bibiliography:

           Men Of Science and Invention
         - Editors of American Heritage
           Published American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.
           Harper &amp; Row (c)1960

           Those Inventive Americans
         - Poduced by National Geographic Society Publications Div.
           Published N.G.S
           N.G.S. (c)1971

           Big Brother 
         - The Works (617) 861-8976
           Largest Text File Base  (FBBS)  Spam! Spam! Spam!
           (c)1990 Homework Helper!
           
           The Picture History of Inventions
         - Umberto Eco &amp; G.B. Zorzoli (Translated from italian by
           Anthony Lawrence)
           Malmillan Co., NY. (c)1963

           Various photocopied charts and pictures from other
         references were also used.

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