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Steam Engine
Inventor: Thomas Savery (Refined by Thomas Newcomen; James Watt)
Function: Designed to help remove water that seeped into the bottom of coal mines; later used to power locomotives and other forms of technology.
Why?: Water flooding coal mines prevented workers from retrieving coal.
Where?: Used in printing press, electric power, telegraphy/telephone, and the computer.
Impact on Society: Virtually alterd/advanced every industry existing at the time. -
Cotton Gin
Inventor: Eli Whitney.
Function: Enables a worker to separate seeds from cotton with very little effort.
Why?: There was a large demand for clothing made from cotton. Seeds were required to be removed before the cotton could be processed and made into clothing.
Where?: Adapted to the shorter fiber lengths turned out by saw gins.
Impact on Society: Increased the production of cotton-based clothing; more slaves brought to America to work on cotton plantations. -
Fulton's Steamboat
Inventor: Robert Fulton
Function: Water-based travel without any human force applied (ran on steam power)
Why?:Need for sea vessels that did not require human force (rowing)
Impact on Society: Steamboats brought immigrants to the U.S.; slaves found work on steamboats; travel was much faster by sea -
Telegraph
Inventor: Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Function: Transmits encoded signals by across large distances with the use of an electro-mechanical typewriter.
Why?: Society needed a new form of communication to send out encoded messages.
Where?: Military
Impact on Society: First long ditsance form of rapid communication
