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Inventions during the Industrial Revolution

  • Flying Shuttle

    Flying Shuttle
    James Kay invented a simple weaving machine called the Flying Shuttle in Languedoc, France in 1733. Before the invention of the shuttle, fabric was woven by two weavers passing a shuttle back and forth between them. The flying shuttle mounted the shuttle on wheels in a track and used paddles to push the shuttle side to side when the weaver jerked a cord. This reduced the number of necessary weavers to one and greatly sped up the process so one weaver could weave fabric more quickly than two.
  • Spinning Jenny

    Spinning Jenny
    James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in Stanhill, England in 1764. The spinning jenny allowed workers to produce multiple spools of thread at the same time. By turning a simple wheel on the machine, the operator could spin eight spindles of thread at once, instead of just one. As the technology advanced, the machine was able to spin between 80 and 120 spindles.
  • Steam Engine

    Steam Engine
    James Watt patented his revision of the steam engine in Scotland in 1769. Watt’s engine featured a separate condenser which filled the power cylinder with steam as the piston moved to the top so that it was immediately ready for another stroke instead of having to wait for the power cylinder to warm up again. This made the steam engine much faster and more efficient, using only half as much coal to produce the same amount of power.
  • Water Frame

    Water Frame
    The water frame was patented by Richard Arkwright in England in 1769. Although water frames have existed since ancient Egypt, Arkwright designed a model that could produce cotton thread. The machine was capable of spinning 96 strands of yarn at once and didn’t require any technical skills to operate.
  • Spinning Mule

    Spinning Mule
    Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule, which could spin multiple spools of thread and yarn at once, in England in 1779. The machine was named after a mule because it was a hybrid machine that combined two earlier inventions, the spinning jenny and the water frame. The spinning mule was particularly useful for the production of muslin.
  • Power Loom

    Power Loom
    Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom, which replaced the flying shuttle, in England in 1785. The power loom is a mechanized loom that uses water power to speed up the weaving process. The initial power loom was not very efficient or commercially successful and was later improved upon by Scottish inventor William Horrocks and American inventor Francis Cabot Lowell. As a result of the improvements, the power loom was commonly used after 1820.
  • Cotton Gin

    Cotton Gin
    The cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney in Savannah, Georgia in 1793. The cotton gin separated cotton fibers from their seeds more quickly and efficiently than doing it manually. This revolutionized the cotton industry but it also greatly increased the demand for cotton workers in the south which led to the growth in slavery.
  • Ice Box

    Ice Box
    Thomas Moore invented the first wooden ice box in Maryland in 1802. The ice box was a simple wooden box lined with insulating materials such as tin or zinc with a large block of ice in a compartment near the top of the box. The outside of the box was lined with rabbit fur or other insulating fabrics. The ice box allowed for perishable food to be kept fresh for longer than before without the need for drying, smoking, or canning the food.
  • Puffing Devil

    Puffing Devil
    Richard Trevithick patented his steam-powered locomotive called the “Puffing Devil” in Camborne, England in 1802. The contraption was the first steam-powered train of its kind.
  • Steam Engine Locomotive

    Steam Engine Locomotive
    George Stephenson patented his steam engine locomotive that ran on rails in 1814. Stephenson’s locomotive was used to haul coal out of the mines in Killingworth, England.
  • Mechanical Reaper

    Mechanical Reaper
    Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper, the mechanical horse-drawn reaping machine, in Walnut Grove, Virginia in 1831. The machine was used to harvest crops much faster and more efficiently than hand reaping.
  • Steel Plow

    Steel Plow
    A blacksmith named John Deere invented the steel plow in Illinois in 1837. The steel plow was revolutionary because farmers were using cast iron plows at the time which the soil would stick to, forcing the farmer to stop frequently to clean off the plow. The steel plow could be polished so that soil would slide right off it. The steel plow was a huge commercial success and John Deere plows and farm equipment are still popular today.
  • Telegraph

    Telegraph
    Although Samuel F.B. More didn’t technically invent the electric telegraph, since many others had claimed to have invented the first electric telegraph by 1838, Morse was the first to get federal funding for the invention. The telegraph was important because it allowed people to communicate quickly over long distances by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations.
  • Vulcanized Rubber

    Vulcanized Rubber
    Charles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber in 1844. The formula involved mixing sulfur with the liquid latex and then heating it, which created a more pliable stable form of rubber that wouldn’t melt in hot weather or crack in cold weather. Goodyear had invented the formula five years earlier in Massachusetts, where the first rubber company in the country Roxbury India Rubber Company was located, but it took until 1844 to patent it.
  • Sewing Machine

    Sewing Machine
    The sewing machine was patented by Elias Howe in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1846. Howe’s sewing machine differed from an earlier model of sewing machine invented by Walter Hunt because it created a lockstitch by using thread from two different sources. The lockstitch was created by a threaded needle being pushed through the fabric and creating a loop on the other side where a shuttle on a track slipped the second thread through the loop, creating the lockstitch.
  • Elevator Safety Brake

    Elevator Safety Brake
    The safety brake used a wagon spring that was attached to the elevator platform as well as the lifting cable. The spring was kept in place by the pull of the lifting cable but if the cable broke, the pressure on the spring was released causing the spring to snap open and hook onto the saw-toothed beams that Otis had installed on either side of the elevator shaft, bringing the elevator to a stop.
  • Bessemer Process

    Bessemer Process
    The Bessemer Process for making steel was invented by Henry Bessemer in 1856. The process allowed for the mass production of inexpensive steel and involved removing impurities from the iron by oxidation by blowing air through the molten iron.
  • 1875

    1875
    Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in Boston, Massachusetts in 1875 and patented it in 1876. Bell was not the first inventor to come up with the idea of the telephone though. Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray both invented earlier versions of the telephone but Bell was the first one to patent it and transfer the idea to a commercial product. Both Bell and Gray’s telephones worked by using a liquid transmitter.
  • Phonograph

    Phonograph
    The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison in New Jersey in 1877. The phonograph was a device that could record and play sounds. The sound was recorded by speaking into a cylinder that was attached to the device while turning a handle. The sound waves made a needle inside of the device vibrate which created a groove onto a piece of tin foil. The sound was played by rotating the tin foil record while a playback stylus traced the groove on the record.
  • Incandescent Lightbulb

    Incandescent Lightbulb
    Thomas Edison invented and patented the first practical incandescent lightbulb in New Jersey in 1880. Edison’s lightbulb improved upon earlier lightbulb inventions by other inventors. Edison improved upon the earlier designs by using a carbon filament which made the bulb last much longer and didn’t require a high electric current to operate.