History Lesson #115

Posted byDJW
  1. Jeans
  2. Fire Sprinkler
  3. QWERTY Keyboard
  4. Dental Drill

Jeans

If you were an 1800’s railroad worker, you would not want your pants to tear on the job, even if they didn’t tear down the back. So the need for stronger pants arose. Jacob Davis invented riveted blue jeans to meet this need. However, he could not handle it alone. He partnered with Levi Strauss, who is now famous, to patent and produce blue jeans. Their use spread as people started coming out to ranches to experience the old west, for they would bring a pair or two home with them back east. You have probably worn jeans, with the small metal rivets to keep them from tearing. Here is a rivet:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Closeup_of_copper_rivet_on_jeans.jpg
This is a rivet on the corner of one of the pockets of a pair of blue jeans. Image Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans#/media/File:Closeup_of_copper_rivet_on_jeans.jpg

Blue jeans are now a common type of pants for the everyday person.

Fire Sprinkler

Fire extinguishers were invented to handle smaller fires, and fire hydrants for out-of-control ones, but there was no automatic system for putting out large fires. Henry Parmalee changed that. He invented the fire sprinkler to prevent large factory fires. Below is an image I have created to depict how the fire sprinkler works. A heat sensitive material explodes, clearing a pathway for the water, to douse the flame.

This is how it works. The water pipe connects to a water source that constantly supplies water in case of flames. This is my own work.

Parmalee had trouble marketing his fire sprinkler in Europe, but another man, named Grinnel, would improve the design, and have better European success.

QWERTY Keyboard

Christopher Latham Sholes invented the typewriter. It had an ABC keyboard. The trouble was that the keys kept jamming when someone typed something like th or st, or any two letters in sequence. QWERTY solved that problem. It moved the letters that are usually typed in sequence further away. Th is no longer together on the keyboard. Sholes figured out this setup after a while. QWERTY is still with us in the form of computer keyboards.

Dental Drill

Before the dental drill, getting a cavity filled in was no fun. It was very painful, and the drills weren’t very good. George Green electrified the drill, giving it a very fast speed. This is less painful, although anesthetics also play a role. Today, pain has been minimized to the prick of a needle as it injects numbing medicine into your mouth, but the drill also helps a lot. Believe me, I have had fillings put in, and it was not very painful.