111. Jeans
112. Fire Sprinkler
113. QWERTY Keyboard
114. 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:

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.

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.

1. Clothes Hanger
2. Rotary Can Opener
3. Mail Order Catalog
4. Earmuffs

Clothes Hanger

Until the 1800’s, clothes were always stored in chests or drawers. O.A. North invented the clothes hanger in 1869 to store clothes without getting them wrinkled. Clothes can be stored in small spaces without being wrinkled. There is not much space in an apartment building, so the clothes hanger became helpful there. Chests, if not chests of drawers as well, are becoming obsolete due to the rise of the clothes hanger. Walk-in closets are becoming more common to middle class people these days.

Rotary Can Opener

After canning was invented by Nicholas Appert, the tin can came along to store the food in. The only problem was that the tin can was hard to open. At first a hammer and chisel was required. Then can openers like the one in the picture below began to appear.

Out of this, William Lyman invented the popular rotary can opener, pictured below:

You clamp the can opener on the can, turn the handle, and the blade does the rest. It makes it very simple to open the can. Canned goods became more popular. People eat canned goods more.

Mail Order Catalog

If you were far away from the city, you didn’t have much choice of where you bought your items. There was a general store in town, but not much other choice. General stores typically had high prices and low quality. But it was the only place to get what you couldn’t make yourself. Montgomery Ward invented t he mail-order catalog to solve this problem. The mail order catalog provides a large selection, and Ward offered a money-back guarantee. The prices were typically cheaper than at the general store. Eventually, the mail order catalog would give rise to the mall, department stores, discount stores, and Amazon. Amazon is really an online mail-order catalog. The mail order catalog was my favorite invention this week because it brought good quality items to rural and farming communities.

Earmuffs

Chester Greenwood lived in Maine at age 15. He loved to ice skate. The trouble was, he couldn’t wear a wool hat, because of some allergy or something like that. He took wire, coiled it up, and had his grandma sew on some beaver fur on. There are two kinds of earmuffs nowadays. Noise protection earmuffs, and the cold protection earmuffs Greenwood originally invented. Greenwood set up a factory and produced them. They became popular. Today they are very popular in both noise muffling and heat-trapping.

101. Air break
102. Traffic Light
103. Tape Measure
104. Pipe Wrench

Air break

George Westinghouse Sr. was the father of the famous George Westinghouse Jr. Westinghouse Sr. owned some machine shops, in which George learned. Westinghouse Jr. grew up as a good businessman. One day, he experienced a train wreck because the brakemen couldn’t turn on the individual brakes in time to stop the train. This made Westinghouse get determined to fix this problem. He came up with the air break, which turns on all the brakes via pressurized air. He built a small train, took some potential costumers on board, and set off for an 80 mile trip. When coming out of a tunnel, there was an overturned wagon on the track, and all chances of it getting it off gone! The air brake stopped the train just in time, saving lives. The wagon on the tracks was key to success with the air brake. One way to prepare for this kind of luck is to have witnesses on hand when it could happen.

Traffic Light

JP Knight had experience with directing train traffic, and that led him to invent a better way to direct horse-drawn and on-foot traffic. It was the traffic light, lit by gas lamps at night, and with signs for day. Unfortunately, his first light in London exploded only a month after it was installed. Still, they spread to the US as quickly as ever. Traffic lights reduce traffic accidents today.

Tape Measure

All sorts of measuring tools existed, ever since the cubit with which Noah built his ark (Gen 16:15). Alvin J. Fellows invented the tape measure in 1868. It is a pretty simple device. It unfolds and folds quickly, and is compact enough to fit on a belt. They were upgraded and advertised in newspapers and magazines. They are important tools in general now.

Pipe Wrench

The need for pipes increased rapidly as the oil industry grew, but the wrenches of that time could not grip the pipes. The monkey wrench was the best, but it had flat edges, and did not grip the pipe well. Daniel Stillson invented the pipe wrench in 1869 to solve this problem. It has teeth to grip pipe, rather than flat edges. They were advertised for their grip and durability. Modern plumbing is possible due to the pipe wrench. They were used in the Alaskan pipeline which transformed the state.

• 91. Roller Skates
• 94. Pasteurization
• Old West
  • Background
  • 92. Barbed Wire
  • 93. Cowboy Hat
• My Favorite Invention This Week

Lesson #91: Roller Skates

James Plimpton invented the roller skate in 1863, during the Civil War. Once the war ended in 1865, Plimpton began to advertise his roller skate as a way to relax after the war. They haven’t changed much since then; they are the same shoes-on-wheels they were when Plimpton invented them. They are used in roller disco, and other sports. Eventually, they led to the roller blade and skate board. They are still popular today, although roller blades are becoming more common, and roller skates somewhat less.

Old West

Background

Between 1783 and 1857, the US gained lots of territory in the west. This growth included the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican-American War over Texas. Settlers went west to raise cattle and crops. A great and popular example of this is By The Shores Of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It is part of the little house series, and I think it best illustrates the western frontier of South Dakota.

Lesson #92: Barbed Wire

In the old west, cattle ranchers were some of the first to settle. They would raise cattle and drive them to Kansas, where they could be shipped off to be sold. The trouble was, as land was settled up, cattle would eat farmers crops on the way. Wood fencing was too expensive at the time, so there needed to be a better way to keep them out of farmers land. Barbed wire was invented to solve this problem. It is very cheap, but the sharp points keep cattle from passing through. The cattle don’t like it. That practically ended the old west, because cattle were led less freely and more land was settled.

Lesson #93: Cowboy Hat

Cowboys were men who drove cattle to Kansas for shipment. John Stetson was a son of a hat maker, but he became ill and was sent west for his health. He saw the hats cowboys wore, and knew they needed something else. He invented the cowboy hat for this reason. The wide brim keeps off rain and sunlight. It keeps your neck warm in the winter. Its use spread quickly. It became “The hat that won the west”

My Favorite Invention This Week…

was the Cowboy Hat. It is my favorite because it has so many different uses. It is waterproof so you can use it to give your horse some water. A horse might not drink out of a waterfall of a stream, if the stream is too shallow. A horse cannot drink out of a flask (a type of flat water bottle).

86. Postcard
87. Gatling Gun
88. Linoleum
89. Ratcheting Wrench

Postcard

The postage stamp reformed the UK postage system in the 1840’s, and this paved the way for the postcard. The printing press was also to play a role in the postcard’s invention. The postcard was invented by Hyman Lipman, inventor of the pencil eraser, and John Charlton. It was originally Charlton’s idea, but it was Lipman who had the idea of pictures on the postcard. They are easy, quick ways to send short messages, and they have nice pictures on them too. People are more likely to buy a pretty postcard than a plain one, so that is one reason why they have pictures on them. They have become more popular over the years, but now social media is replacing them.

Gatling Gun

Richard Gatling did not like how many soldiers died at war from both disease and the enemy, so he wanted to reduce the size of armies. His solution was the Gatling Gun. It is a gun that rapidly fires many rounds of ammunition into the enemy. It does not overheat because more than one barrel rotate, and they do not all fire at once. More bullets going in per person means less gunmen. Gatling did a live demonstration of his gun to the government, and the government bought his guns. They were used across the world after the US Civil War.

Linoleum

Rubber flooring was good flooring, but patterns could not be put on. Frederick Walton saw linseed oil dry on a paint can, and noticed its rubber-like consistency. He turned it into a flooring, and named it Linoleum. It is easy to clean and make patterns in. Linoleum is cheaper than wood flooring, and so it played a role in displacing wood, although wood flooring is still fairly common. Linoleum led to Vinyl, and that is very common these days; in fact, we have it in our kitchen.

Ratcheting Wrench

In 1863 J.J. Richardson invented the ratcheting wrench and advertised it through a magazine. A ratcheting wrench has two pawls that keep the motion going in one direction. When you push one way, it brings the nut or bolt with it, but when you pull the other way, you just move the handle. This allows you to tighten bolts much faster. The magazine spread the idea quickly.