56. Rotary Printing Press
57. Kerosene
58. Antiseptics
59. Gas Mask

Rotary Printing Press

The printing press‘ use had already spread and was being used worldwide. Improvements on Gutenberg’s invention included adding a handle, and replacing the wood frame with an iron one. Richard Hoe had lots of experience with the printing press. Hoe invented the rotary printing press from this experience. The rotary press puts type on a drum, and paper is always being run through the press so that it gets stamped on by the type. It was powered by steam, and it was overall, very effective and efficient. The new press’ use spread quickly, and so newspapers were soon spreading across the country, and then across the world.

Kerosene

Kerosene was discovered before 1300 by Al-Razi, but was then lost to time. Abraham Gesner reinvented kerosene as a clear fuel that was extracted from coal in the 1800’s. Petroleum was also discovered to contain kerosene, and so kerosene could be extracted from petroleum, as well as coal. Kerosene is used in jet-fuel (✈️-⛽), as well as heaters and lamps.The use of kerosene spread quickly, thanks to Rockefeller, who invented Standard Oil Co. and became the richest man in the American history due to kerosene sales.

Antiseptics

Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor at the Vienna General Hospital in Austria. Here there were two clinics for ladies giving birth. One clinic had a very high death rate, of at least 10% of all women that came in. Clinic 2 had a less than 4% death rate. Why? That was the question Semmelweis became determined to answer. He eliminated everything but the staff as the problem. So he examined the staff’s jobs. He found the difference between the 1st and 2nd clinic. The first clinic (the high death rate one) had people who dealt with and dissected dead bodies. The 2nd did not. Semmelweis thought that there was some sort of disease on the corpses, and that was being transferred to the women, killing them and sometimes their babies. Semmelweis thought that he could get rid of the disease by washing hands in a chlorine mixture. The first clinic’s death rate dropped once hand washing was incorporated. Semmelweis had trouble getting other doctors to believe his theory, but eventually the problem was solved.

Gas Mask

Most people know that humans need oxygen to survive. If you breathe in too much of a bad air, like smoke or dust, you can’t get enough oxygen, and your life is in danger. The gas mask filters the bad air out and leaves only oxygen behind. There is a kind of filter in the mask that lets oxygen through, but not other particles. This is very helpful in mining and firefighting. Before it, firefighters could only get so close for so long, and mining was very unpleasant. The gas mask was originally intended for mining, but later spread to the army to avoid gas bombs in WWI. Gas masks were implemented into firefighting. US soldiers are trained to use gas masks in boot camp to protect against chemical warfare.

51. Ether
52. Fax Machine
53. Iron Steam Ship
54. Ice Cream Maker

Ether

Before ether, surgery was so painful, people would sometimes rather die than deal with it. Crawford Long rediscovered ether as an anesthetic (a drug used to lower pain in surgery). Ether is a chemical that makes people forget an injury if it is inhaled before the injury. For a long time no one knew for a long time who actually discovered it first, but Long had been decided on. It spread rapidly after its first public demonstration. Ether has been replaced with a lot of other anesthetics since then.

Fax Machine

Before blueprints, the only way to make copies of anything was by hand. Blueprints were a step up, but there was still room for improvement. Alexander Bain invented the fax machine after inventing the electric clock. He tried to apply electricity to some practical applications, and the fax machine was one of his results. Fax machines used to run sound over a telephone line and receiving unit would transmit the sounds into words and pictures. Also, the fax machine led to the digital scanner, which can turn paper documents into emails, and those emails can go further than the longest telephone line in the world, and also to more people, more simply. Bain improved his own version, and other inventors covered it too.

Iron Steam Ship

Up until the iron steam ship, there was no good way to connect Europe to America, except the long, treacherous, 40-day trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Marc Isambard Brunel invented the iron steam ship after discovering that a large steam ship is more efficient than a small one. He built the S.S. GREAT BRITAIN for trips across the Atlantic to America, and across the Indian and Southern Oceans to Australia. The 40 day trip to America was now 15 days. This spurred settlement.

Ice Cream Maker

Ice cream and its ancestors was expensive treats for a long time. Nancy Johnson invented the first simple ice cream maker in America. You have ice and salt, which you put in the outer part of the maker. You put your ingredients in the middle, and when you crank, a blade un-sticks the ice cream from the wall of the chamber. after a few minutes you take the ice cream out of the chamber, and serve it. The ice cream maker makes making ice cream faster and easier. Nancy Johnson sold her ice cream patent.

46. Electric Clock
47. Blueprints
48. Stapler
49. Grain Elevator

Electric Clock

Clocksmith Alexander Bain took electromagnetism and added it to timekeeping industry, in addition to the so many other professions it already was a part of, coming out with the electric clock. He patented the electric clock and took it to Charles Wheatstone to see if Wheatstone would fund him. Now, Wheatstone did not know the device was patented, so keep that in mind. He told Bain that he should not pursue it and give it up. But Wheatstone really wanted to pursue the clock himself, and not knowing the clock was patented, he tried to patent it for himself, giving no credit to Bain. But he could not, as Bain had already patented it. Later, when Wheatstone tried to get approved by parliament for something related to the needle telegraph, he was disapproved and had to pay Bain a fee and he quit (what I don’t know) and had no more to do with Bain. The digital computer clock came after the electric clock and has had a great impact. That led the (not so) smart watch which we have today.

Blueprints

Building Process:

1. Design (Blueprint)
2. Build Plan (Blueprint)
3. Work
4. Product

John Herschel was a well known scientist in England, and he invented the blueprinting process in the 1840’s. Blueprints are white on blue copies of drawings. How to make blueprints:

1. Mix Ammonium Iron Citrate with Potassium Ferricyande
2. Rub chemicals on paper
3. Let Dry
4. Place drawing you want to copy on chemical-soaked paper. (your drawing must be on something clear.)
5. Expose to UV light
6. The Result is a Blueprint!

Blueprints made it easy to copy drawings quickly and efficiently, not to mention the design could not be changed. Now, computer software has replaced blueprints.

Stapler

Samuel Slocum was a pin maker, and while he was figuring out how to ship his pin to his customers, he came up with the idea for the stapler. The pins were stuck into paper for shipment, and that was the spark. The pins HELD THE PAPER TOGETHER. So he invented a mechanism for holding paper together. Almost everyone who works with paper has a stapler. They are very common things now. Try to find one at your house (if you have one and want to of course). Staplers made it easy to organize paper and carry them around.

Grain Elevator

The Erie Canal increased grain trade because Midwest farming states, like my home state, Indiana, could send their grain to the east coast cities and from there to the rest of the world, via the Atlantic Ocean. More grain means more loading and unloading from ships, which was a long and hard process then. So Joseph Dart set out to fix this problem. Dart came out with the grain elevator. The grain elevator would unload grain, store it, and load it again. Dart’s partner spread the design. This now easy exportation of grain would help propel the USA to the top of the industrial revolution.

41. Steel Plow
42. Steam Shovel
43. Postage Stamp
44. Vulcanized Rubber

Steel Plow

When American settlers moved to the Great Plains, they found that the heavy iron plow of Europe would not work because the soil of the plains would stick to the plow. John Deere saw this problem, and went to work experimenting with different polished metals to see which one would move through the soil easiest. He decided on steel, which gave birth to the steel plow. The steel plow was a little like the heavy plow, just made with steel. The soil would not stick, and now the great plains could be farmed. The plow spread as the main plow for sticky soil, and John Deere started a large farm equipment company that is with us today.

Steam Shovel

William Otis invented the steam shovel by using steam to move a cable, which makes a bucket go up and down, collecting dirt. It can also rotate to move the dirt. You could now dig faster with one steam shovel than two or three men, which (I think with the earliest models) it takes to operate a steam shovel. You also have to do much less labor, as the operator(s) of the steam shovel aren’t actively digging, just operating the levers and feeding the fire. You can make bigger, longer, and deeper holes with a steam shovel. Otis died soon after receiving his patent, so the need for railroads and expiration of the patent made the demand for steam shovels increase.

Postage Stamp

The UK postage system had many faults, such as the recipient had to pay the fare, not the sender. Many people, such as Rowland Hill, wanted the system reformed. So Hill did just that. The new system was the modern one, so, as you probably know, the sender, not the recipient, has to pay for the stamp. The postmark prevented stamps from being used again. The price of mail went down. The use of mail went up. Western Frontiersmen families could keep in touch with home.

Vulcanized Rubber

Before vulcanized rubber was invented, rubber was VERY sticky and could not be used in the many applications it is used in today. Imagine a sticky tire. Joseph Priestley had figured out how to use rubber in pencil erasers. That is where “rubber” gets its name. It “rubs” off graphite well. Charles Goodyear wanted to find a way to make rubber less sticky. He was doing a demonstration on what he thought was the right mixture, and it fell on a hot oven. The oven heated it, and he came out with the truly right mixture. Heat was the key. Here is the formula for vulcanized rubber: Natural, sticky rubber + sulfur + heat = vulcanized rubber. Goodyear died not long after his his invention was patented, but another person founded the rubber company “Goodyear” and that company is still with us today.