16.1 The Changing North pp. 510-515

Objectives: Identify the advances in transportation and communication that occurred between 1820 and 1860. List the inventions that changed life in the United States.

A. River Transportation (pp. 510-511) Before steamboats Americans had depended on flatboats—hastily assembled rafts—to carry passengers downstream. Although John Fitch invented the first steamboat, it was Robert Fulton who made the first successful one, the Clermont, in 1807. A shallow-hulled riverboat built by Henry Shreve displaced so little water that it was claimed it “could float on a heavy dew.”

B. Ocean Travel (pp. 511-512) Chinese goods such as silk, cinnamon, and firecrackers were in high demand, but Chinese tea was especially prized. No steamship, however, could carry enough coal to make it to China and back before the tea spoiled and lost its value. While new sailing ships, called clipper ships, set new records for speed, their era lasted only about 20 years.

C. American Railroads (p. 512) Railroads could go almost anywhere while boats had to follow waterways. By 1840 the U.S. boasted more than 400 railroad companies and more miles of rail than all of Europe. Despite technological advances, passengers often found train travel troublesome and dangerous.

D. Faster Communication (pp. 512-513) American inventor Samuel F. B. Morse spent three years working on the telegraph, a device used for sending messages across a wire. On May 24, 1844, using the dot-dash system later known as Morse Code, Morse demonstrated the telegraph by sending the first message: “What hath God wrought.” For the first time ever, the telegraph allowed people around the nation to receive news the day it happened.

E. The Northern Economy Expands (pp. 514-515) In 1837 Vermont blacksmith John Deere invented a lightweight steel plow that was a vast improvement over the old iron plow. In 1831 Virginian Cyrus McCormick invented a harvesting machine called the mechanical reaper.

F. Ingenious Inventions (p. 515) In the early 1830s, New Yorker Walter Hunt developed a sewing machine, but he failed to get a patent—the exclusive right to use, make, or sell the invention. More than 10 years later, Elias Howe produced a similar sewing machine, for which he filed a patent. As Hunt had feared, the sewing machine proved disastrous for seamstresses, women who sewed by hand for a living.

Review: Who built the first steam-powered riverboat? What proved to be a much faster mode of transportation than steamboats? Who invented the telegraph and its dot-dash code? Who developed a lightweight steel plow? A mechanical reaper? For what device did Elias Howe receive a patent?