build rails, engines, bridges, and other struc-
tures. Because the steam engine made it pos-
sible to power machines by means other than
water power, the use of coal increased greatly.
The coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania were
especially valuable.
More Immigrants Come to America
The growth of factories created a market for
new workers, and people came from all over
Europe to find work in New England, New
York, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest. By 1860,
1'f million Irish, 1 million Germans, and many
other Europeans had come to America. Many
Irish came to escape the disastrous potato fam-
ine of the 1840s. A blight on the potato crop,
the mainstay of the Irish diet, caused wide-
spread starvation. The United States welcomed
the refugees, and they soon became the back-
bone of the railroad industry. Irishmen carried
and laid most of the steel rails that linked the
Northeast and the Midwest. Many Germans
came to escape the political and social revo-
lutions in Germany, where the writings of
Karl Marx, the father of Communism, brought
suffering and violence.
SECTION 10.2 REVIEW
1, What was so hard about farming the Mid-
west before the steel plow? Who invented
the steel plow?
2. Who invented the reaping machine? What
did he do with a big portion of his earn-
ings?
3. What was the purpose of patents?
4. What were living conditions like for a
worker in the Lowell system?
5. What was the most important invention for
the safety of coal miners? Who invented
it? When?
6. Name three states that became manufac-
turing centers for steel.
7. What brought many Irish and Germans to
America by the 1860s?
Identify: Francis Cabot Lowell, power loom,
Elias Howe, Isaac Merrit Singer
154 Ch.10 Innovations and Inventions
Results of Ingenuity
Better Communications
Better transportation, especially trains,
increased the efficiency and reliability of the
postal service, leading to an increase in personal
and business mail. Magazine and newspaper
readership also soared. But the new technology
of electricity—the ability to send electrical
impulses by wire—resulted in the most exciting
developments in communication.
Morse and the telegraph. In 1837, Samuel
EB. Morse invented his first telegraph, a device
which could conduct electrical current over
wires in a series of coded messages. Morse
continued to improve his invention and finally
approached Senator H. L. Ellsworth, the Com-
missioner of Patents. Ellsworth agreed to ask
Congress for a government grant to help Morse
construct the first telegraph line between Wash-
ington, D.C,, and Baltimore. Finally, in 1843,
Congress signed a bill allowing Morse to build
his telegraph line.
“What hath God wrought!” On May 24,
1844, Samuel Morse was ready to transmit the
first telegraph message—the forerunner of all
future telecommunications from the telephone
‘Samuel Morse with his telegraphto wireless internet. When he asked Sena-
tor Ellsworth’s daughter what that first mes-
sage should be, she replied: “What hath God
wrought!” (Num. 23:23). Morse later wrote to
his brother that this was the exact expression
of his own feeling:
It is His work, and He alone could have
carried me thus far through all my trials and
enabled me to triumph over obstacles, physi-
cal and moral, which opposed me.*
‘Thus, Samuel F. B. Morse gave the credit to
God for his invention of the telegraph. With
his code of dots and dashes, later known as the
Morse code, accurate messages could now be
quickly transmitted over long distances for the
first time in history. By 1860, fifty thousand
miles of telegraph wire had been stretched east
of the Rockies.
The Pony Express. The telegraph business
expanded so rapidly that it soon put its chief
competitor in the West out of business. The
paper in San Francisco ran an advertisement in
March 1860 that read:
“WANTED—young, skinny, wiry fellows, not
cover 18. Must be expert riders, willing to
risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”*
Pony Express Pursued by Indians by H. W: Hansen
Shortly before telegraph lines were strung,
between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Pony
Express was the fastest mail service available.
A young rider mounted a horse in St. Joseph,
Missouri, slinging a mail bag over his saddle.
After 10 miles he came to a relay station, where
he mounted a fresh horse. After eight such
transfers, the tired rider transferred the mail-
bag to a new man, who continued with a fresh.
horse. Moving at break-neck speed over plains,
mountains, and rivers, the Pony Express could
reach San Francisco in ten days if not waylaid by
Indians or bandits. This mail service, considered
incredibly fast for a horse and rider, lasted from
April 1860 to October 1861, when the telegraph
linked the East and the West. The Pony Express
is yet another example of the ingenuity and
dedication of individuals living under a free
enterprise system.
The transatlantic cable. If messages could
be sent by wire between cities, men began to
wonder if a cable might be laid in the depths of
the Atlantic Ocean to connect North America
with the British Isles. In the 1850s, Matthew
Maury [mér'é: 1806-1873], a United States naval
officer and oceanographer, used his study of
ocean winds and currents to find the best place
to lay the cable and decided on
a path between Newfoundland
and Ireland. Known as the
pioneer of naval oceanography,
Maury is often called the “Path-
finder of the Seas.” His belief
in the truth of the Scriptures
motivated him to search for
and find the “paths of the seas”
referred to in Psalm
In 1858, two American ships
laid the first transatlantic cable
under the cold Atlantic. Casting
off from Newfoundland and
Ireland, they carried the gigan-
tic coils of insulated copper
wire to a halfway point, where
they spliced the wire together
and let the great cable settle to
the ocean floor. On August 17,
1858, the first message was sent
to England: “Glory to God in
the highest, on earth peace, and
10.3 Results of Ingenuity 155good-will to men.”> Many people considered
the cable the greatest technological feat of the
century.
The man behind this bold venture, Cyrus
Field (1819-1892), staked his reputation and
fortune on the plan. Field was an entrepre-
neur, a person who risks personal loss to develop
and market new products or ideas. America’s
economic system of free enterprise has always
encouraged entrepreneurs like Cyrus Field.
‘When the people of New York City heard
that messages could be sent almost instantly
to London, they celebrated with thunderous
cannon salutes to Cyrus Field. President James
Buchanan and Queen Victoria of England ex-
changed good will messages over the wire. In
the midst of joyous celebration throughout the
United States and Great Britain, word came that
the cable had snapped in the depths of the sea.
Cyrus Field determined to lay a successful cable.
In 1866, after much personal and financial hard-
ship, Field finally succeeded in making a cable
that could withstand the strain of ocean depths.
Advances in Medical Science
Pioneers in surgery. Americans also showed
interest in the field of medicine. As early as 1809,
Ephraim McDowell, a Kentucky physician, had
successfully removed a 22'/2 pound tumor from
a patient. In Charleston, South Carolina, James
Marion Simms performed internal surgery that
had never before been attempted and taught his
techniques to physicians in the United States and
Europe. But surgery could not develop further
without the use of an agent to deaden the pain
of an operation. In May 1842, Crawford Long
of Georgia used ether to induce a “deep sleep” so
that his patient would not feel the knife. How-
ever, Dr. Long did not publish the results of his
work until 1849. In the meantime, William Mor-
ton demonstrated the use of ether at Massachu-
setts General Hospital in Boston. Thus, Morton
was credited with introducing this effective pain
killer for surgery. In 1844, an American dentist,
Horace Wells, used nitrous oxide to ease the
pain of dental work. The noted poet and physi-
cian Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the medical
term anesthesia to describe the absence of pain.
The Blackwell sisters. Elizabeth Blackwell
became the first woman physician in the United
156 Ch.10 Innovations and Inventions
States in 1849. Her sister also became a medi-
cal doctor, and in 1857 the two women became
partners in a New York City practice, where they
opened a clinic for poor women and children.
Practical Benefits to Families
America's cities grew rapidly during the first
half of the 19th century. Sometimes conditions
were crowded and unsanitary in these urban
areas, but new technology was improving life for
everyone as homes became safer, healthier, and
more comfortable.
Better hygiene. Before the 1840s and 1850s,
diseases were transmitted throughout cities by
contaminated well water. Then new methods
of making concrete and iron bridges provided
aqueducts to bring fresh drinking water to
America's cities. Also, the introduction of cast
iron pipes made plumbing more practical and
economical. Thus city dwellers could now drink
fresh, clean water, and even bathe in their own
homes. The death rate from infectious diseases
dropped dramatically with the introduction of
clean running water.
New sources of light and heat, Technology
brought better, more efficient ways of heating
homes with steam and hot water. In the cities,
lighting also improved with lamps fueled by gas,
extracted from coal and transported through
pipes. By 1830, gas street lights made Broadway
Street scene in mid-1800s showing gas lightsStreet in New York City a safer place to walk
at night. In the 1850s, the mellow flicker and
glow of gas-flame jets began to illuminate many
homes. In 1854, a lighting oil called kerosene
was introduced for use in lamps. Kerosene be-
came cheap and abundant with the discovery of
oil fields in western Pennsylvania in 1859.
All the comforts of home. As machines
produced more and more goods, many com-
modities became more affordable. Cooking,
previously done over an open fireplace, could
now be done on cast iron stoves. Iceboxes kept
food fresh with blocks of ice delivered to homes.
Clothing became cheaper and more colorful
with newly developed dyes. China, tablecloths,
flatware, furniture, wallpaper, carpets, and
other items were all made more affordable by
the abundance of the new technology. Finally,
evenings at home became more enjoyable with
Akitchen with a cast iron stove
the addition of books and newspapers printed by
new, high-speed printing presses.
Applied science. New inventions and ad-
vanced studies changed more than the economic
life of our country; they made life better for all
Americans. Above all, Americans pioneered
the field of applied science or technology, the
practical use of scientific knowledge. The rapid
advance of technology during the first half of the
19th century benefited every family in the United
States, New inventions and machines improved
transportation and communication and trans-
formed farms and factories. Entrepreneurs and
inventors developed bold ideas to improve the
lives of all, and our Constitution rewarded their
hard work and enterprise. God blessed America
with technology and the ability to apply it to
everyday life.
SECTION 10.3 REVIEW
1, What decreased the cost of mail and in-
creased the amount of mail being sent?
2. Who invented the telegraph? What were
the first words sent over the telegraph wire?
When?
3. What kind of rider was needed for the Pony
Express? Why didn't the Pony Express last
long?
4. Why is Matthew Maury called the “Path-
finder of the Seas"?
5. What is an entrepreneur? How was Cyrus
Field an entrepreneur?
6. Name two early pioneers of surgery.
7. Name the first woman physician in the
United States. Where did she open a clinic
for poor women and children?
8. What new methods made fresh water availa-
ble?
9. Before electricity was readily produced, how
did cities light their dark streets?
10. What is applied science?
Identify: transatlantic cable, Horace Wells,
anesthesia
10.3 Results of Ingenuity 157