Gilded Age (1878–1889)
1878 Carbon microphone
The carbon microphone is a sound-to-electrical signal transducer consisting of two metal plates separated by granules of carbon. When sound waves strike this plate, the pressure on the granules changes, which in turn changes the electrical resistance between the plates. A direct current is passed from one plate to the other, and the changing resistance results in a changing current, which can be passed through a telephone system, or used in other ways in electronics systems to change the sound into an electrical signal. After a lengthy court battle over patent rights filed in 1877, a United States federal court as well as a British court in 1878 ruled in favor of Thomas Alva Edison over a claim held by Emile Berliner since Edison indisputably preceded Berliner in inventing the transmission of speech as well as the use of carbon in a transmitter.
1878 Free jet water turbine
A free jet water turbine or impulse water turbine, also commonly known as a Pelton's wheel, is a wheel that uses cups, or buckets, that are split down the middle by a metal divider, so that in effect two cups are mounted side-by-side at each "spoke" in the wheel. A high-pressure water jet aimed at the center of each bucket is split by the divider to hit each of cup, one on the left, the other on the right. The design of this water turbine takes advantage of a mechanics principle known as impulse, a force defined as the product of the force and the time during which it acts. In 1878, Lester Pelton invented his prototype known as the Pelton's wheel, first demonstrating it to miners in the Sierra Nevada. In 1880, Lester Pelton received a patent for his invention.
1878 Bolometer
A bolometer measures the energy of incident electromagnetic radiation. It was invented in 1878 by American astronomer Samuel Pierpont Langley.
1879 Photographic plate
Photographic plates preceded photographic film as a means of photography. A light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic material largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of the 20th century, as more convenient and less fragile films were introduced. The wet collodion process was replaced by dry plates. Photographic plates were invented by George Eastman who filed U.S. patent #226,503 on September 9, 1879 which was issued to him on April 13, 1880.
1879 Carton
A carton is the name of certain types of containers typically made from paperboard or cardboard. Many types of cartons are used in food packaging. Sometimes a carton is also called a box. The history of the carton goes as far back as 1879 when it was invented in a Brooklyn, New York factory. The inventor of the folded carton was Robert Gair. He cast a die-ruled, cut, and scored paperboard into a single impression of a folded carton. By 1896, the National Biscuit Company was the first to use cartons to package crackers.
1879 Cash register
The cash register is a device for calculating and recording sales transactions. When a transaction was completed, the first cash registers used a bell that rang and the amount was noted on a large dial on the front of the machine. During each sale, a paper tape was punched with holes so that the merchant could keep track of sales. Known as the "Incorruptible Cashier," the mechanical cash register was invented and patented in 1879 by James Ritty of Dayton, Ohio. John H. Patterson bought Ritty's patent and his cash register company in 1884.
1880 Oil burner
An oil burner is a heating device which burns fuel oil. The oil is directed under pressure through a nozzle to produce a fine spray, which is usually ignited by an electric spark with the air being forced through by an electric fan. In 1880, Amanda Jones invented the oil burner in the oil fields of northern Pennsylvania where Jones completed her trial and error efforts of heating furnaces.
1880 Candlepin bowling
Candlepin bowling is a North American variation of bowling that is played primarily in the Canadian Maritime provinces, Quebec, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. A candlepin bowling lane somewhat resembles lanes used in tenpin bowling. However, unlike tenpin bowling lanes that are flat, candlepin lanes are slightly depressed ahead of the pindeck. The candlepins themselves take on a cylindrical shape which are tapered at the tops and bottoms, thus giving them a resemblance to wax candles. In 1880, candlepin bowling was invented by Justin White of Worcester, Massachusetts.
1881 Electric chair
Execution by electrocution is an execution method which the person being put to death is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body. In 1881, Alfred Southwick witnessed an intoxicated man touch a live electric generator. After the man died quickly, Dr. Southwick concluded that electricity could be used as an alternative to hanging for executions. Southwick was a dentist who was accustomed to performing procedures on subjects in chairs, and so he designed an "electric chair." The first electric chair based on Southwick's design was made by Harold P. Brown and the first person to be executed via the electric chair was William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890.
1881 Metal detector
Metal detectors use electromagnetic induction to detect metal. In 1881, the Scots-American named Alexander Graham Bell invented the first metal detector as President James Garfield lay dying from a fatal gunshot wound. Despite an effort to locate the lodged bullet, Bell's invention proved to be unsuccessful as the metal detector was confused by the metal-framed bed which the assassinated president laid on.
1881 Iron (electric)
An iron is a small appliance used to remove wrinkles from fabric. The electric iron was invented in 1881 and patented in 1882 by Henry W. Seely of New York. A second electric iron, a "cordless" one instead heated on a stand powered by electricity, was developed with his partner Dyer in 1883.
1881 peristaltic pump
A peristaltic pump was first patented in the United States by Eugene Allen in 1881 (U.S. Patent number 249285) for the transfusion of blood.
1882 Fan (electric)
An electric fan contains an arrangement of blades usually powered by an electric motor in order to produce airflow for the purpose of creating comfort (particularly in the heat), ventilation, or exhaust. Between the years 1882 and 1886, New Orleans resident Schuyler Skaats Wheeler invented the first electric fan.
1883 Salt water taffy
Salt water taffy is a variety of soft taffy. Despite the name, it does not contain sea water. The legend of how salt water taffy got its name is disputed. The most popular story, although unconfirmed, concerns a candy-store owner, David Bradley, whose shop was flooded during a major storm in 1883. His entire stock of taffy was soaked with salty Atlantic Ocean water. When a young girl came into his shop and asked if he had any taffy for sale, he is said to have offered some "salt water taffy." At the time it was a joke, because all his taffy had been soaked with salt water, but the girl was delighted, she bought the candy and proudly walked down to the beach to show her friends. Bradley's mother was in the back and heard the exchange. She loved the name and so Salt Water Taffy was born.
1883 Solar cell
A solar cell is any device that directly converts the energy in light into electrical energy through the process of photovoltaics. Although French physicist Antoine-César Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect much earlier in 1839, the first solar cell, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, was invented by Charles Fritts in 1883, who used junctions formed by coating selenium with an extremely thin layer of gold. In 1941, the silicon solar cell was invented by another American named Russell Ohl. Drawing upon Ohl's work, three American researchers named Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller, and Daryl Chapin essentially introduced the first practical use of solar panels through their improvement of the silicone solar cell in 1954, which by placing them in direct sunlight, free electrons are turned into electrical current enabling a six percent energy conversion efficiency.
1883 Thermostat
A thermostat is a device for regulating the temperature of a system so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired setpoint temperature. The thermostat does this by switching heating or cooling devices on or off, or regulating the flow of a heat transfer fluid as needed, to maintain the correct temperature. The thermostat was invented in 1883 by Warren S. Johnson.
1884 Machine gun
The machine gun is defined as a fully automatic firearm, usually designed to fire rifle cartridges in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine. The world's first true machine gun, the Maxim gun, was invented in 1884 by the American inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim, who devised a recoil power of the previously fired bullet to reload rather than the crude method of a manually operated, hand-cranked firearm. With the ability to fire 750 rounds per minute, Maxim's other great innovation was the use of water cooling to reduce overheating. Maxim's gun was widely adopted and derivative designs were used on all sides during World War I.
1884 Dissolvable pill
A dissolvable pill is any pharmaceutical in tablet form that is ingested orally, which are crushable and able to dissolve in the stomach unlike tablets with hard coatings. The dissolvable pill was invented in 1884 by William E. Upjohn.
1884 Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall building that uses a steel-frame construction. After the Great Fire of 1871, Chicago had become a magnet for daring experiments in architecture as one of those was the birth of the skyscraper. The edifice known as the world's first skyscraper was the 10-story Home Insurance Company Building built in 1884. It was designed by the Massachusetts-born architect William Le Baron Jenney.
1885 Lap steel guitar
The lap steel guitar is a type of steel guitar that are designed to be adapted between lap and conventional playing. Lap steel guitars have strings raised at both the nut and bridge ends of the fingerboard, typically to about half an inch. The lap steel guitar was invented in 1885 by Joseph Kekuku of Lāʻie, a village on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaii.
1885 Popcorn machine
A popcorn machine, also called a popcorn maker, is a device used to pop popcorn. Commercial popcorn machines are usually found in movie theaters and carnivals, producing popcorn of the oil-popped type, which has approximately 45% of its calories derived from fat. The first commercial popcorn machine was invented by Chicago resident Charles Cretors in 1885. His business that he founded, C. Cretors & Company, still to this day manufactures popcorn machines and other specialty equipment.
1885 Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of material coated with a photosensitive emulsion. When the emulsion is sufficiently exposed to light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as X-rays and is developed it forms an image. George Eastman and his company, Eastman Kodak, invented the first flexible photographic film as well as the invention of roll film in 1885. This original "film" used a paper carrier. The first transparent plastic film was produced in 1889. Before this, glass photographic plates were used, which were far more expensive and cumbersome, although of better quality due to their size. Early film was made from flammable nitrocellulose with camphor as a plasticizer.
1885 Mixer (cooking)
An electric mixer is a kitchen appliance used for whipping, beating, and folding food ingredients. It typically consists of a handle mounted over a large enclosure containing the motor, which drives one or two beaters. The beaters are immersed in the food to be mixed. The first electric mixer was invented by Rufus M. Eastman in 1885.[254] U.S. patent #330,829 for the first electric mixer was filed by Eastman on March 6, 1885 and issued on November 17, 1885.
1885 Fuel dispenser
A fuel dispenser is used to pump gasoline, diesel, or other types of fuel into vehicles or containers. As the automobile was not invented yet, the gas pump was used for kerosene lamps and stoves. Sylvanus F. Bowser of Fort Wayne, Indiana invented the gasoline/petrol pump on September 5, 1885. Coincidentally, the term "bowser" is still often used in countries such as New Zealand and Australia as a reference to the fuel dispenser.
1886 Filing cabinet (horizontal)
A filing cabinet is a piece of office furniture used to store paper documents in file folders. It is an enclosure for drawers in which items are stored. On November 2, 1886, Henry Brown patented his invention of a "receptacle for storing and preserving papers." This was a fire and accident safe container made of forged metal, which could be sealed with a lock and key. It was special in that it kept the papers separated.
1886 Telephone directory
A telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory. R. H. Donnelley created the first official telephone directory which was referred to as the Yellow Pages in 1886.
1887 Screen door
A screen door can refer to a hinged storm door (cold climates) or hinged screen door (warm climates) covering an exterior door; or a screened sliding door used with sliding glass doors. In any case, the screen door incorporates screen mesh to block flying insects from entering and pets and small children from exiting interior spaces, while allowing for air, light, and views. The screen door was invented in 1887 by Hannah Harger.
1887 Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a record, or a vinyl record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. Ever since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, it produced distorted sound because of gravity's pressure on the playing stylus. In response, Emile Berliner invented a new medium for recording and listening to sound in 1887 in the form of a horizontal disc, originally known as the "platter."
1887 Slot machine
A slot machine is a casino gambling machine. Due to the vast number of possible wins with the original poker card based game, it proved practically impossible to come up with a way to make a machine capable of making an automatic pay-out for all possible winning combinations. The first "one-armed bandit" was invented in 1887 by Charles Fey of San Francisco, California who devised a simple automatic mechanism with three spinning reels containing a total of five symbols – horseshoes, diamonds, spades, hearts and a Liberty Bell, which also gave the machine its name.
1887 Softball
As a bat-and-ball team sport, softball is a variant of baseball. The difference between the two sports is that softball uses larger balls and requires a smaller playing field. Beginning as an indoor game in Chicago, softball was invented in 1887 by George Hancock.
1887 Comptometer
A comptometer is a mechanical or electro-mechanical adding machine. The comptometer was the first adding device to be driven solely by the action of pressing keys, which are arranged in an array of vertical and horizontal columns. Although the comptometer was designed primarily for adding, it could also do division, multiplication, and subtraction. Special comptometers with varying key arrays were produced for a variety of purposes, including calculating currencies, time and Imperial measures of weight. The original design was invented and patented in 1887 by Dorr Felt.
1888 Induction motor
Nikola Tesla explored the idea of using a rotating magnetic induction field principle, using it in his invention of a poly-phase induction motor using alternating current in 1888. The rights to Tesla's invention were licensed by George Westinghouse, who demonstrated the system for the first time at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Two years later, Tesla's alternating-current motors were installed at the Niagara Falls power project. On October 12, 1887, Tesla filed U.S. patent #381,968 for an electro-magnetic motor which in the application, claimed to have invented the AC motor as well as a new power distribution system. The patent was granted on May 1, 1888.
The induction motor Tesla patented in the U.S. seems to have been an independent invention but it was not a unique discovery at the time. In Europe Italian physicist Galileo Ferraris published a paper on a rotating magnetic field based induction motor on 11 March 1888, a working model of which he may have been demonstrating at the University of Turin as early as 1885.
1888 Kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope was an early motion picture exhibition device. It was designed for films to be viewed individually through the window of a cabinet housing its components. The Kinetoscope introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video, creating the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. First described in conceptual terms by Thomas Alva Edison in 1888, his invention was largely developed by one of his assistants, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, between 1889 and 1892.
1888 Trolley pole
A trolley pole is a tapered cylindrical pole of wood or metal placed in contact with an overhead wire to provide electricity to the trolley car. The trolley pole sits atop a sprung base on the roof of the trolley vehicle, the springs maintaining the tension to keep the trolley wheel or shoe in contact with the wire. Occasionally, a Canadian named John Joseph Wright is credited with inventing the trolley pole when an experimental tramway in Toronto, Ontario was built in 1883. While Wright may have assisted in the installation of railways at the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), and may even have used a pole system, there's no hard evidence to prove it. Likewise, Wright never filed or was issued a patent. Official credit for the invention of the electric trolley pole has gone to an American, Frank J. Sprague, who devised his working system in Richmond, Virginia, in 1888. Known as the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, this 12 mile system was the first large-scale trolley line in the world, opening to great fanfare on February 12, 1888.
1888 Drinking straw
The drinking straw is a tube used for transferring a liquid to the mouth, usually a drink from one location to another. The first crude forms of drinking straws were made of dry, hollow, rye grass. Marvin Stone is the inventor of the drinking straw. Stone, who worked in a factory that made paper cigarette holders, did not like this design because it made beverages taste like grass. As an alternative, on January 3, 1888, Stone got a piece of paper from his factory and wrapped it around a pencil. By coating it with wax, his drinking straw became leak-proof so that it would not get waterlogged.
1888 Stepping switch
In electrical controls, a stepping switch, also known as a stepping relay, is an electromechanical device which allows an input connection to be connected to one of a number of possible output connections, under the control of a series of electrical pulses. The major use for these devices was in early automatic telephone exchanges to route telephone calls. It can step on one axis (called a uniselector), or on two axes (a Strowger switch). As the first automated telephone switch using electromagnets and hat pins, stepping switches were invented by Almon Brown Strowger in 1888. Strowger filed his patent application on March 12, 1889, and it was issued on March 10, 1891.
1888 Revolving door
A revolving door has three or four doors that hang on a center shaft and rotate around a vertical axis within a round enclosure. In high-rise buildings, regular doors are hard to open because of air pressure differentials. In order to address this problem, the revolving door was invented in 1888 by Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Van Kannel patented the revolving door on August 7, 1888.
1888 Ballpoint pen
A ballpoint pen is a writing instrument with an internal ink reservoir and a sphere for a point. The internal chamber is filled with a viscous ink that is dispensed at its tip during use by the rolling action of a small sphere. The first ballpoint pen is the creation of American leather tanner John Loud of Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1888 which contained a reservoir for ink and a roller ball to mark up his leather hides. Despite Loud being the inventor of the ballpoint pen, it wasn't a practical success since the ink often leaked or clogged up. Loud took out a patent (British patent #15630) in the United Kingdom on October 30, 1888. However, it wasn't until 1935 when Hungarian newspaper editor László Bíró offered an improved version of the ballpoint pen that left paper smudge-free.
1888 Telautograph
The telautograph, an analog precursor to the modern fax machine, transmits electrical impulses recorded by potentiometers at the sending station to stepping motors attached to a pen at the receiving station, thus reproducing at the receiving station a drawing or signature made by sender. It was the first such device to transmit drawings to a stationary sheet of paper. The telautograph's invention is attributed to Elisha Gray, who patented it in 1888.
1888 Touch typing
Touch typing is typing on a keyboard without using the sense of sight to find the keys. Specifically, a touch typist will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory. Touch typing typically involves placing the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard (the home row) and having them reach for other keys. Touch typing was invented in 1888 by Frank Edward McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City, Utah.
1888 Salisbury steak
Salisbury steak is a dish made from a blend of minced beef and other ingredients, which is shaped to resemble a steak, and is usually served with gravy or brown sauce. The Salisbury steak was invented in 1888 by American doctor and chemist James Salisbury, who prescribed his "meat cure" for such ailments like rheumatism, gout, colitis, and anemia.
1889 Flexible flyer
A flexible flyer or steel runner sled is a steerable wooden sled with thin metal runners whereby a rider may sit upright on the sled or lie on their stomach, allowing the possibility to descend a snowy slope feet-first or head-first. To steer the sled, the rider may either push on the wooden cross piece with their hands or feet, or pull on the rope attached to the wooden cross-piece. The flexible flyer was invented in 1889 by Philadelphia resident Samuel Leeds Allen. U.S. patent #408,681 was issued to Allen on August 13, 1889.
1889 Payphone
A payphone or pay phone is a public telephone, usually located in a stand-alone upright container such as a phone booth, with payment done by inserting money (usually coins), a credit or debit card, or a telephone card before the call is made. Pay telephone stations preceded the invention of the pay phone and existed as early as 1878. These stations were supervised by telephone company attendants or agents who collected the money due after people made their calls. In 1889, the first coin-operated telephone was installed by inventor William Gray at a bank in Hartford, Connecticut. However, it was a "postpay" machine that only accepted coins deposited after the call was placed.
to be continued