Chapter 15: The Second Industrial Revolution

Section 1: The Age of Invention

Industrial Innovations

From 1865 to 1905 the United States experienced a surge of industrial growth, known as the Second Industrial Revolution.

Coal and steam had made the original Industrial Revolution possible.Steam engines (fueled by coal) powered the factories.

Industrial Innovations

In the late 1800s an abundance of steel contributed to a second period of industrialization.

Steel Before the mid-1800s, the process of

converting iron ore into steel was too expensive to be used practically.

Steel

In the 1850s Henry Bessemer from Great Britain developed a method of steelmaking that burned off the impurities in molten iron with a blast of hot air.

Steel

This is known as the Bessemer Process, and it could produce more steel in one day than the older techniques could turn out in one week.

American steel production

skyrocketed from about

15,000 tons in 1865 to more than

28 million tons by 1910.

Steel

The production of steel required iron ore.Barges and steamers carried unprocessed

iron ore from the Midwest through the Great Lakes.

Cities such as Gary, Indiana, Cleveland, OH, and Pittsburgh, PA became major centers for steel manufacturing.

Steel

The increased availability of steel in the late 1800s resulted in widespread industrial use. The railroad industry began replacing iron

rails with stronger, longer-lasting steel ones. Builders began to use steel in the construction

of bridges and buildings.

Oil

By the late 1850s, chemists and geologists had made significant progress in developing a process to refine crude oil, making it useable.

Edwin L. Drake used a steam engine to drill for oil near Titusville, PA in 1859.

After oil had been successfully drilled by Drake, other prospectors hurried to dig their own wells.

Oil

There was an oil boom in western PA, with many referring to oil as “black gold.”

In 1901 a group led by engineer Anthony F. Lucas struck oil in Texas, leading to the Texas oil boom.

Oil

Kerosene was the primary product of refining oil, but by 1880 refiners had developed other petroleum products.

Today, oil is one of the world’s most important resources.

Transportation

Innovations in the steel and oil industries led to a surge of advances in the transportation industry.

Railroads

As steel production increased, prices dropped dramatically.

The availability of cheaper steel encouraged railroad companies to lay thousands of miles of new track.

Railroads

The rapid increase of railroad lines led to a more efficient network of rail transportation.

Prior to the Civil War, most railroads in the U.S. were short – they averaged about 100 miles in length.

Railroads

The country’s first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. It was finished when the Central Pacific and

the Union Pacific Railroads were joined to create a single rail line from Omaha, Nebraska to the Pacific Ocean.

Railroad tycoon Leland Stanford hammered in the last spike at Promontory, Utah.

Railroads

By 1900 almost a half-dozen trunk lines, or major railroads, crossed the Great Plains to the Pacific coast.

George Westinghouse developed a compressed-air brake, which enabled the locomotive and all of its cars to stop at the same time.

Railroads

Double sets of tracks allowed trains traveling in opposite directions to pass each other.

Railroads increased western settlement, and stimulated urban growth.

Railroads The impact of

railroads was immeasurable. provided jobs aided steel and

railroad-car construction industries

refrigerated cars helped develop the meat-packing industry

The Horseless Carriage

The horseless carriage, a self-propelled vehicle and forerunner to the automobile, had originally been developed in 1770 using a steam engine.

The Horseless Carriage

Innovations in oil refining led Nikolaus A. Otto to invent the first internal combustion engine powered by gasoline in 1876. This engine

was used to power the horseless carriage.

The Horseless Carriage

By 1900, more Americans used this new mode of transportation, however it was limited to the wealthy.

Airplanes

The internal combustion engine also led to advances in flight.

Using small gasoline engines, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio developed one of the first working airplanes.

Airplanes

On December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville made the first piloted flight in a powered plane.

The flight lasted 12 seconds and went to 120 feet. Impressive?

So…

Name some of innovations that were made in transportation in the late 1800s.

Can you decipher this message?

.. 1 letter

._.. _ _ _ …_ . 4 letters

…. .. … _ _ _ _ ._. _.__

7 letters

Hanging Gardens

The Pyramids

The AcropolisThe Athenaeum

Communications Telegraph

In 1837, Samuel F. Morse developed a means of communicating over wires with electricity. People used Morse’s dot-and-dash code to

“talk” over the line.

Telegraph

Telegraphs sent information for businesses, the government, newspapers, and private citizens.

By 1866, Western Union had more than 2,000 telegraph offices.

Telephone

The “talking telegraph” was patented by Alexander Graham Bell in March 1876.

Telephone

By the end of the 1800s more than a million telephones had been installed in American offices and homes.

Telephone companies employed many workers, mostly women, as switchboard operators.

Typewriter

Christopher Sholes developed

the typewriter in 1867. Sholes’ keyboard design, with only a few

changes, is still used today in typewriters and computers.

The invention led to a rise in clerical jobs, mainly occupied by women.

Edison and Menlo Park

Thomas Alva Edison was a pioneer

of communications technology. Edison and his fellow researchers made

significant discoveries and advances in electricity, light bulbs, phonographs, and early motion-picture cameras.

Edison

In 1876 he opened a workshop in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he assembled a team of researchers. Edison and his researchers invented the

phonograph in 1877 and

the light bulb in 1879.

Edison

In 1882 Edison opened one of the world’s first power plants in New York City.

When he died, Edison held more than 1,000 patents.

Edison

How did the inventions created by Thomas Edison’s research laboratory affect daily life?