Technology - American History
American History
Technology
Before the turn of the nineteenth century, the quickest way to travel on land was by horse, the only way to wash clothes was on a wooded washboard and cooking had to be done on a iron stove or in a fireplace. During that era there was no electricity, no telephone and no television. A technological explosion transformed the American way of life in the early 1900s.
As time goes by we notice how change occurs constantly and often rapidly. History has shown us how fast technology has evolved in a short period of time, especially since the Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the pace of change accelerated dramatically in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. America went from the horses pulling wagons to steam power railroad to automobiles and electric power in a very short time. Communications by telephone, the invention of the typewriter, the widespread use of electricity, the development of the internal combustion engine, all propelled the nation rapidly into a brave new world.
To start off with, most people at that time believed the automobile would never replace a horse because it has been dependable for hundreds of years, but in the early 1900s improvements to automobiles showed the naysayers wrong. The first automobile produced for the masses in the US was the three-horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile; 425 of them were sold in 1901 and 5,000 in 1904; this model is still prized by collectors. The firm prospered, and it was noted by others, and, from 1904 to 1908, 241 automobile-manufacturing firms went into business in the United States. One of these was the Ford Motor Company which was organized in June 1903. Then in 1908, Henry Ford produced the Model T, and a trip that once took more than a day by horse could be made in mere hours. Soon lighter internal combustion engines replaced steam, and self-starting engines replaced the original engines which had to be cranked by hand in
Technology
Before the turn of the nineteenth century, the quickest way to travel on land was by horse, the only way to wash clothes was on a wooded washboard and cooking had to be done on a iron stove or in a fireplace. During that era there was no electricity, no telephone and no television. A technological explosion transformed the American way of life in the early 1900s.
As time goes by we notice how change occurs constantly and often rapidly. History has shown us how fast technology has evolved in a short period of time, especially since the Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the pace of change accelerated dramatically in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. America went from the horses pulling wagons to steam power railroad to automobiles and electric power in a very short time. Communications by telephone, the invention of the typewriter, the widespread use of electricity, the development of the internal combustion engine, all propelled the nation rapidly into a brave new world.
To start off with, most people at that time believed the automobile would never replace a horse because it has been dependable for hundreds of years, but in the early 1900s improvements to automobiles showed the naysayers wrong. The first automobile produced for the masses in the US was the three-horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile; 425 of them were sold in 1901 and 5,000 in 1904; this model is still prized by collectors. The firm prospered, and it was noted by others, and, from 1904 to 1908, 241 automobile-manufacturing firms went into business in the United States. One of these was the Ford Motor Company which was organized in June 1903. Then in 1908, Henry Ford produced the Model T, and a trip that once took more than a day by horse could be made in mere hours. Soon lighter internal combustion engines replaced steam, and self-starting engines replaced the original engines which had to be cranked by hand in