Making the Modern World

1. Making the Modern World

2. The Century We Became Us

3. Inventions 1800-1900 • Steamship, 1807 • Telegraph 1837 • Automobile 1884 • Bicycle 1885 • Camera (film) 1888 • Dynamite 1866 • Dynamo 1871 • Elevator, 1852 • Electric Iron 1882 • Electric Motor 1837 • Phonograph 1877 • Typewriter 1867 • Welding 1877 • Sewing Machine 1846 • Light Bulb 1879 • Telephone 1876 • Blast Furnace 1856 • Electric Stove 1896

4. Overcoming limitations • Limitations of Space • Limitations of Time

5. Limitations of Time • Food Preservation • Telecommunications • Lighting • Rapid Production • Growth of Leisure

6. The Impact of Lighting

7. Europe - Early 1800's • Coal + Heat = Coke. • Coking, originally developed on a large scale for steel making, gives off: • Liquid Fuels • Gases • Coking gases lead to piped Gas Lamps. Demand for gas soon leads to a gas industry in its own right.

8. Lighting in America • 1830 Whale Oil: Except in cities, America too dispersed for piped gas. Need for portable high-quality fuel answered by whale oil. • 1860 Kerosene Lamp: Kerosene developed as a substitute for increasingly scarce whale oil. • 1876 Electric Light • 1920 Bulb-blowing Machinery. Brought light bulbs down in cost from dollars to pennies. One of the oldest unchanged mass-production devices.

9. Social Impact of Lighting • Community life • Safer to go out at night • Places to go: theaters, social gatherings, etc. • More Effective Use of Leisure Time • Easier to Read • Adult Education for Working Classes • Demand for more Leisure Time

10. The Role of Communications • You can’t have skyscrapers without telephones • Mail delivery financed transportation technology • Railroads, 19th Century • Air Travel, 20th Century

11. Effects of Overcoming Time • Time only matters if it's yours • More Leisure • More Effective Use of Leisure • More Experiences

12. Limitations of Space • Space = Time if you have to move slowly • Railroad (Bulk Transport) • Personal Transportation • Air (Personal and Cargo)

13. Overcoming Space: Canals • 1800's Canals in England • 1825 Erie Canal: Access to Great Lakes and West • 1856 Soo Canal: Iron to feed U.S. steel industry • The age of canals was short and canals don't look very impressive on the map, but they were a critical link in transportation history

14. Railroads • 1800 Prototypes in Mines • 1829 Manchester-Liverpool, England • 1835 1000 Miles in US • 1840 3000 Miles in US • 1860 30,000 Miles in US • 1869 Transcontinental

15. Effects of the Railroad • Opening of Markets • Rise of Consumer Goods • Exploitation of Colonies-but- • Third World (especially India) Rail Systems

16. Travel in the U.S., 1800

17. Travel in the U.S., 1830

18. Travel in the U.S., 1857

19. Where the Rails Met

22. Historical Oddity

23. Union Pacific Cut

24. The Rival Routes

25. What Happened to the Rails

26. Not Far Away…

27. Travel in the U.S., 1930

28. Effects of Overcoming Space • Manufacturer - Access to Raw Materials • Seller - Access to Markets • Consumer - Access to Goods

29. Urban Sprawl • Steamboat suburbs, 1830’s • Railroad suburbs by 1850’s • “Commuter, “ 1865 • Planned suburbs, late 1800’s • Streetcars and Interurban railroads

30. Wisconsin Interurban Railroads

31. Midwest Interurban Railroads

32. Interurban Rail, Los Angeles

33. Los Angeles Streetcar Lines

34. Los Angeles doesn’t sprawl because it has freeways --Los Angeles built freeways because it sprawls

35. The Downside of Light Rail • Lines were very unprofitable • Owners invested in real estate • Sometimes built amusement parks at the end of the line • Lines frequently serviced owners’ developments and bypassed others

36. If You Think Cars Pollute, Consider Horses • New York City generated thousands of tons of horse manure a day • Horses often cruelly overworked • 15,000 horses a year died on the streets of New York each year • Many were just abandoned

37. Roads • 1790: Nicolas Cugnot, prototype steam carriage • 1800’s: Thomas Telford • Old-style roads damaged by wheels • Well-graded roads damaged by horses’ hooves • By 1830’s, Britain (finally) had roads better than the Roman Empire

38. Roads and Vested Interests • Telford advocated steam carriages to reduce wear on roads • Prototypes actually ran in 1830’s • Stiff opposition from stagecoach operators, who held mail contracts • Stagecoach operators eventually eclipsed by railroads • Delayed advent of auto by half century

39. Personal Transportation • Bicycle: toy for rich in 1830’s • Fully modern design by 1880’s • First true personal transportation • Not bound by streetcar routes • Doesn’t need to be fed • Unchaperoned women (Gasp!) • Pioneered mass production technology and metallurgy for automobile

40. Another Technological Spiral

41. George B. Selden: “Inventor” of the Automobile • Foresaw mechanized transport coming • Took out a patent in 1879 on a largely imaginary “road engine” • Delayed issuance of the patent for 16 years (1895) • Collected royalties for 17 years despite doing nothing for the technology • Selden’s gimmick led to reforms

42. 1883 Stationary Gas Engine

43. Early Motorcycle, 1885

44. 1889 Daimler Auto

45. 1902 Daimler Roadster

46. Mercedes Jellinek

47. World War I • Railroads insufficient for Army’s needs • Army turned to truck convoys • Civilians found convoy routes featured such revolutionary innovations as: • Route Markings • Regular Maintenance • Snow Removal

48. Pershing’s Map, 1922

49. The Interstate Highway System

50. World War II: The First High-Tech War First war whose outcome depended critically on simultaneous technological advances • Radar • Computers • Missiles • Jet Aircraft • Nuclear Weapons