The Expansion and Transformation of Technology

EXPANSION IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE HIST 1301 | History The Expansion and Transformation of Technology A great deal of the Second Industrial Revolution's innovations enhanced or expanded upon prior technologies. The invention of the Bessemer process in the 1850s, for instance, marked the beginning of mass manufacturing of steel. By removing impurities from molten pig iron, this invention produced stronger steel that was more appropriate for constructing machinery and rail systems. Subsequent engineers enhanced the procedure much further. Although it produced steel of a higher grade and less brittle than the Bessemer process, the open-hearth Siemens-Martin method was created in Germany in the 1860s. The Siemens-Martin method was the most widely used for producing steel around the turn of the 20th century. The Second Industrial Revolution's significant technical achievements, like the construction of skyscrapers and the extension of railroads, were made feasible by the mass manufacturing of steel. Enhancements in the production of steel facilitated other advancements. More rustresistant steel could be used to build rail lines, increasing their weight, strength, and capacity to accommodate larger locomotives and heavier loads as it became more affordable. More freight and people were transported by railroads as they spread throughout Europe and the United States. Railroad efficiency was also increased by other technologies. George Westinghouse created the air brake in 1869, which allowed the train's engineer to apply brakes from the locomotive by sending compressed air through a line. Previously, employees would manually apply the brakes on trains by jumping from one moving vehicle to the next. There was no means to halt a railroad car if it broke away, and the procedure was plainly exceedingly risky. Trains could now go faster since they could be halted more securely. Railroads were a prevalent means of moving people and goods over land, over small and great distances, by the end of the nineteenth century. Railroads were in competition for customers with two new forms of transportation. Designed in 1885 by Englishman John Kemp Starley, the safety bicycle was the first contemporary bicycle with two equal-sized wheels, in contrast to prior models that had large front wheels that forced riders to sit high above the ground. Anyone could ride the safety bicycle, even ladies and little children. Technological advancements in the rubber industry also enhanced bicycles. American inventor Charles Goodyear created the method of vulcanizing rubber in 1839, which strengthened it and improved its ability to maintain its shape in extremely cold temperatures. (Non-vulcanized rubber breaks easily in cold weather and melts in the summer.) Just in time for bicycle and car makers to employ, Scottish-born inventor John Boyd Dunlop created a pressurised airfilled pneumatic tyre from vulcanised rubber in 1887. Dunlop's tyre was the first useful tyre to be mass produced, even though pneumatic tyres had been devised earlier. He received a patent for his invention in 1888. Tens of thousands of people rode bicycles every day by the 1890s, when the sport had gained popularity in both Europe and America. The gasolinepowered vehicle, which was first commercialised in 1888 and was patented by German inventor Karl Benz in 1886, eventually eclipsed both the train and the bicycle in terms of popularity in the United States and western and central Europe. The vehicle changed the globe in a few decades, more so than other innovations. As cities and suburbs grow beyond the capacity of train lines, local, state, and federal governments may need to increase taxes to finance the construction of additional highways. Blacksmiths and stables were displaced by new companies that sold and fixed automobiles. The noise and hazard of city traffic increased, and cars contributed their exhaust to the smokestack pollutants from factories. Rubber and gasoline, which were mostly imported by the majority of industrialised nations, saw a spike in demand due to the automotive industry. The United States had to turn overseas for rubber, even though it was originally able to meet its petroleum needs with indigenous oil. The internal combustion engine was a critical invention that was required for the development of the vehicle. This engine produces power by burning fuel, usually petroleum, in a cylinder with oxygen present. The result is a gas whose high pressure pushes on a rotor, turbine blade, or piston, forcing it to move. Small workshops and cars were powered by internal combustion engines, which provided an alternative to steam engines, which were too big to fit in tight spaces. But the energy that drove the Second Industrial Revolution wasn't limited to internal combustion. It did not entirely take the place of the horse or steam. Indeed, the 1884 invention of Sir Charles Parsons, the steam turbine, offered river and ocean travelling vessels economical power. One of the most significant innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution was the use of steam to create electricity. Water was converted to steam by burning coal, which drove turbine blades to produce electricity. In both the United States and Britain, Parsons' steam turbine fulfilled this function. Electricity was also produced by water power; at Appleton, Wisconsin, the world's first hydroelectric plant opened its doors in 1882. In 1911, Italy constructed a geothermal power plant, and energy was also produced by wind turbines. By the end of the 20th century, industrialised countries' factories were primarily powered by electricity. With the creation of the incandescent light bulb by Thomas Edison in the United States in 1879 and Joseph Swan in Britain in 1878, electricity powered factory machinery and illuminated homes, businesses, and streets. The dull and sometimes smelly lighting of oil and gas lamps, which carried the risk of fire and, in the case of gas, of asphyxia and explosions, was replaced by the dazzling light of the incandescent bulb. Factories could now run long into the night thanks to electric lights. After the first transatlantic telegraph connection between Great Britain and North America was established in 1858, communications technology advanced, and by the end of the century, all of the world's continents—aside from Antarctica—were linked. Around the same period, the telephone—which was introduced in 1876 by American inventor Alexander Graham Bell—spread throughout North America and Europe, considerably facilitating commercial contacts. Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian engineer, was the first person to successfully send a wireless signal from Wales to Newfoundland, Canada, across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901. Afterwards, he established radio stations in North America and Europe, using them to communicate with ships at sea. Following the development of the vacuum tube and the triode, commercial radio that aired radio dramas, music and news became accessible in the 1920s. The factory and the house were changed by additional finds. Through chemical experiments, synthetic aniline dyes were created that changed fashion by producing textile colours that were more vivid and intense than those generated by plant dyes. Chemical fertilisers allowed farmers to grow ever-larger harvests, along with combine harvesters, mechanised seeders, and horse-drawn machinery that gathered, sowed, and winnowed grain all in one operation. Barbed wire is another development that has made cattle ranchers' herds safer. The 1870s saw the development of refrigerated rail waggons by engineers employed by American meatpacker Gustavus Swift. It was now possible to send meat and other items that were produced in greater numbers over long distances without their becoming bad. Office workers become more productive thanks to other advancements. By the 1880s, typewriters and adding machines were widely used, and in 1888, New York jeweller Willard Legrand Bundy received a patent for the time clock. Employees "punched the clock" by inserting their cards into a machine when they arrived or left work, leaving it branded with the precise time. Recreational activities were also altered by new technologies. The phonograph, which recorded sound by using a stylus to trace soundwaves on a revolving disc or cylinder and then replay them, was patented in 1877 by Edison. The phonograph had commercial uses at first, but it was soon put to entertainment use as well. Motion films were first created as audiovisual presentations, which blended phonograph records with still photography projections. In the first part of the nineteenth century, advances in photographic technology allowed individuals to use cameras to permanently preserve images. Many started taking many shots of moving objects or people in the late nineteenth century and fast replayed them to create the illusion of movement. English inventor Wordsworth Donisthorpe filed a patent application in 1876 for a machine that could accomplish this, and in the years that followed, several inventors and photographers attempted to refine the method. The most well-known experiment was carried out in 1878 by English photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who used a device he named the Zoopraxiscope to repeat photos he took of racing horses. Light-sensitive cameras took pictures on strips of paper coated in gelatin after George Eastman, a native of New York, invented photographic film in 1884. The earliest movie still in existence was captured in 1887 by French inventor Louis Le Prince using a motion-picture camera he had developed. The brief video showed people strolling through an English garden. Though it took some years for recorded sound and moving pictures to synchronise, the cinematic age had begun.