New Technology Project
Storyboard Text
- Robert Fulton created the steam boat
- method of commercial and passengerHow did this invention change the lives of Americans at the time?along came thousands of jobs in the coal mines and the factories. The steamboat also led to thousands of new settlements across America's rivers, including the huge boom of Indiana's Ohio River Cities.How did this invention affect history? Explain your answer.steamboats greatly reduced both the time and expense of shipping goods to distant markets.Invention Summary: Write a one-page summary of your invention. Be sure to explain your invention and its impact on life in America.Any seagoing vessel drawing energy from a steam-powered engine can be called a steamboat. However, the term most commonly describes the kind of craft propelled by the turning of steam-driven paddle wheels and often found on rivers in the United States in the 19th century. These boats made use of the steam engine invented by the Englishman Thomas Newcomen in the early 18th century and later improved by James Watt of Scotland. Several Americans made efforts to apply this technology to maritime travel. The United States was expanding inland from the Atlantic coast at the time. There was a need for more efficient river transportation since it took a great deal of muscle power to move a craft against the current. In 1787, John Fitch demonstrated a working model of the steamboat concept on the Delaware River. The first truly successful design appeared two decades later. It was built by Robert Fulton with the assistance of Robert R. Livingston, the former U.S. minister to France. Fulton’s craft, the Clermont, made its first voyage in August of 1807, sailing up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany, New York, at an impressive speed of eight kilometers (five miles) per hour. Fulton then began making this round trip regularly for paying customers. Following this introduction, steamboat traffic grew steadily along the Mississippi River and other river systems in the inland United States. There were numerous kinds of steamboats that had different functions. The most common type along Southern rivers was the packet boat. Packet boats carried human passengers as well as commercial cargo, such as bales of cotton from Southern plantations. Compared to other types of craft used at the time, such as flatboats, keelboats, and barges, steamboats greatly reduced both the time and expense of shipping goods to distant markets. For this reason, they were enormously important in the growth and consolidation of the U.S. economy before the Civil War. Steamboats were a fairly dangerous form of transportation, due to their construction and the nature of how they worked. The boilers used to create steam often exploded when they built up too much pressure. Sometimes debris and obstacles—logs or boulders—in the river caused the boats to sink. This meant that steamboats had a short life span of just four to five years on average, making them less cost-effective than other forms of transportation. In the later years of the 19th century, larger steam-powered ships were commonly used to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The Great Western, one of the earliest oceangoing steam-powered ships, was large enough to accommodate more than 200 passengers. Steamships became the predominant vehicle for transatlantic cargo shipping as well as passenger travel. Millions of Europeans immigrated to the United States aboard steamships. By 1900, railroads had long since surpassed steamboats as the dominant form of commercial transport in the United States. Most steamboats were eventually retired, except for a few elegant “showboats” that today serve as tourist attractions. Steamboats proved a popular method of commercial and passenger transportation along the Mississippi River and other inland U.S. rivers in the 19th century. Their relative speed and ability to travel against the current reduced the time and expense of shipping.
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