People · 1840–1920
Inventors and Innovators
In one long lifetime, Americans went from candlelight and horse carts to electric lights, telephones, automobiles and airplanes. Meet the tinkerers, scientists and businessmen who built the modern world.
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Quick facts
The age of invention at a glance
| Era | Roughly 1840 to 1920, from the telegraph to the assembly line | |
| Patents | The U.S. Patent Office issued patent number 1,000,000 in 1911 | |
| Most patents | Thomas Edison, with 1,093 U.S. patents | |
| First invention factory | Edison's laboratory at Menlo Park, New Jersey, opened in 1876 | |
| Lights on | Edison's Pearl Street station lit lower Manhattan on September 4, 1882 | |
| First flight | December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina: 12 seconds, 120 feet | |
| Car for everyone | Ford built about 15 million Model Ts between 1908 and 1927 |
The big picture in 30 seconds
Why it matters
- Electricity, phones and cars changed where Americans lived and how they worked.
- The United States became the world's leading industrial nation by about 1900.
- Research labs like Menlo Park made invention a team business, not a lone genius's hobby.
- These tools of daily life were also the tools that won two world wars.
1,093
U.S. patents held by Thomas Edison
12 sec.
length of the Wright brothers’ first powered flight
15 million
Model T Fords built, 1908–1927
1,000,000
U.S. patents issued by 1911
Inventions timeline
Inventions that changed daily life
From Whitney’s cotton gin to Ford’s moving assembly line, each breakthrough built on the last.
Meet them
The people behind the inventions
Some were trained scientists, most were self-taught, and nearly all failed many times before they succeeded.
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Where it started
Benjamin Franklin, America's first great inventor
A century before Edison, Franklin flew his famous kite (1752), invented the lightning rod, the Franklin stove and bifocal glasses, and refused to patent any of them. He believed inventions should be shared freely.
The War of the Currents
Edison vs. Tesla and Westinghouse
Edison’s power stations used direct current (DC), which could only travel about a mile before it faded. Tesla and Westinghouse championed alternating current (AC), which could be stepped up to high voltage and sent long distances.
A bitter fight
In the late 1880s Edison’s camp warned that AC was deadly and publicized animal electrocutions to prove it. But AC was cheaper to deliver. In 1893 Westinghouse lit the Chicago World’s Fair with AC, and in 1896 the new Niagara Falls power plant began sending AC to Buffalo, about 20 miles away.
The winner
AC won. Today the power grid runs on alternating current, while DC lives on in batteries, phones and computers. Edison’s company merged into General Electric in 1892.
Timeline
A century of invention
Key dates for the inventors on this page.
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
Thomas Edison
As quoted in Harper’s Monthly, 1932
See the era
Industry, Immigration and World War I
See how these inventions fit into the bigger story of railroads, factories, immigration and the rise of America as a world power.
Go deeper
Books and sources
- Edison, by Edmund Morris (2019)
- The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough (2015)
- Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, by Jill Jonnes (2003)
- Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, by W. Bernard Carlson (2013)
- Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, by Douglas Brinkley (2003)
- More recommended books