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George Westinghouse Biography
George Westinghouse was born October 6, 1846 in Central Bridge, New York. Westinghouse was an American entrepeneur, and engineer. He invented the air brake, and also was a pioneer of the electrical industry. Westinghouse was also one of Thomas Edison's main rivals, impacting America just as much as Edison did. George was part of the Civil War, suiting up as a National Guard, and then joined the Navy. After only one term of college, he dropped out to presue inventing. -
Thomas Alva Edison Biography
Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847. As a young teen, he always had a hobby for inventing things. He was born in Milan, Ohio, then he moved to Port Huron, Michigan in 1854. He set up his first chemistry lab in the cellar of his house in 1857, and that is when he first started his great work as an inventor. -
Alexander Graham Bell's Biography
Alexander Graham Bell was born on August 3, 1847 in Edenburgh, Scotland. He had a great education, and wanted to continue the legacy of his father, which was to continue to work on furthering visual speech for the deaf. He was homeschooled by his mother, but she exposed him to large amounts of culture, and also let him explore with his inventions. -
Railroad Barons
There where many railroad barons that worked on the railroad and some of them were Cornelius Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, Collis P. Huntington, and Leland Sanford. Cornelius Vanderbilt gained control of the New Yourk Central line and made a fourtune by solidating several companies. James J. Hill built the Great Northern line between Minnesota and Washington State. Collis P. Huntington and Leland Sanford founded the Central Pacific, which connected California and Utah. -
Sleeping Car
George M. Pullman developed the Pullman sleeping car. This railroad car was a luxury car with seats that converted into beds for overnight trips. This invention raised train travel to a new level of comfort. -
George Westinghouse's Most Famous Inventions
If you hear his name, you might not recognize it at first, however, he invented one of the most important inventions to improve the railroads and trains. His most important invention was the railroad air brakes. Before the railroad brakes, the engineers had to brake the trains manually, and sometimes weren't able to brake them on their own, endangering passengers. Thanks to Westinghouse, the rails and trains were safer. -
Link Railroad Cars
In 1873, a great man named Eli H. Janney, created an invention that made railroad transportation more easy. He invented and easier way for workers to link railroad cars from station to station. -
Alexander Graham Bell's Most Famous Invention
Alexander Graham Bell's most famous invention was by far the telephone. Instead of telegraphs, and tying strings to tin cans, there was a new era of communication: the telephone. People could now communicate from street to street, town to town, state to state, and also linked the USA and Europe. In that time period, however, only fairly wealthy people could afford the telephone, but as time continued on, the telephone is now an object that almost everyone has and can afford. -
Thomas Edison's Most Famous Invention
Thomas Edison's most famous invention by far was the filament light bulb. Because of his ingeneous idea, the world has been brighter ever since. Stores were able to stay open later into the night, people could see better in their houses during the night and were able to read, and lastly, streets were more brightly lit, making civilians feel safer. This was truly a great invention that modernized the world. -
Railroads Stimulate the Economy
Now railroads carried raw material such as iron ore, coal and timber to factories. They also carried manufactured goods from factories to markets across the who United States. From new tracks being built, the demand for iron tracks and locomotives helped the iron mining and processing industries blossom. Another industry that blossomed was the lumber insustries from all the lumber that was being used to help build the railroad tracks. Also the railroads created thousands of jobs to workers. -
Refrigerated Railroad Cars
A new way to transport meat and other perishable goods over long distances was a huge invention. This invention was made by the great mind of Gustavus Swift in the 1880's. The effect of this invention was that now meat and other foods could be shipped over long distances for days. -
Steel Business
The Steel Business is where we found a way to use steel in a helpful way. Steel was used for railroad tracks, bridges, and many other products. Before the 1860's however, steel wasn't used widely because of the high cost of manufacturing it. Andrew Carnegie is the leading figure of the American Steel Industry. -
Oil Business
The Oil Business is where we found a huge supply of oil. The oil boom expanded as prospectors struck oil in Ohio and West Virginia. John D. Rockefeller made his fortune from oil. Rockefeller organized a standard Oil Company of Ohio and set out to dominate the oil industry. -
Improving the Railroads
In the late 1880's, railroads started to improve themselves. Now the railroads used gauges (widths) and by the late 1880's mostly all the railroad companies adopted the Standar Gauge of 4 feet and 8.5 inches. The effect of the the new gauge was that now instead of having a bunch of train cars doing one journey, now only one car needs to make the whole trip. -
Corporations Grew Larger
1889 New Jersey encouraged the trend tword buisness monopolies by allowing holding companies to obtain charters, a practice that some states prohibited. -
What We Could Have Done Different
We could have used Prezi, like we wanted to. However, we weren't able to access it at school, or at home. So, we chose time toast instead. We still put all of our information in, we just weren't able to be as creative. On Prezi, we could have had better visuals and effects. We also could have shown out our creative side more. -
Something We Could Have Done Different: Continued
We could have also used a poster to explain our events. We most likely would have made a 3D poster with many little scale models. Since we did a poster last time, we decided to take a different route, and go on the technology route instead. On the poster we could have had a map of the USA and put where each effent had occured.
