Best of The History Guy: Invention

foreign [Music] to some extent it makes sense that we measure the power of an engine especially a car engine in Horsepower I mean after all before cars and tractors and trains horses were our primary vehicle we used them to plow the soil to move cargo to travel distances but how much power really is uh horsepower when that wouldn't that depend upon which horse and how is it that horsepower came to be one of the most common ways that we measure the power of a car engine well actually the history of horsepower goes back to the 18th century and a man whose name is virtually synonymous with with measuring power James Watt it is history that deserves to be remembered the first commercial steam powered device is generally considered to be Thomas savory's steam pump which he invented in 1698. in 1702 Savory wrote that an engine which will raise as much water as two horses working together at one time in such a work can do by 1712 Thomas newcomen had created a steam engine that could transmit continuous power both of these early designs were primarily used to pump water from mines the new common engine was significantly more powerful and replaced a team of 500 horses that have been used to pump water out of a mine it would take decades however for these machines to be considerably improved in 1759 the newcomen engine came to the attention of James Watt a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer who had made a living fixing and making scientific and musical instruments in Glasgow Scotland watt was born in 1736 and though sickly as a child showed an aptitude for math he learned to repair make instruments like sextants compasses and barometers he found employment at the University of Glasgow he also started a business building musical instruments and toys there is a popular story that what was inspired to investigate's team after seeing a kettle boil and steam lift the kettle's lid the story has been told in a variety of forms none of which are probably strictly true still while he was not inspired by a boiling Kettle he did conduct many laboratory experiments that did include the use of a kettle to create Steam what came to understand the rules of thermodynamics a field that would not be formalized for another century a friend seems to have brought the steam engine to his attention when he suggested that a steam engine could be used to drive a wagon replacing horses it was in repairing a University of Glasgow model newcomen engine in 1763 or 1764 however that It Came Upon a better system that could significantly increase the engine's efficiency the new Cummins engine had a single piston that was alternatively heated and then cooled which was the significant portion of the machine's potential his Innovation was to add a separate chamber he called a condenser which deemed could condense which massively improved efficiency later he was also able to make another significant Innovation by using a sun and Planet gear system to allow his engines to make rotary motions allowing steam engines to spin wheels despite his talent for inventing it took him years to realize any financial gain from his work his research left him in near poverty and he spent years in the 1760s borrowing money and working as a civil engineer at one point he's so despaired of success that he wrote of all things in life there is nothing more foolish than inventing and probably the majority of inventors had been led to the same opinion by their own experiences by 1768 it created working models and in 1769 it received a patent for a new invented method of lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in fire engines also in 1768 he met with Matthew Bolton owner of a manufacturing company and leader in the English Enlightenment movement Bolton had had little formal schooling but he become successful as a businessman and scientist anyway corresponding with Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin's grandfather he bought an interest in the patent and what continued his work was able to introduce his engines commercially in 1776 and agreed to be paid for the machines by taking royalties on one-third of customer savings compared to Coal cost of running the newcomer engines well this was a profitable system it didn't work with customers who did not already have steam engines and who used horses instead horses were widely used for all kinds of power in the 18th century and earlier not just for plowing fields and pulling wagons Mills where grain is grown into flower were important to treat bread a staple food for European society as well as in creating malt powder for use in Brewing wind water and ocean have all been used to turn Mills and grind grain but the most effective means of running a Mill by the late 18th century was the horse Samuel Whitbread ran a successful Brewery in London and had six horses that walked ceaselessly in circles to power the mill he may have had as many as 20 horses for the mill which were switched out to keep the mill working at Peak efficiency it isn't 100 clear how watt eventually came up with a number that would define horsepower in one version watt watching horses like whitbreads observe them to complete about 144 circuits in an hour about 2.4 times a minute he determined that the horses pushed the shafts of the mill with a force of about 180 pounds using a complicated formula he determined that a horse could produce 32 572 foot pounds a minute where a foot pound is the amount of force it takes to raise a pound of foot in the air others that come up with different numbers but what standardize his version of horsepower at 33 000 foot-pounds per minute that might sound like complete nonsense but it can be visualized imagine a single horse raising a 33 pound Bucket from the bottom of a thousand foot deep well in one minute the energy it takes to raise that bucket is one horsepower one version attributes his calculations to watching the work of pit ponies which work to raise coal from mines he guess they could lift an average of 220 pound Force 100 feet a minute and he estimated that a full horse would be at least 50 percent stronger coming up with a number similar to the 33 572 foot pounds in a minute of the earlier tail which is in standardized at 33 000 foot-pounds per minute what may have done both estimations before standardizing the measure but however he came up with it his estimation was a tour de force of marketing a popular legend for how he came up with this number is that he was challenged by a brewer to build a steam engine that could match the work of a horse the Brewer established the map by putting his strongest horse to work for eight hours driving him all the time to the limit of his endurance Popular Mechanics in 1912 said the thirty thousand foot pounds that is the amount of force necessary to lift a thirty thousand pound weight one foot in one minute produced by the horse exceeds by nearly one-third the work capacity of an average horse but what made his engine produce at least 33 000 foot-pounds and dubbed the value a horsepower this story is likely apocryphal but it does fairly accurately represent Watts marketing strategy he told Whitbread that his engines could harness the power of 200 horses at once without having to store or feed the animals Whitbread took the bait and within a year it increased production from 90 000 barrels to 143 000. the replacement of horses and Mills with steam engines was a turning point in the industrial revolution earlier steam engines like newcomers pump were limited in where and how they could be produced but Watts engines could be used nearly anywhere thus providing an immense source of power to countless Industries and massively increasing human production the engine installed in whitbreath Brewery on Chiswell Street was installed in 1785 only the second steam engine installed in a brewery can produce around 35 horsepower and it helped Whitbread become the largest Brewer in the country in addition to watt's success in naming the horsepower King George III and Queen Charlotte visited the brewery and the Machine on May 24th 1887. astoundingly that steam engine still exists even though it's moved far from its original home it was only actually decommissioned in 1887 102 years after its installation Archibald liversidge an English chemist and a trustee at what was then called the technological industrial and sanitary Museum in Sydney Australia intervened before the engine could be scrapped and had it donated to the museum the museum which is now called the PowerHouse Museum still displays the engine it is the oldest surviving rotative steam engine still in existence Watts steam engine and his work with Bolton catapulted him into an internationally famed inventor his patent made him a wealthy man and allowed him to play a significant part in England's technological Revolution he created a number of other inventions including a portable copying machine in the 1790s some of his clients stopped paying him as other separate condenser steam engines came to Market and they thought that his patent would be impossible to defend so he spent considerable time in court fighting other inventions he retired in 1800 built a magnificent house he called the heath field and spent the last years of his life tinkering with inventions like a machine for copying sculptures and traveling the world he died on August 25th 1819. his inventions and improvements on the steam engine were epic changing providing a significant foundation for further inventions and he has a claim to being one of the fathers of the Industrial Age as his work helped power many of the innovations that transformed the world over the 19th century in 1882 Charles William Siemens first suggested using the name watt to apply to a unit of power is now familiar to many as the output of a very different invention the light bulb despite his somewhat imprecise measurement of horsepower or the term caught on becoming a standard way of talking about the output of power of engines throughout the 19th century there are actually different measurements for a horsepower as well a mechanical horsepower is the number familiar Committee in the US and elsewhere uses the standard measurement and the output and performance of vehicle engines but there's also a metric horsepower which differs slightly while mechanical horsepower is the equivalent to about 745 Watts a metric horsepower is equal to about 735 . of course now we are pretty far removed from a time when a horse was the most recognizable symbol of working power but we can be reminded of those early days every time we work with something that has an engine from Cars to lawn mowers James Watt had an enormous impact on the world when he developed his engine and that impact would have been important even if he'd never come up with the stroke of marketing Genius of that term horsepower and yet come up with that stroke of Genius he did the term became so standard that the very first advertisement for a Model T boasted that the car has 20 horsepower it's also interesting to note that while the number of horsepower given for most Vehicles reflects Peak horsepower most horses can produce much more than one horsepower for a brief period a 1993 study based on measurements made in 1926 found that the horse's Peak power reached as high as 14.9 horsepower but that for sustained activity a rate of about one horsepower fits with how 18th and 19th century people used horses for James Watt the engine that he built and the term that he coined created a legacy that lasted far beyond his lifespan and is still visible today all you have to do to see it is to well pop the hood his statue in Westminster Abbey has an Epitaph which says that watt enlarged the resources of his country increased the power of man and Rose to an imminent spot among the most illustrious followers of Science and real benefactors of the world foreign plastic is derived from the Greek word for to form or shape and the term really predates the stuff that we call Modern plastics it's been used as early as the 16th century to refer to any compound that was say moldable or shapeable but it isn't particularly apt term for modern Plastics which can apparently be shaped into almost anything and because of that have been shaped into well almost everything we have a very mixed relationship with plastic the term itself has come to mean fake or cheap and plastic trash in the environment has become an issue of international concern but plastic is so related to our Modern Life so pervasive that plastic is practically the definition of modernity and that material which can be shaped into almost everything has shaped us as well almost from the very beginning the story of Celluloid the first man-made plastic is history that deserves to be remembered plasticity is a general property of materials that refers to the ability of that material to undergo deformation without breaking soil has plasticity that's why you can leave a footprint metal has plasticity that's why it can be bent the materials we call Plastics have such high plasticity ability to form them into new shapes that they become named after the ability plastic is moldable polymer while we think of plastic as the epitome of fake and not naturally derived the building blocks of plastic are not just rooted in nature they're fundamental to it polymers are so-called macromolecules very large molecules made up of repeating chains of smaller molecules the smaller molecules called monomers join together in a process called polymerization to create three-dimensional structures that can include thousands of molecules for example proteins typically though not exclusively the backbone of polymers will be carbon which is strong and stable and well suited to forming molecular bonds today we create many forms of artificial polymers but natural polymers biopolymers are Central to life itself polynucleotides are polymers that's that stuff that we call DNA these large molecular masses and by that I mean compared to smaller molecular compounds but we are still talking about molecules here exhibit certain characteristics they tend to be tough that is they have an ability to absorb energy by plastically deforming rather than fracturing they tend to form glass or semi-crystalline structures rather than crystals they tend towards viscoelasticity which is that they show characteristics of both viscosity and elasticity or roughly the ability to deform under pressure and yet return to an original form to get the idea natural rubber is a biopolymer as our natural gums like chickle so our wool silk and resins like Amber and shellac all of these biopolymers exhibit some characteristics of the stuff that we today call plastic humans have been using biopolymers in their natural form for a very long time there's evidence that people have been chewing gum made of tree resin since the Stone Age mesoamericans were using natural tree rubber to make balls at least since the second millennium BC a process for making silk textiles was developed in China in the fourth millennium BC and wool textiles date back to at least 1500 BC there's written evidence of the use of shellac a natural resin secreted by a bug that can be dissolved into liquid reshaped and hardened again in the first millennium BC the most abundant biopolymer on Earth is cellulose which is the stuff that forms the cell walls and plants cellulose is what allows wood to be strong so what allows paper which is mostly made out of cellulose to be flexible it's what allows wool to be spun into textiles wood is about 40 to 50 cellulose but the purest natural form of cellulose is cotton which is 90 cellulose cellulose was also the foundation of the first man-made plastic in the 1830s had been discovered that cellulose could be nitrated that is have a chemical Nitro group introduced into the compound this was generally done by mixing cellulose with nitric acid the resulting compound nitrocellulose was highly combustible the first used was as an explosive commonly called gun cotton gun cotton could be very volatile on the first attempts to manufacture it were abandoned because the factories tended to well blow up well gun cotton itself has an interesting history a prolific inventor from Birmingham named Alexander Parks found a unique use for it Parks essentially took gun cotton and dissolved it in various solvents and found out that it turned into sort of a viscous substance that could then be poured into a mold and his first thought was to use that to make waterproof cloth but it turns out that the the compound which he called Park scene could really be molded into almost anything Parks took out his first related patent in 1855. he later won a bronze medal for excellence of product in the international exhibition in London in 1862 exhibiting things like buttons handles for knives and razors and decorative cases for daguerreotypes Park scene is generally recognized as the first man-made plastic but parking didn't quite Change the World parks tried to commercialize this product and formed a company in 1866 but the problem was that Parks wanted to keep the price very low and that was the idea parksing could be used as a substitute for all manner of natural materials but its Advantage was that it would be cheap to produce but in trying to keep it cheap he used substandard materials was not able to manufacture items of the same quality produced for the Crystal Palace exposition Park scene turned out to be prone to cracking and highly flammable his company folded in 1868 what took Park's invention to The Next Step was a shortage the game of Billiards likely derived from various lawn sports in French King Louis XI had the first known indoor billiard table made in the 15th century the sport became popular among the wealthy and into the 18th century to become more common in places like Paris cafes the balls could be made of wood or clay but they're wealthy preferred ivory the game had grown in popularity and by the middle 19th century was popular enough in the United States at least virtually every estate or Mansion was expected to have a Billiards stable that there was a growing concern about the cost and availability of ivory to meet the demand for billiard balls a New York Times article in 1867 worried that 3 500 pachyderms have been sold from the island of Salon in just three years to make billiard balls the paper worried that the supply of animals might eventually be used up the first great billiard star in the United States was Michael Phelan known as the most scientific and expert player in the nation Phelan worked to standardize the U.S billiards table became involved in manufacturing Billiards supplies in 1863 finland's company Finland and colander offered a substantive prize of ten thousand dollars for the first person who could develop an adequate substitute for Ivory in the making of billiard balls prize was never apparently awarded but it inspired an American inventor named John Wesley Hyatt in brief after experimenting height figured out that using the chemical camphora turpentine chemical derived from an evergreen tree is a solvent cause a plasticizing effect on Park scene by removing volatile substances from the parxing mixture he removed the shrinking and warping caused by having to drive those solvents out well Park had used camphor he apparently saw it as just another solvent and did not realize its potential Hyatt called his compound celluloid the great advantage of Celluloid was that it was the first true thermoplastic by making parksing less volatile how it created a compound that could be heated and shaped patented in 1869 Celluloid could be produced cheaply to make a wide range of things in fact almost anything including of course billiard balls Hayek created the Albany billiard ball company and his cellulite composite balls dominated the industry until the 1960s although there is no evidence that he ever collected on phelan's prize in 1870 Hyatt formed the Albany Dental Plate Company which creates not just dentures made out of Celluloid but also piano keys the dental Plate Company became the Celluloid Manufacturing Company in 1872. I've developed more processes and products because Celluloid could be easily dyed and colored it could be used as an alternative for a number of products it could be only derived from nature thus limiting their Mass availability things like tortoise shell marble mother Pearl Coral lapis lazuli and even wood textures and Grains could be reproduced in celluloid it can still replicate the look of ivory that it was often marketed under the name French ivory it was used in decorative items like mirror cases and on knife handles it was used to decorate the fronts of accordions guitars Hyde developed a process called blow molding which allowed Celluloid to be used to make dolls despite being still relatively flammable Celluloid dolls are expensive collector items today if all this seems like knickknacks it was in reality the growth of the middle class plastic made consumer items affordable and available to masses of people looking to enjoy the trappings of new wealth and in doing so possibly saved animals like elephants used for Ivory and tortoises used for Combs from Extinction to show the meaning Mantle clocks were once an important sign of wealth covered in the rarest and most expensive materials using Celluloid veneers fancy Mantle clocks could be made to look like the rarest wood grains covered with the most desired precious and semi-precious materials like the dolls those clocks today are valuable collector pieces in its day it mints Millions more could enjoy the trappings of prosperity the surprising example is in clothing in the latter half of the 19th century more people were moving from factories and Farms to work in offices and stores now people had to dress professionally but it was expensive to keep things like collars and cuffs stiff and clean Hyatt earned at least 11 different patents for Celluloid clothing using detachable shirt cuffs and collars Sometimes using a Celluloid veneer over white paper that Cuffs in college would remain stiff could be cleaned with water thus in rapidly Changing Times in the development of a new middle class Celluloid literally represented the shift from Blue Collar to White Collar work but by far its most important impact on culture came via another medium Celluloid and photography were already cousins potassium iodide added to liquid gun cotton produced a light sensitive material that was used to make the first photo negatives on glass plates that process allowed the reproduction of photos and quickly replaced daguerreotypes but the next step used Celluloid directly as celluloids qualities it was naturally transparent flexible and can be very thin made of the perfect medium to replace the glass and create photographic film American inventor Hannibal Goodwin patented up process Bruce a Celluloid film base to be used in Thomas Edison's kinetograph at the same time George Eastman developed a practical role film to be used in personal cameras creating the Eastman Kodak company Goodwin and Eastman would sue each other over patents but Celluloid had allowed both affordable personal photography and practical Motion Pictures both transformed culture in profound ways as an odd demonstration of the power of Celluloid in the 19 teens early film star Irene Castle became so popular on film that her hairstyle the short bob became so popular that it caused a collapse in the market for one of celluloid's most popular products the personal comb facing a reduced Market one manufacturer of cellular women's hair products shifted to a new line using the newly developed process of injection molding Sam Foster started producing Celluloid sunglasses first from a Woolworth store on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City under the brand name Foster Grant the popularity of Celluloid film drove the development of inexpensive Celluloid sunglasses which were largely featuring movie stars in their marketing the relationship between humanity and plastic is something that author Susan Frankel describes as a toxic love affair Celluloid it created this revolution that led to the development of all sorts of different kinds of plastics to make virtually everything and it's not just consumer items that we get from plastic it led to huge advancements in science and technology I mean could could we have ever gone to the Moon could we go to outer space if we if we didn't have plastic and it allowed us to stop taking the things we need just directly from nature I mean elephants might be extinct today if it weren't for John Wesley Hyatt but some of the very characteristics of plastic that made it popular it's durability it's longevity it's water impermeability have now created environmental crises of Their Own as much as 12 and a half million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year threatening the entire ecosystem it takes an estimated 500 years for a plastic diaper to decompose new research is focusing on biodegradable Plastics and the use of microbial species that can dispose of plastic waste as well as more focus on Recycling and eliminating the use of single-use plastics the age of Celluloid is really over pretty much everything that used to be made out of Celluloid has been replaced by some newer all man-made plastic that's more stable Celluloid film always had its wrist because it degrades over time and it's very flammable and so millions of feet of old films rotted away degraded in their canisters or burned up in Vault fires even caused some fires in hospitals because of the film that was used for x-rays nitrate film was suddenly replaced with acetate film which was less flammable more stable but even all that's being replaced by digital processes today one of the last great niches for Celluloid was ping pong balls seem to have that perfect bounce but even that era has now come to an end as of July 1st 2019 the international table tennis Federation gave up the Celluloid balls in exchange for poly balls balls made out of all man-made polymers you can still find cellulose ping pong balls on the market for traditionalists sometimes Celluloid is used to make guitar picks but for the most part the compound that led us into the future has been relegated to the Past [Music] [Applause] [Music] earlier in the year there was a sudden demand for cloth face mass that far exceeded the supply and that led to something of a Revival for a household machine that had followed largely into disuse the household sewing machine suddenly the grandmother that made beautiful quilts or the mother that wanted to make a beautiful Easter dress were Doling out cloth masks to the family left and right and prior to the Industrial Revolution that task would have been much more laborious sewing and mending clothes was a household task that took several days out of every month and store-bought clothing was a luxury item that could be rather expensive but during the Industrial Revolution several entrepreneurial men sought to reduce the burden of sewing by creating mechanical sewing machines sewing machines are more than a hobby item for quilt makers they transformed economies changed women's roles in the workplace they transformed massively culture and became the backbone of multiple Industries including the Garment industry which is today a 368 billion dollar annual industry in the United States the invention of the mechanical sewing machine is history that deserves to be remembered sewing is the act of connecting fabric via needle and threat the earliest needles were made of wood bone or ivory with estimates that the first needles were used between 30 and 60 000 years ago the oldest was found in Dennis of a cave a prehistoric early hominid dwelling in Siberia that contained a seven centimeter needle made of bird bone that is approximately 50 000 years old and yet described as still usable these needles would have been used with plant fibers or animal senior to piece together hides or skins of animals for clothing or shelter in Egypt copper needles were found dating back to around 4000 BC and iron needles have been found in Bavaria from the 3rd Century BC needles are such a valuable tool that they are celebrated in Japan in harikuyo the Buddhist and Shinto Festival in this Festival of the broken needles the sewing tools that were broken over the past year are thanked for their service prayers are offered up for improved skills for the Tailors and seamstresses but why needles have been a tool for humankind for Millennia a machine that can replicate the human motion of the needle is a relatively new invention the first design for a sewing machine is still accepted to be in 1790 when Thomas saint a cabinet maker in England designed and detailed a machine intended for use on leather and canvas the machine used a chain stitch in which a series of loop stitches form a chain-like pattern the process uses two points a stitching all that pierces the material and a forked Point Rod that would carry the thread through the hole where it was hooked underneath but Satan never appeared to Market his design it was never produced or used in any large numbers it's assumed that he probably had at least one working device but no original examples exist but in 1874 an engineer was able to replicate the design using those original patent drawings while several machines were patented in the early part of the 19th century either the designs failed or were not successfully marketed Joseph mattersberger an Austrian Taylor was granted a patent in 1814 for a machine that he created to recreate the Motions of the human hand while sewing he never marked with the design and the patent expired three years later he died in the Poor House in Vienna never having had any success the first practical machine to see wide scale used was created in 1829 by a tailor named bartolome timonier who recruited August farand and engineered to help with patent drawings their patent was granted by the French government in July of 1830. timonier successfully negotiated a contract with France for the manufacture of Army uniforms and opened the first machine-based sewing Factory with 80 machines however his Factory was burned in an act of arson allegedly by a group of tailors who feared their jobs would be replaced by the invention Timonium was inside when the fire began but escaped with his life but just as others before him his machine never fully caught on and he died in poverty In 1832 an American mechanic an inventor named Walter hunt devised a working sewing machine but concerned with the welfare and success of seamstresses and tailors decided against filing the patent hunt did however go on to patent the safety pin the fountain pen A Streetcar Bell a coal-fired stove an ice boat an ice plow a street sweeping machine and an early repeating rifle design but it wasn't until 1844 that all these elements came together to create a truly practical machine and that came from Englishman John Fisher who in 1844 patented a machine for making lace that was very much like one that was created by Isaac Singer in 1851. importantly though while Fisher's device earned a patent that patent was apparently either lost or misfiled by the patent office next was Elias Howe Jr in Massachusetts he had been an apprentice in a textile Factory and later in the shop of a Master Mechanic where he latched onto the concept of making a sewing machine in 1846 his machine was the first to be patented with a lock stitch design and a needle with an eye at the point powered by a hand crank house spent a great deal of money on improvements in marketing but after failing to find investors in the United States his brother marketed the machine in London there William Thomas a factory owner purchased one for 250 pounds how then traveled to London the further design in conjunction with Thomas but after business disagreements and the failing health of his wife returned to the United States he was penniless not even able to afford the steerage to get home and board the ship he served as cooked on his way and became soon afterwards a widower it was learned that the sewing machine had proliferated with various patents for minor differences but he was unable to afford the court cases in defense of his own patent shortly after the death of housewife an American inventor named Isaac Singer was working in a machine shop in Boston where sewing machines designed by a pair named Blodgett and laroe were being repaired the shop owner askeding her if he could improve the machine because it was cumbersome to make and utilize singer's improvements a straight needle instead of a curved one and a linear shuttle instead of a circular one were memorialized in his patent number 8294 in August of 1851. but it was about this time that Howe started borrowing money from Finn's and family in order to pursue court cases against all the companies that were manufacturing machines in violation of his patent including singer singer tried to argue that Howe's design was not original because Walter hunt had invented the machine previous to that but since hunt had never filed for his patent how won the dispute and earned the right to have royalties on all lock stitch machines that used eye pointed needles originally the royalties were 25 per machine and with the sewing machine adapting and proving so rapidly many other patent holders pursued legal cases and what has often been called the sewing machine war in October of 1856 the president of One sewing machine company Grover and Baker proposed a sort of legal truce he worked with several manufacturers including singer we learned Wilson and alas Howe to form the sewing machine combination or sewing machine trust the group pulled their patents and agreed to share the profits with how getting a reduced royalty of five dollars per machine sold in the United States and one dollar for every machine sold abroad this agreement allowed manufacturers to concentrate on production and sales not legal action it ended in 1877 when the last patent expired how was paid per machine his Royalty Records allow us to know just how quickly sewing machine production grew in 1853 wheeler and Wilson produced just shy of 800 machines by 1859 the number was 21 000 with a total for the seven years being almost 34 000 sewing machines singer produced slightly more than 800 machines in 1853 and about 11 000 in 1859 with a seven year total of over twenty three thousand in 1860 a hundred ten thousand machines were made in the United States in 1860 the New York Times chimed such are some of the important results accomplished by the sewing machines these liliputian needle women that never become weary while performing the labor of human fingers every day extends their use into remote parts of the country and of the world they are used in China in Hindustan Australia turkey Africa South America and throughout Europe in fact everywhere that busy needle is plied these tireless workers have found their way caring relief for women's trembling hands and weary eyes the Swift flying needle the best Boon to a woman in the 19th century has already won many victories and soon the song of the shirt will be heard only in tradition of sufferings passed away but in all this growth one company stood out and is still a household name today singer despite having to pay royalties built a flourishing business he invested in mass production with interchangeable parts making his machines less expensive to produce and introduce a smaller machine intended for home use Edward Clark singer's attorney and part owner of the company launched the concept of installation payments or higher purchase plans this allowed the machine to be used for income while still paying off the purchase according to one article singer said I don't care a damn for the invention the dimes are what I'm after he made many dimes at the time of his death in 1875 his company was one of the first american-based companies to be multinational and was profiting some 22 million dollars a year according to American Science and invention singer was the first to spend more than a million dollars on Advertising the company's website currently claims it'll produce the first practical sewing machine in that by 1890 the company had 90 percent of the global market share Isaac Singer and Elias Howe both died multi-millionaires and the sewing machine went on to impact Society in other ways firstly the industrialized garment industry allowed for cheaper clothing along the purchase of new clothing instead of repairing warm ones this freed up time otherwise spent creating or maintaining a family's clothing prior to sewing machines the amount of time it took an experience seamstress to create a gentleman's dress shirt by hand was 14 hours a frock coat would take 10 and a pair of pantaloons took five with a sewing machine the time was drastically reduced between one and three hours per item the change allowed women to seek employment outside the home the machine also transformed industry more clothing could be produced more cheaply and the increased income for more workers increased demand the Garment industry grew along with insulin Industries like growing cotton manufacturing machines and parts and department stores to sell the products with the new industry however came new challenges of industrialization ready to wear clothing did not require specialized Craftsmen and textile industry needed a huge quantity of employees in factories with the sewing machine and the use of assembly line techniques unskilled labor could be utilized by textile companies to make clothing even less expensive although oftentimes creating unsafe working conditions for underpaid workers the most well-known of these instances was the Triangle shirt waste Factory in Manhattan New York on Saturday March 25th 1911 a fire started on the 8th floor of the ash building where the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory manufactured women's blouses on the top three floors of the 10-story building the eighth and tenth floor is a telephone connection and were alerted to the fire but the ninth did not adding insult to injury the exits were locked to prevent employees from sneaking breaks or stealing clothing their managers could check purses since all employees exited through one set of doors and with the fire blocking the only open stairwell many resorted to jumping from the windows to escape the flames the death toll in the day was 146 garment workers only 23 of whom were men the tragedy of that day led to many legislative reforms and creation of new organizations the American Society of safety professionals was formed to help create industry standards for occupational safety and health New York State Legislature formed the factory investigating commission to prevent hazards and loss of life their investigations led the creation of 38 new labor laws in New York the impact of the invention that the sewing machine was truly profound it changed economies it changed Industries it changed women's roles in Industry it changed the way that we regulate industry but it also powerfully impacted culture things like department stores and advertising and consumer culture were powerfully impacted by sewing machines which were among the first industrialized items to be marketed directly towards women the introduction of electric sewing machines which were first available in 1889 but became much more available after the first world war was part of what spurred the demand to have electricity in homes with factories spewing Out Clothing Fashions changed much more quickly and clothing didn't have to last as long and new stores were created or stores were transformed entire industries were transformed in order to Showcase those fashions in other Industries like interior design think about things like drapes or furniture or the interior of automobiles were also revolutionized by the invention according to Time Magazine magandi who was a man famous for Simplicity said that the sewing machine is one of the few useful things ever to have been invented I'll see from the start here I'm not the most handy guy I know which end of the hammer to hit with but I'm not much more use around the house than that but even I own quite a lot of these screwdrivers here I mean after all it's one of the most common tools in the world half your house is put together with screws and you got to hang up your hat somehow right I would venture to gas if virtually everybody that watches this owns at least one screwdriver but the funny thing is that if you are a viewer in Canada you are very likely to own a type of screwdriver that viewers outside of Canada are very likely to have never seen or even heard of in their life and the reason that Canada has its own kind of screwdriver has to do with a really unique point in history where a group of Technologies came together to drive a whole bunch of innovation but that Innovation was impacted by powerful world events at the time things like the Russian Revolution and the first and second world wars and the powerful personality of Henry Ford the great debate between the Robertson and the Phillips head screwdriver is history that deserves to be remembered the idea of a screw that is an inclined plane that spirals around a central shaft is ancient the earliest known uses were a water pump that might have been invented in Syria to irrigate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in the first millennium BC device was in use in Egypt at least by the 3rd Century BC when the Greek mathematician and engineer Archimedes of Syracuse saw and described one the device was later incorrectly attributed to our committees as commonly called the Archimedes screw s were also used at least since the Hellenistic period to drive presses for say pressing olive oil or pressing grapes for wine but screws were not used as fasteners like we use them today without industrial methods they simply would have been far too expensive to make a number of other methods including dovetails and dowels were used in fasting as well as of course the much more easily produced nail screws as Fasteners were not apparently produced until around the 15th century you know at least no mention is in a late 15th century manuscript their initial use was as a fastener for parts of medieval jousting armor and in nearly the same period for early firearms the wheel lock uses an internal spring to drive a piece of iron against a piece of pyrite to produce a spark to light the powder the pyrite wore out quickly and so had to be replaced often and a screw was thus used since could easily be screwed in and out the earliest screwdrivers were built to service these weapons and they were called either a screw Turner or a turn screw and they had a pear-shaped wooden handle and otherwise looked a lot like a modern flatheaded screwdriver but these screws and screwdrivers would have been custom made and used on very expensive devices like wheel locks and jousting armor and so screws were not for the common Folk in 1760 Brothers job and William Wyatt of Staffordshire patented a screw making machine that used a file to cut in the threads following the pitch of a lead screw this allowed mass production of screws and was a precursor to Industrial mass production machines the idea of using a lathe of some sort to cut threads was variously improved upon until the process for Cold Rolling threads was perfected in the 1880s but virtually all of these screws use just a few turning methods either a hexagon or Square that was turned externally or a flat slot cut to turn internally and as anyone who has ever used one knows flatheaded screws and screwdrivers have their problems there were many Alternatives proposed and even patented in the latter half of the 19th century but most were not easily manufactured in slotted screws still prevailed but Solutions were on the horizon Peter L Robertson was born in Haldeman County Ontario Canada in 1879 tinkerer Robertson produced a number of inventions including a new design for cufflinks and even a better mousetrap in 1905 received a patent in Canada for a new design of a corkscrew that centered itself on the bottle around the turn of the century Robertson was working through Eastern Canada as what was called a high-pitched man meaning a traveling salesman for a Philadelphia Tool Company high pitch men would sell their wear say on a street corner at a County Fair calling out their Wares and among the things that he was selling was the device of his own design Robert's 20th century wrench brace was a multi-tool that could be used as a monkey wrench as a brace as a bench vise as a screwdriver and as a rivet maker he called it the greatest tool on Earth and if all that sounds impressive there are actually several multi-tools that were very similar patented in that era but it wasn't demonstrating another tool a spring-loaded screwdriver that gave Robertson his most famous idea while demonstrating the screwdriver which was flat bladed the blade slipped and seriously cut his hand that gave him the idea of a new type of screwdriver head that was less likely to slip or Cam out this is not a New Concept there's a great variety of new screw head designs patented in the latter half of the 19th century but most never went anywhere largely because of difficulties in manufacturing but also because virtually everyone already owned a flatheaded screwdriver in fact the basis of Robertson's idea a square headed screw in driver was not new in 1875 Alan Cummings of New York City had been granted a patent for a screw that used a cavity either a square or triangle rather than a slot to address the same problem Cummings description noted it is well known that the ordinary screw head provided with a slot is very susceptible to injury caused mainly by the slipping of the screwdriver from the slot when the screw is being set home in wood or metal by admitting the usual slot and using the proper shaped cavity and screwdriver perfect safety is insured to the metallic cap but Cummings design had a flaw the way that you made the cavity that the screwdriver fit into was by stamping it with a die stamping it deeply enough that the screwdriver would set inside it would deform or weaken the screw head Robertson had a better solution which he applied for a patent in 1907. his screw tapered the sides of the coil gradually down to a pyramid shape this not only prevented the head from being deformed but actually helped align the metal grain as he explained knitting the atoms together for greater strength it had the added advantage of less waste since the slot of a slut-headed screw was usually cut out losing a bit of metal and weakening the head of the screw because it was less likely to cam out you could use more torque with the Robertson screw and Driver as it was self-centering it could be used with one hand whereas a slotted screwdriver usually required too the head of the screw was less likely to deform than the Robertson screwdriver was much better able to still remove the screw if it did it also worked better than the slotted screw if the screw had been painted over Robert said screw and Driver were particularly attractive to furniture makers and boat Builders where it was more of a problem if a flathead screw cammed out because it would damage the material around it damage the value of the product but perhaps best of all is that Robertson screw could be cold formed that is because the stamp tapered down inside the screw that meant that you could build the screw without ever having to heat the metal Cummings design as ingenious as it was probably was never made during its patent life because the screw simply couldn't be easily manufactured but Robertson's design could be cheaply manufactured in the Millions calling his invention the biggest little invention of the 20th century so far Robertson gained enough investors to open the pl Robertson Manufacturing Company Limited in 1908 he built a factory in Milton Ontario which gave him tax breaks and a ten thousand dollar loan the patent was approved February 1909 and by then the company was already filling orders Robertson was just 30 years old well the Robertson company described the initial years as hard with local competitors even challenging their patent the robertsonscrucially gained adherence among both Builders and furniture makers in 1913 Fisher Auto Body opened a factory in Walkerville Ontario making wooden parts for the Ford Model T the Robertsons crew offered a great Advantage for manufacturing Fisher became one of Robertson's largest customers using some 700 screws per body Robertson later designed a screw for metal to use on the all-metal body of the Ford Model A having been awarded international patents Robertson saw the opportunity to expand abroad and so he went to Gillingham England and established a company called The Recess screw company he marketed to British industry using the slogan the screw that grips the driver but his real plan was to manufacture screws in England but sell them in Germany and Russia in the first world war the Russian Revolution foiled his plan recessed screws turn to war production during the Great War and produce things like firing needles and hand grenade pins but after the war recessed screws failed there seems to be several factors involved including a glot of Supply following the war and the actions of some unscrupulous investors but Robertson resigned as the Director of the company but the company in Canada was still doing well and Robertson looked to expand into the United States He attempted to negotiate a deal with a manufacturer in Buffalo New York but the company wanted to say in manufacturing decisions and Robertson perhaps stung by his experience in England refused to give up that control then Henry Ford came to the table an analysis had shown that the use of Robertson's screws in the Ford plants in Canada had saved two dollars and sixty cents a car a significant savings for a car that retailed for only 390 dollars and which was being produced in the Millions Ford wanted to use Robertson screws in all his U.S plants but Ford wanted to say in production in an exclusive contract and Robertson stubbornly refused to give up that control when the deal fell through Robertson not only did not get the contract for the American Ford plants but lost the contracts in Canada almost a third of his business after three failed tries Robertson decided to never try to license his screws outside of Canada again but his marketing skills made these screws and drivers the screwdrivers of choice in Canada even though just across the border of the United States they're hardly known at all but Ford was still using flat screws which are even more Troublesome on automated assembly lines where if a screw cammed out it cost time and slowed manufacturing the solution started with a patent application in 1932 by John P Thompson an auto mechanic living in Portland Oregon Thompson's new screw design used a cruciform like the square headed screw this was not a new idea but again similarly previous patents for screws using cruciform heads as he explained in the application pushed the metal ahead of the tool and so disturbs the distribution of the metal as to render the screw head extremely fragile Thompson's solution was similar to Robertson's by tapering the screw head a star die could be used without distorting the metal and again stamping the tapered design made the metal actually stronger moreover by tapering the screw a driver could be used if it was not the exact right size and again the new cruciform headed screw would engage with the driver making it less likely to cam out than a flathead screw in 1933 when the patent was granted Thompson assigned it to Henry Frank Phillips like Robertson Henry Phillips had been a traveling salesman by the time the patent was assigned to him he was the managing director of a mining concern the Oregon copper company it's not really clear why Thompson assigned the patent to Phillips it might be that Thompson simply couldn't figure out how to sell it or couldn't find investors but it also might be that he already had agreement with Phillips when the patent was filed but Philips refined the design and was granted more patents unlike Robertson Phillips did not intend to manufacture screws but hope to license the patents to manufacture and collect royalties not surprisingly with new invention Phillip's got a lot of rejections from companies who told me the idea lack promise for commercial success but eventually Phillips convinced Eugene e Clark of the American screw company of Providence Rhode Island to manufacture the design by 1934 the screw was available for consumers well the tendency to came out could be Troublesome for anyone driving screws it was a particular problem for manufacturing which even at that time was using power tools Phillips later patents applications seem to have recognized the advantage a 1934 application said failure of the slotted screw to retain the blade driver especially in power driven operations is not only dangerous to the operator but is likewise always injurious to the work it was clear what Market he saw for his design in 1936 General Motors was invited to test the design the Phillips head screw first went into use at GM making the 1936 Cadillac the advantages for Industries large and small was obvious customers raved about the amount of work time saved within just a few years virtually all U.S automakers including Ford were using Phillips head screws the airplane manufacturing and railroad industry likewise switched by 1939 20 companies had licenses to produce Phillips head screws by 1940 85 percent of U.S crew manufacturers had a license for the design and the company grossed more than 1.3 million adjusted dollars while the second world war limited foreign licenses it established the Phillips head screw as an industry standard among wartime manufacturers the hundreds of thousands of planes and Motor Vehicles built by the US during the war were largely screwed together using Phillips head screws by the time Phillips patents expired in the 1960s there were more than 160 domestic licensees and half again that number of foreign licenses while Robertson had Canada Phillips screws are by industry estimates by far the most popular type of screw everywhere else in the world there's still a heated debate over which is better the Robertson screwdriver or the Phillips headed screwdriver and that debate has only grown more heated recently as the internet and fair trade makes it easier to acquire Robertson's Crews and drivers outside of Canada in general the Robertson screwdriver does grip the screw better and that means that you don't have to use as much pressure to be able to turn the screw without it camming out and it's less likely to strip the screw which are both issues that be devil common users of Phillip headed screwdrivers but that ability to cam out actually offers an advantage for manufacturing with a Phillips headed screw when the machine has set the screw it will cam out and that keeps it from over driving the screw and as an advantage at home in a pinch you can use a flatheaded screwdriver to spin a Phillips headed screw and you can't do that with the Robertson screw so far the Phillips head remained Supreme pretty much everywhere but Canada but the Robertson screwdrivers made significant inroads especially among furniture and boat makers and the discussions become more convoluted as there are now many more alternatives on the market some of which are compatible with existing drivers its patents for the Phillips head long expire the Phillips screw company today develops and licenses some of those new types of screws and drivers the Phillips headed screw was so successful that it might have been too successful in 1947 the federal government funded charges against Phillips and several manufacturers claiming that they had engaged in anti-competitive practices including price fixing and suppressing competition the eventual resolution in 1948 was a consent decree that reduced Philip's ability to enforce its patents the Robertson and Phillips screws were the culmination of the development of screw technology over a couple of hundred years and they were two types that Rose to the top in an era where there was a lot of innovation in the field it's really ironic that the events of the first world war were part of the reason that the Robertsons crew was never developed internationally whereas events of the second world war were the reason that the Philips edits grew was and the relative Fates between the two say that invention isn't about just the inspiration and pun intended Drive of the inventor but if a complex interaction with historical forces and Powerful personalities things that can't impact every tool in the toolbox I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy shorts and if it's a forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that Thumbs Up Button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 203,918

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: yReiP3nlN_Q

Length: 55min 10sec (3310 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 20 2023