4 14 good idea how inventions shape our lives

Fascinating Facts
• An inventor working on radar got the idea for
the microwave oven after radio waves melted a
chocolate bar in his pocket.

• The modern zipper, invented in 1912, was named
for the sound it made when it was used to close
rubber boots.

• Clarence Birdseye, who invented a way to freeze
food for sale, got the idea from watching the
Inuits in Canada.

Genre

Nonfiction

Comprehension Skill

Summarize

Text Features

• Time Line
• Captions

Scott Foresman Social Studies

ISBN 0-328-14850-4

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Many new machines and new ways of doing
things came about in the 1800s and 1900s.
The daily lives of people in the United States
and around the world changed forever at this
time. In this book you will read about the
advances that helped create the world we live in.

Vocabulary
hydropower
invention
urban
rural

Write to It!
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is an
old saying. What problem or need do you have
for which an inventor might think up a device
or process? Describe your need or problem.
Suggest three solutions. Finally, explain why
one of your solutions might work better than
the others.
Write your ideas on a separate sheet of paper.

steamboat
communication

Photographs
Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply

regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.
Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.
Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd)
ISBN: 0-328-14850-4
Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected
by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue,
Glenview, Illinois 60025.
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Opener: ©Ewing Galloway/Camerique Inc., Int’l/Retrofile.com
Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York
3 ©North Wind Picture Archives
5 ©Getty Images
Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois
6 ©National Archives
Coppell, Texas • Sacramento, California • Mesa, Arizona
9 ©Corbis
10 ©The Granger Collection, NY
12 ©Ed Quinn/Corbis
13 ©Mark Richards/PhotoEdit
14 ©Ewing Galloway/Camerique Inc., Int’l/Retrofile.com
15 ©Minnesota Historical Society/Corbis


Cotton mills were noisy
and the work was hard.

However, the work paid well.
Thousands of young people
left home to work in them.

How Factories Changed America
Until the early 1800s families in the United
States grew their own food. They spun their own
thread and wove their own cloth. They made
most of the items they needed. What they could
not make—tools, shoes, and some furniture, for
example—they bought.
Around 1820 factories began to do much of
the work once done at home. Thanks to new
machines, factories could make cloth, shoes, and
other items quickly and cheaply. Factories would
change the way Americans lived and worked.
Yet to buy goods, people needed cash. Factories
paid good wages, so many people moved to towns
and cities where they could find paying work.

2

Some of the first factories were cotton mills.
Mill workers and machines turned raw cotton
into cloth. Steam engines powered some of the
machines. Other factories used hydropower. Swift
water turned water wheels, and the wheels turned
the machines.
By 1836 more than twelve thousand young
women had moved to Lowell, Massachusetts.

They worked there at the cotton mills. These
factories paid two dollars a week. At the time that
was excellent pay, but the young women worked
thirteen hours a day every day except Sunday.

3


Helping Farmers Grow More
In 1830 it took a farmer three hundred hours to
grow one hundred bushels of wheat on five acres
of land. A farmer in 1987 could grow that much
with only three hours of work on three acres.

What made this possible? Inventions did.
An invention is a new machine or new way of
doing something. Inventors built machines that
helped farmers get more done with less work.
Four important inventions that improved farming
methods are shown in the time line.

Farm Inventions 1780–1900
1793
1860

Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney
invented a
machine to pick
cottonseeds

from cotton.

1750

1800

Automatic Milker
Leighton O. Colvin
invented the first
useful machine
for milking cows.

1850

1900

1834

1892

Mechanical Reaper
Cyrus Hall McCormick built a
machine to harvest wheat.

Tractor
A blacksmith in Iowa
put a gasoline engine
on iron wheels.

Tractors help farmers pull heavy equipment easily. They also

help farmers cover a large field quickly.

4

5


Edison Lights the World
Thomas Edison did not invent the first light bulb,
but he did invent one that did not burn out quickly.
In 1879 Edison held a New Year’s Eve party to
show off his invention.

Thomas Edison
gave this
drawing of his
light bulb to the
United States
Patent Office.
The Patent
Office protects
inventors from
people who
might try to steal
their ideas.

6

About three thousand people came to Edison’s
house and office in Menlo Park, New Jersey. They

looked at the electric lights that glowed all around
the property. The visitors were amazed. Edison told
them that such lights would replace smelly lanterns
and dangerous gas lamps in the years ahead.
In the late 1800s Edison supervised the
construction of an electric power plant in New York
City. Underground wires carried the electricity into
homes and offices. Factories could now stay open
all night.
Stringing wires long distances was expensive.
Because of this, homes in urban areas got
electricity first. Many homes in rural areas, which
were not as crowded as cities, had no electricity
until the 1940s.
Today it is hard to imagine living without
electricity. What would we do without radios and
movies? They were invented in the 1890s. What
if we had no traffic lights? They were invented
in 1914. Electricity is such an important part of
modern life that electric companies have had to
build power plants all across the nation.

7


Americans have been racing
automobiles since 1895. The
races helped interest people
in owning cars.

Changes in Transportation
During the 1800s the need to get goods
to market created important changes in
transportation. The steamboat and the canal boat
helped moved people and goods over water. New
roads helped link cities to towns and to each other.
In 1830 a New York inventor named Peter
Cooper built a steam locomotive called the Tom
Thumb. It carried more than two dozen passengers
at an average of ten miles an hour. By 1869 trains
traveled on railroads that crossed the nation from
New York to California.
The biggest change came with the invention
of automobile. The first cars ran on steam or
electric batteries, and the first car owners were
wealthy. That changed in 1908 when Henry Ford
built the Model T car. This new car was cheap,
sturdy, and easy to drive and fix. Millions of people
bought a Model T.

8

Airplanes changed travel too. In 1903 Orville
Wright was the first person to fly an airplane
powered by a motor. He flew it in Kitty Hawk,
North Carolina. The first flight lasted only twelve
seconds. Today’s jumbo jets can stay in the air for
fourteen hours without refueling.
These changes in transportation affected our
economy. Farmers grew more crops because

trains could carry their crops hundreds of miles
to markets. Motels were built because travelers
needed places to sleep. More cars and roads led
to new suburbs, shopping malls, and businesses.
New businesses hired pilots, truck drivers, road
builders, and millions of other workers.

9


Shrinking the World
From April 1860 to October 1861, some teenage
boys had a big job. They carried mail on horseback
between Missouri and California. Riding for the
Pony Express paid well—one hundred dollars a
month—but the job had no future. Once telegraph
wires were strung from the East Coast to the West
Coast, horses could not compete. Telegrams were
expensive to send, but no horse traveled faster
than the time it took a message to travel through
the wires.

The telegraph had been invented in 1837. Like
other means of communication, it made the world
seem smaller. It let people who were separated by
thousands of miles communicate easily.
In 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invented the
telephone. The telephone also sent messages
through wires. Now people who were far apart
could talk to each other directly.

Then in 1894 an Italian inventor sent Morse
code signals, or signals using short and long
sounds, over the air. His name was Guglielmo
Marconi. His wireless invention made radio
possible. The world’s first radio station, KDKA
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, broadcast its first
program in 1920.

Trains were faster
than horses,
and telegrams
were faster than
trains. Inventions
such as these
made the world
seem smaller.

10

11


The Internet and the Web
Tim Berners-Lee is one of the most important
inventors of the 1900s. Over a two-year period,
from 1989 to 1991, he created the World Wide
Web. The “Web” is a system that lets people
share the information kept in computers.
The Web and the Internet are not the same
thing. The Internet is a network, or connected

system, of electronic “highways.” The Web is like
a chain of electronic trucks. These trucks carry
words, sound, and pictures over that network.
Berners-Lee’s invention caught on fast, and the
Web opened up the Internet to everyone. Nearly a
million people used the Internet in 1991. At that
time almost all of them used it for e-mail, for which
the Web is not needed. But in 2003, thanks to the
Web, nearly six hundred million people went online.
Surfing the Web can be fun. However, students
who use it for help with research and homework
also know that it is an educational tool. The Web
lets people exchange information faster and more
easily than ever before.
Tim Berners-Lee
began work on
the World Wide
Web in 1989.

You can use the World Wide Web to find out about almost
anything—from how to make ice cream to who won the
1918 World Series.

13


3. Refrigerators
The first refrigerators entered kitchens in the
United States in 1916. By 1920 refrigerators were
in about twenty thousand homes. By 1936 two

million families owned a refrigerator.

4. Improvements in Medical Care
People in the United States born in 1900 could
expect to live an average of forty-nine years. Those
born in 2000 can expect to live an average of
seventy-seven years. Inventions in medical care
made most of the difference.

5. The Internet

Inventions Americans Value Most
Inventions can change people’s lives. In 1999
researchers asked Americans which inventions
they thought were the most important. Here are
the top five answers. The invention of each of
these items has a long history.

Experts call the world we live in today “The
Information Age.” The Internet, the home of the
World Wide Web, is one of the major reasons why.

1. Computers
The history of computers stretches back to an
Englishman named Charles Babbage (1791–1871).
In 1833 he drew plans for a machine to solve
math problems.

2. Television
Inventors of the 1900s

made food safer and
created new sources of
information and fun.

Television had many parts that were invented
separately. One part was invented as far back as
1913. By the 1950s televisions were very popular.
14

15


Many new machines and new ways of doing
things came about in the 1800s and 1900s.
The daily lives of people in the United States
and around the world changed forever at this
Glossary
time.
In this book you will read about the
communication
the way
thatthe
people
andin.
advances
that helped
create
worldsend
we live
receive information

hydropower power produced by capturing the
Vocabulary
energy of flowing
water
hydropower
invention a new machine or new way of doing
invention
something
urban
rural in small towns or
farms
rural by a steam engine
steamboat a boat powered
urban in the city steamboat

Write to It!
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is an
old saying. What problem or need do you have
for which an inventor might think up a device
or process? Describe your need or problem.
Suggest three solutions. Finally, explain why
one of your solutions might work better than
the others.
Write your ideas on a separate sheet of paper.

communication

Photographs
Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material. The publisher deeply
regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.
Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R) Background (Bkgd)
ISBN: 0-328-14850-4
Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected
by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited
reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding
permission(s), write to: Permissions Department, Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue,
Glenview, Illinois 60025.

16
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

Opener: ©Ewing Galloway/Camerique Inc., Int’l/Retrofile.com
3 ©North Wind Picture Archives
5 ©Getty Images
6 ©National Archives
9 ©Corbis
10 ©The Granger Collection, NY
12 ©Ed Quinn/Corbis
13 ©Mark Richards/PhotoEdit
14 ©Ewing Galloway/Camerique Inc., Int’l/Retrofile.com
15 ©Minnesota Historical Society/Corbis