page_title: Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890)
section_title: Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861–1877)
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890) / Civil War and the Reconstruction Era (1861–1877)
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing of 1868 Roper steam velocipede. Sometimes attributed to W.W. Austin. Page 52. Illustration by Hendee Manufacturing Co.
context_page_description: The United States provided many inventions in the time from the Colonial Period to the Gilded Age, which were achieved by inventors who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
  To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
  In 1641, the first patent in North America was issued to Samuel Winslow by the General Court of Massachusetts for a new method of making salt. On April 10, 1790, President George Washington signed the Patent Act of 1790 into law proclaiming that patents were to be authorized for "any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein not before known or used".
context_section_description: 1861 Jelly bean
  Jelly beans are a small bean-shaped type of confectionery with a hard candy shell and a gummy interior which come in a wide variety of flavors. The confection is primarily made of sugar. The Turkish Delight, a Middle Eastern candy made of soft jelly, covered in confectioner's powder, with roots dating to biblical days, was an early precursor to the jelly bean that inspired its gummy interior. However, it is generally thought that jelly beans first surfaced in 1861 when Boston confectioner and inventor William Schrafft urged people to send his jelly beans to soldiers during the American Civil War. It wasn't until July 5, 1905, that the mentioning of jelly beans was published in the Chicago Daily News. The advertisement publicized bulk jelly beans sold by volume for nine cents per pound, according to the book, "The Century in Food: America's Fads and Favorites". Today, most historians contend that in the United States, they were first linked with Easter in the 1930s.
  1861 Twist drill
  A twist drill is a bit with two cut grooves in opposite sides of a round bar, whereby the twisted bar produces a helical flute in order to drill holes in metal, plastic, or wood. The twist drill was invented by Stephen A. Morse in October 1861 and later patented on April 7, 1863.
  1861 Kinematoscope
  The kinematoscope is a device using the principles of stereoscopy in order to present the illusion of a motion picture. Viewed from inside a cabinet, the images with chronologically successive stages of action which were mounted on blades of a spinning paddle. The kinematoscope was invented by Coleman Sellers II of Philadelphia who received U.S. patent #31,357 on February 5, 1861.
  1861 Postcard
  A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of material, such as paper, leather or other materials, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. "Postal card" is the term used for a post card issued by a postal authority, generally with postage prepaid. The post card was invented by John P. Charlton of Philadelphia in 1861 for which he obtained the copyright later transferred to Hymen Lipman. The cards were adorned with a small border and labeled "Lipman's Postal Card, Patent Applied For". and later "Copy-right Secured 1861". They were on the market until 1873 when the first United States issued postcards appeared.
  1861 Machine gun (hand-cranked)
  The machine gun is typically considered to be a fully automatic firearm, usually designed to fire rifle cartridges in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine. The Gatling gun, invented and patented in 1861 by Richard Gatling during the American Civil War, was the earliest precursor to a machine gun in the sense that it had all of the underlying features of reliable loading as well as the ability to fire sustained multiple bursts of rounds, the only drawback being, it had to be manually operated and hand-cranked unlike its 1884 successor, the Maxim gun, which was indisputably the world's first true machine gun.
  1863 Breakfast cereal
  Breakfast cereal is a packaged food product intended to be consumed as part of a breakfast. The first breakfast cereal, Granula was invented in the United States in 1863 by James Caleb Jackson, operator of the Jackson Sanitorium in Dansville, New York. The cereal never became popular since it was inconvenient, as the heavy bran nuggets needed soaking overnight before they were tender enough to eat.
  1863 Ratchet wrench
  A socket wrench, more commonly referred to as a ratchet, is a type of wrench, or tightening tool, that uses separate, removable sockets to fit many different sizes of fittings and fasteners, most commonly nuts and bolts. The ratchet wrench was invented by J.J. Richardson of Woodstock, Vermont, receiving a patent for the ratchet wrench from the Scientific American Patent Agency on June 18, 1863.
  1863 Quad skates
  Quad skates are four-wheeled turning roller skates set in two side-by-side pairs. In 1863, James Leonard Plimpton of Medford, Massachusetts, invented the first four-wheeled roller skates arranged in two side-by-si
caption: An 1860s drawing of the Roper steam velocipede
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