America the ingenious
Subtitle: how a nation of dreamers, immigrants, and tinkerers changed the world
By: Kevin Baker ; illustrations by Chris Dent
Contributors: Dent, Chris, illustrator
Publisher: Artisan
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9781579656942
Subjects: Inventions; Popular works; Inventors
Description: "All made in America: the skyscraper and subway car. The telephone and telegraph. The safety elevator and safety pin. Plus the microprocessor, amusement park, MRI, supermarket. Pennsylvania rifle, and Tennessee Valley Authority. Not to mention the city of Chicago or jazz or that magnificent Golden Gate Bridge. What is it about America that makes it a nation of inventors, tinkerers, researchers, and adventurers--obsessive pursuers of the never-before-created? And, equally, what is it that makes America such a fertile place to explore, discover, and launch the next big thing? In America the Ingenious, bestselling author Kevin Baker brings his gift of storytelling and eye for historical detail to the grand, and grandly entertaining, tale of American innovation. Here are the Edisons and Bells and Carnegies, and the stories of how they followed their passions and changed our world. And also the less celebrated, like Jacob Youphes and Loeb Strauss, two Jewish immigrants from Germany who transformed the way at least half the world now dresses (hint: Levi Strauss). And Leo Fender, who couldn't play a note of music, midwifing rock 'n' roll through his solid-body electric guitar and amplifier. And the many women who weren't legally recognized as inventors, but who created things to make their lives easier that we use every day--like Josephine Cochran, inventor of the dishwasher, or Marion O'Brien Donovan, who invented a waterproof diaper cover. Or a guy with the improbable name of Philo Farnsworth, who, with his invention of television, upended communication as significantly as Gutenberg did. At a time when America struggles with different visions of what it wants to be, America the Ingenious shows the extraordinary power of what works: how immigration leads to innovation, what a strong government and strong public education mean to a climate of positive practical change, and why taking the long view instead of looking for short-term gain pays off many times over, not only for investors and inventors, but for the rest of us whose lives are made better by the new. America and its nation of immigrants have excelled at taking ideas from anywhere and transforming them into the startling, often unexpectedly beautiful creations that have shaped our world. This is that story." --
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-257) and index.
Table of contents: title: Roaming. Rolling across a continent : the prairie schooner ; Inventing a city : New York; title: the Erie Canal ; The original "skyscrapers" : the Yankee clipper ; "A man, a plan..." : the Panama Canal ; The electric underground : building the New York subway ; Dream car : the Lincoln Zephyr ; A plane for the ages : the transcontinental plane ; On the waterfront : the container ship ; "Fly me to the moon" : Apollo 11 and the space race ; How will we travel in the future? : from the space elevator to the hoverboard; title: Trains. "The golden vein" : the transcontinental railroad ; "Like two gargantuan tumblers" : the Hudson and East River tunnels ; The new cathedrals : America's train stations ; The trains they paid to see : streamlined trains; title: Communicating. No need to stop it : the rotary printing press ; What Morse wrought : the electric telegraph ; "Faster" : the transatlantic cable ; Watson was wanted : the telephone ; The sound of America singing : magnetic tape recording; title: Computing. "A computer on a chip" : the microprocessor ; Unimate : the first industrial robot ; A factory at your fingertips : 3-D printing ; The evolved human : the cyborg; title: Apparel. Ouch! : the safety pin ; "The song of the shirt" : the sewing machine wars ; Fitting a pattern : Madame Demorest's fashion sense ; "Bell-bottom blues" ; copper-riveted jeans ; Embracing the curves : liberated by the bra ; It's not dry : dry cleaning ; Sneaking around : the athletic shoe; title: Women inventors. Women reinvent housework : the dishwasher and the diaper cover ; "The lady Edisons" : from liquid paper to Kevlar; title: Building. "All safe, ladies and gentlemen, all safe" : Mr. Otis's safety elevator ; Building the spine of the modern world : Carnegie's steel mills ; Building backward : steel-frame construction ; The great indoors : cooling the air ; Suspended in the clouds : the Golden Gate Bridge ; Utility as beauty : the River Rouge ; "Architects may come and architects may go ..." : Fallingwater ; Inventing a city : Chicago; title: building the Big Onion from scratch; title: Powering. Power plant at sea : the whaling ship ; Black gold : the oil rig ; Wizard's work : the electric light ; Taming the Colorado : the Hoover Dam ; Power to the people : the Tennessee Valley Authority ; The warm power of the sun : the solar cell; title: Fighting. Winning the revolution : the Pennsylvania rifle ; Mobile warfare : the repeating rifle ; Firepower : the Gatling gun; title: Curing. Transfusions help win the war : blood plasma ; It started with Frankenstein : the artificial pacemaker ; Mapping the body : the MRI ; Man to Cheetah : the modern prosthesis ; Heal thyself : gene therapy; title: Producing. Mr. Whitney's machine : the cotton gin ; Breadbasket to the world : mechanized farming ; The American way of shopping : the supermarket ; Inventing a city : L.A.; title: Southern California aqueduct; title: Playing. "His master's voice" : the phonograph ; America's music : jazz ; A cry in the American night : blues ; Fender benders : the electric guitar ; Manufactured fun : the amusement park ; "Take me out to the ball game" : the Polo Grounds ; Wonders and atmospherics : the movie palaces ; It's older than you think : television ; From Pong to Xbox : the video game ; Fooling the mind : the virtual environment; title: Inventing a nation : America.