They made America
By: Harold Evans, with Gail Buckland and David Lefer.
Contributors: Buckland, Gail.; Lefer, David.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2004
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 498
Subjects: Inventors -- United States -- History; Inventions -- United States -- History
Description: "The flourishing of America is the story of an inventive people with a mystic faith in technology, from the early settlers who used windmills as a way of getting water on the Great Plains to the electronic whiz kids of the Internet. Innovation, practical inventiveness, is the main force behind America's preeminence. But there is more to this extraordinary history. Harold Evans traces how the innovators have time and again proved to be democratizers, driven not by greed but by an ambition to be remembered. They translated the nation's political ideals into economic reality."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 473-481) and index.
Table of contents: title: America's genius for innovation; title: pt. I. Pathfinders to a new civilization; title: The heroes who got America going; title: John Fitch : first steamboat; title: Robert Fulton : successful steamboat services; title: Oliver Evans : high-pressure steam engine; title: Henry Miller Shreve : freed the waterways; title: The steamboat war : liberating business; title: Eli Whitney : the cotton gin to the machine age; title: Samuel Slater : dressing America; title: Francis Cabot Lowell : the Lowell girls; title: Sam Colt : a mass market; title: Samuel Finley Breese Morse : the telegraph; title: Cyrus McCormick : American big business; title: Isaac Merritt Singer : first successful American multinational; title: Charles Goodyear : vulcanized rubber; title: Albert Augustus Pope : democracy on wheels; title: Edwin Drake : drilling for oil; title: Levi Strauss : blue jeans; title: Elisha Otis : the safety elevator; title: Lewis Tappan : credit rating; title: Theodore Dehone Judah : transcontinental railway; title: The big four : Collis Potter Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins; title: pt. II. America takes off; title: Adventurous men unite a continent; title: section I: Inventors; title: Thomas Alva Edison : science of innovation; title: Leo Hendrik Baekeland : plastic; title: Wilbur and Orville Wright : wings; title: Garrett Augustus Morgan : gas mask; title: Edwin Howard Armstrong : modern radio; title: Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, Lee de Forest, Michael Pupin; title: section II: Democratizers; title: Henry Ford : the people's car; title: Ford's loneliest hour : George Selden's patent; title: George Eastman : the Kodak; title: Sarah Breedlove Walker : self-made American businesswoman; title: Amadeo Peter Giannini : the people's banker; title: Martha Matilda Harper : retail franchise network; title: Raymond "Pappy" Ingram Smith : chance; title: Juan Terry Trippe : jet age; title: Donald Calvin Burr : the People Express pioneer; title: General Georges Doriot : venture capital; title: section III: Empire builders; title: Ida Rosenthal : Maidenform Bra tycoon; title: The blow against the corset : Caresse Crosby; title: Samuel Insull : cheap electricity for all; title: Philo T. Farnsworth : television; title: Walt Disney : entertainment empire; title: Jean Nidetch : Weight Watchers clubs; title: Thomas Watson : IBM; title: Herman Hollerith, John Patterson; title: Thomas Watson Jr. : mainframe computers; title: Ken Olsen : minicomputers; title: Estee Lauder : cosmetics company; title: Malcom McLean : containers, luxury travel; title: Jim Sherwood; title: Edwin Land : Polaroid; title: Ruth Handler : Barbie; title: pt. III. The digital age; title: The electronic elves of Silicon Valley; title: Gary Kildall : PC software; title: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs; title: Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson : biotech industry; title: Ted Turner : CCN, 24-hour electronic news; title: Joan Ganz Cooney : Sesame Street; title: Raymond Damadian : MRI scanner; title: Russell Simmons : marketing maestro of hip-hop; title: Pierre Omidyar : eBay; title: Larry Page and Sergey Brin : Google; title: Ten lessons; title: Innovators gallery.