U.S. Technology: History

Introduction

The history of technology in America dates back before the first pilgrims landed. Native Americans used technology and, indeed, there were pilgrims who adopted their technologies.

Once the first settlers arrived here they developed technologies to help them cope with the new land on which they were living. Artisan technologies were used widely all through the Colonies and continued long after the Revolution, but technology did not change a lot until the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution saw many changes in technology, not just in the United States, but in Europe and Canada as well. With the Industrial Revolution came the steam engine and Eli's cotton gin, as well as a number of factories.

The Industrial Revolution ushered in the Transportation Revolution. This revolution generated growth in the building of canals, the use of steamships, and the beginning of the railroads. After the railroads came the bicycle, and then the automobile and the airplane.

Inventors are also an important part of our technological history. For what would the world be like without Henry Ford's cars and his mass production techniques? Farnsworth, Zworykin, and RCA's television sets? The inventions of Marconi, Alexander Graham Bell, Edison? The list goes on and on. All the way to the communication technologies that make our life so convenient today.

This course will take a look at all of these technologies and the inventors behind many of them. It will seek to gain an insight into just how they changed our country, our society as a whole, and the very way that we live our day-to-day lives.

The course will start out by looking at what technologies Native Americans were using when the first pilgrims came to America. It will look at the economy of colonial times, the artisans that practiced at this time, and how their technologies effected early life in America.

The course will move on past the Revolutionary War, into the Industrial Revolution, and then into the Transportation Revolution. It will look at how these revolutions led to the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex, and how that led to the Communications Revolution in which we are living today.

It is my hope that this course and the required text "A Social History of American Technology" by Ruth Schwartz Cowan will help the student gain a strong feel and appreciation for what it took to make the United States the technological giant that it is today, and what that means to our society as a whole.

Lessons

Click here to see course syllabus