Lesson 41: Steel Plow
The first kind of plow was the Scratch Plow it was good for dry soil but did not work for rich soil. The Heavy Plow was invented next during the Middle Ages. But then, settlers moving west, again encountered new soil.
John Deere was born in Vermont in 1804. His father was a tailor and he had a good education. After collage he became a blacksmith in 1825 at age 21. As a Blacksmith, Deere had lots of people come into his shop and from the customers he learned of the problem of hard to plow soil. He had an idea. Deere had watched his father making leather clothes and he noticed that polished needles slid through the leather easier than dull ones, the same for polished pitchforks. They slid through the soil easier. So he invented the Steel Plow in 1837.
The prairie soil was fertile. The soil stuck to the plows and made it hard to plow if every few minutes you had to stop and clean off the moldboard because the soil stuck to it. But John Deere’s polished steel plow slid through the sticky soil and it could not stick. The steel plow moldboard was different and self-cleaning.
Deere tested his plow at his neighbor’s farm and sales spread by word of mouth. He like many other inventors offered risk free guarantee, for example. If you were interested in buying the steel plow, then you could keep it for a trial period. If you liked the plow, you bought it, if not you returned it and you had lost nothing. It worked. He built a factory near a river and some railroads. And he competed with the harvester.
The Deere Company is still a major producer of farm equipment today and it made the west possible. Today the Midwest is the third biggest wheat producer in the world after China and India.
Lesson 42: Steam Shovel
The Egyptians and the Greeks used cranes to do work for them. The Romans did too. Mark.I.Brunel invented the tunneling shield in 1818 but most work was done by animals and human powered construction in the early 19th century.
William Smith Otis was born in Pelham Massachusetts in 1813. He loved mechanical inventions and invented the steam shovel in 1835 at age 22.
The steam shovel is a steam powered dirt moving bucket moved by pistons. Holes were dug faster, deeper and easier.
Otis died four years later in 1839 after receiving his patent. He had gotten typhoid fever and died at age 26. After his death his patent passed to his relatives and the railroad drove demand for the shovel. It was improved and sales spread more rapidly after its patent expired. It made taller buildings and was used in the Panama Canal.
The Panama Canal boosted shipping. And the shovel helped build roads. Some even dug the Empire State Building’s foundation.
Lesson 43: Postage Stamp
The postal service had problems. The recipient paid for the mail and the mail was subjected to spying. Something needed to change.
Rowland Hill was born in England in 1795. His family had important and influential friends. He worked for the government and was a painter. Story goes that he watched a woman who was too poor to receive a letter from her fiancé. So he invented the postal stamp in 1838.
The postal stamp is a piece of paper with adhesive backing that says: the postage has been paid for. The sender paid for the sending and costs were based on weight not distance. They had illustrations on them and the stamped postmark said the stamp had been used.
There were postage reforms in 1839 and Hill worked with Charles Babbage. Support from businesses grew, and price for sending fell.
The stamp came to America in 1847 and two stamps were made, one of George Washington which was 10 cents, and one of Benjamin Franklin which cost 5 cents. It spurred westward expansion and commerce expanded as communication prices fell.
Lesson 44: Vulcanized Rubber
Rubber comes from trees. Aztecs and Mayans used rubber to make boats and other stuff water proof. It was used in pencils as erasers in the1700s and it spread from England.
Charles Goodyear was born in Connecticut in 1800. His father manufactured buttons and farm equipment. He grew up learning how to build things using tools. He got married and opened a hardware store. He improved a rubber life preserver and was determined to fix the rubber problem. He invented vulcanized rubber in 1839.
One day when he was showing off the rubber to some people the rubber flew out of his hands because he was so excited. The rubber landed on a nearby hot oven. When he had picked it up he noticed that where the rubber was burned it was hard but still elastic.
Vulcanization eliminates stickiness and is weather proof. First you mix rubber than sulfur than you heat it up. It is no longer brittle but durable.
He started a factory to produce rubber products and he died in 1860. The Goodyear Company was formed in 1898 named after yep; you guessed it, Charles Goodyear. The company’s slogan is: Goodyear Get There.
This week, vulcanized rubber was the most interesting thing I learned about along with the steel plow. The reason is that I have always been familiar with the John Deere merchandise but I never knew what it was, that story behind it. And because I never stopped to think of how people made rubber, or what made it durable.
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