Calisphere: University of California Libraries
University of California: Calisphere: 1900 1940s: The Rise of Technology
Primary source photographs depicting new technologies and communications at the turn of the 20th century and how lives changed as a result.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: America in Class: Becoming Modern: America in the 1920s: Machine
Primary resource material on the way innovatons and machines have modernized and changed America in the 1920s and beyond.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: America in Class: The Airplane as a Symbol of Modernism
Through art and text, lesson explores Modernism through the airplane as a symbol in the 1920s. Content includes questions for analysis and discussion, follow-up, and guide for discussing art.
OpenStax
Open Stax: Industrialization and Big Business, 1870 1900: Inventors of the Age
In the Industrial Revolution, new products and inventions spurred the growth of big business. Learn about some of these inventions and the people who created them, for example, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison.
Other
Time Toast: Famous Inventions
An interactive timeline featuring inventions discovered between the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.
National Women’s History Museum
National Women's History Museum: Inventive Women Part 1
Students will learn about female inventors and their contributions to American technology.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: Inventions and Resource Development
Outline of the burgeoning inventions and discoveries that characterized a second industrial revolution in the U.S. during the later half of the 19th Century.
Vassar College
1896: Inventions
A brief recounting of the influx of inventions in the late 19th century that flooded the market. Of particular interest is the description of the use of hot air balloons.
University of Houston
University of Houston: Engines of Our Ingenuity: No. 695: John Ericsson
A biography of John Ericsson, a man who invented in three countries over most of a century. He invented an early locomotive, a hot-air engine, screw propeller, and the Monitor, which was used in the Civil War. This is a transcript of an...
US National Archives
Nara: Teaching With Documents: Telephone and Light Patent Drawings
A lesson plan about Alexander Graham Bell's patent for the telephone and Thomas Edison's patent for the electric lamp. Contains good background information and historically pertinent documents. It also discusses the role corporations...
Have Fun With History
Have Fun With History: Science and Invention
Module with links to resources and videos on science, inventions and technology of the 19th and 20th Centuries that changed the course of American history.
Have Fun With History
Have Fun With History: Retro Future
Have fun with history videos from the past which explored technologies and innovations of the future that is now, some relevant and others not, teaches students about the dreams of the past.
PBS
Pbs: Who Made America?: Innovators: Elmer Sperry
A prolific inventor and businessman, Sperry engineered a gyrocompass that made piloting ships, airplanes, and even spacecraft more reliable. He formed eight different companies to produce his inventions, some still in use today.
PBS
Pbs Who Made America? Elisha Otis
A ceaseless tinkerer created the first safe elevator, then died before he could see it revolutionize architecture, cities, and the way we live.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Gilder Lehrman Institute: History Now: Technology of the 1800s
[Free Registration/Login Required] Article considers the inventions and innovations in communication, transportation, and manufacturing that drove America forward in the nineteenth century. Includes a link to an interactive history of...
PBS
Pbs: American Experience: Forgotten Inventors
Here is an accounting of a few inventions, most of which were invented in the 1800s, that often are overlooked. Find out about how the can opener was invented as well as that clothing staple, the denim jeans.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Electric Range 1892
From the Stone Age to today, the search is constantly underway for better, more efficient ways to cook food. Reflecting many of the advances in science and technology, the electric range has become a popular choice for homes and businesses.
Science Struck
Science Struck: Significant Inventions of the Industrial Revolution
This resource presents a long list of important inventions during the First Industrial Revolutions, organized consecutively from 1701-1839. Includes short descriptions and images. This is followed by a table listing inventions from the...
National Inventors Hall of Fame
National Inventors Hall of Fame: Elisha Graves Otis
Brief article about Otis, the developer of the electric elevator brake which made skyscraper construction so practical.
PBS
Pbs Nova: The Other Elevator Inventor
Explore the early world of elevator technology. You will find out that there were actually two people with the name of Otis involved in the invention of the elevator: Elisha Otis and Otis Tufts. The practical technology won out. Click on...
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: American Inventors
Students will learn about 8 American inventors from the 1800's. They will use the internet of encyclopedia disc to research and print pictures and information about these people.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1865 1898: Technological Innovation
A quick comprehension check of technological innovation in the Gilded Age.
Louisiana Department of Education
Louisiana Doe: Louisiana Believes: Social Studies: Grade 4: Inventions and the Great Plains
Read and study the sources about inventions from the late 1800s. As you read the three sources, think about the effects that the inventions had on the American economy.