Public-domain ebook
Language: en1,104 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: United States·Children's History·History - American
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #2900.
The Age of Invention is a concise survey of American ingenuity, deliberately limited to sketches of notable inventors rather than exhaustive technical manuals. Its opening pages explain that the author, Holland Thompson, intends only to “outline the personalities of some of the outstanding American inventors and indicate the significance of their achievements,” focusing on the human side of progress. The book begins with a detailed portrait of Benjamin Franklin, tracing his modest Boston upbringing, apprenticeship in printing, and the myriad experiments that led to his famous kite‑flight and the Franklin stove. By anchoring the narrative in Franklin’s life, the volume sets the tone for a series of similarly compact biographies that span from Eli Whitney’s cotton gin to the pioneers of electricity and aviation, each chapter promising a blend of biographical anecdote and contextual commentary.
Written in the scholarly yet readable style of early‑20th‑century academic publishing, the work reflects the careful editing of Yale University Press and the collaborative assistance of its staff, as noted in the dedication. Its prose is formal but accessible, offering enough narrative flair to engage readers interested in the social and personal dimensions of invention. Historians of technology, students of American cultural history, and general readers who enjoy portraiture of great figures will find the book’s focused approach and period‑appropriate voice appealing.
The opening · free to read
This volume is not intended to be a complete record of inventive genius and mechanical progress in the United States. A bare catalogue of notable American inventions in the nineteenth century alone could not be compressed into these pages. Nor is it any part of the purpose of this book to trespass on the ground of the many mechanical works and encyclopedias which give technical descriptions and explain in detail the principle of every invention. All this book seeks to do is to outline the personalities of some of the outstanding American inventors and indicate the significance of their achievements.
Acknowledgments are due the Editor of the Series and to members of the staff of the Yale University Press particularly, Miss Constance Lindsay Skinner, Mr. Arthur Edwin Krows, and Miss Frances Hart--without whose intelligent assistance the book could not have been completed in time to take its place in the Series.
H. T.
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