Story :
lOn a warm August day in 1807 a large crowd of people lined the banks of the Hudson River not far from where I am now speaking. They had been told they would see the first trip of a boat without sails. And the skeptics, as usual, were there laughing at the strange looking craft, and ridiculing the idea it could move without sails or oars.
But presently smoke began to pour from the stack and the catcalls and ridicule changed to cheers as the weird looking boat moved slowly up the river. Robert Fulton, that day, successfully accomplished something that Fate rarely permits an inventor to do - he proved his idea was practical and at the same time opened up a large part of America to pioneers and settlers.
Robert Fulton did not begin his career as an inventor; very few men ever do. Although in his youth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania he exhibited considerable mechanical ingenuity, his ambition was to become an artist like another Pennsylvanian, Benjamin West. West was the great American painter who later became president of the Royal Academy of England. So, at seventeen, Fulton went to Philadelphia to study painting. Benjamin Franklin helped him and very soon he earned a reputation as a painter of portraits and landscapes. He could also make excellent drawings of machinery, bridges and buildings.
When he was twenty-one his doctor advised him to go abroad for his health so he took this opportunity to join his old friend Benjamin West in England. As a protegé of West's, he soon had more requests for portraits and landscapes than he could paint. But as time went on he found himself drifting more and more into mechanical projects. He designed a mill or sawing marble, a flax spinning machine and a canal dredger.
Fulton disliked war and he had the unique idea that the way to end wars would be to destroy all warships in existence, and do it as quickly as possible. So he designed a torpedo and later built the submarine Nautilus, adapting some of the ideas, no doubt, of a contemporary, David Bushnell. While in France in connection with the submarine he made the acquaintance of Robert Livingston, then United States minister to France.
Livingston, with his brother-in-law, Colonel Stevens, and Nicholas Roosevelt had built several unsuccessful steamboats in America, yet they were still enthusiastic about the possibilities of steam navigation. Livingston and Fulton became close friends and in 1804 built a steamboat model - but the engine was so heavy that it quickly sank to the bottom of the River Seine. It was later raised and after many changes it worked fairly well, but above all, it convinced the two men that a successful full scale steamboat could be made.
Now they turned their attention to their native land, America, because it was there that the real need for such a means of transportation existed. This was the America after the Revolution - a land of restless people, people who saw millions of acres of virgin soil to the west - separated from markets only by poor transportation. All they had were narrow mountain trails and rivers which could be navigated only down-stream by rowboats and barges. Fulton and Livingston could visualize hundreds of steamboats transporting thousands of people and tons of goods and produce up as well as down those waterways. Livingston would supply the finances - Fulton the ingenuity - an excellent, and very necessary combination.
Fulton did not invent the Clermont as a flash of genius. In fact, the steamboat, like the automobile, was not a single invention but a combination of many. These ideas did not occur all at once - they were the result of experience and evolution. Many men made essential contributions. One group, including Newcomen and Watt, had evolved the steam engine. Another group made up of Symington, Rumsey, Fitch, Stevens and Robert Fulton contributed the ideas for harnessing the steam engine to the boat.
Fulton had a combination that those who preceded him did not possess. He had excellent mechanical ability and, being an artist, he was able to clearly draw all the structural details. He also had the financial backing of Livingston and then there was the crying need of the times for just such a means of transportation. In addition to all this, Fulton possessed the ability to coordinate all of these factors in such a practical way that people could easily see their great value and willingly supplied means for their development.
The skill of Fulton and the confidence of Livingston are some of the reasons why on that August day in 1807 the ridicule turned to cheers when the Clermont steamed up the Hudson. And the thousands of inventors and their financial backers that followed are some of the reasons why the original thirteen states became forty-eight, and why our nation became one of the richest and most powerful in the world.
But presently smoke began to pour from the stack and the catcalls and ridicule changed to cheers as the weird looking boat moved slowly up the river. Robert Fulton, that day, successfully accomplished something that Fate rarely permits an inventor to do - he proved his idea was practical and at the same time opened up a large part of America to pioneers and settlers.Robert Fulton did not begin his career as an inventor; very few men ever do. Although in his youth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania he exhibited considerable mechanical ingenuity, his ambition was to become an artist like another Pennsylvanian, Benjamin West. West was the great American painter who later became president of the Royal Academy of England. So, at seventeen, Fulton went to Philadelphia to study painting. Benjamin Franklin helped him and very soon he earned a reputation as a painter of portraits and landscapes. He could also make excellent drawings of machinery, bridges and buildings.
When he was twenty-one his doctor advised him to go abroad for his health so he took this opportunity to join his old friend Benjamin West in England. As a protegé of West's, he soon had more requests for portraits and landscapes than he could paint. But as time went on he found himself drifting more and more into mechanical projects. He designed a mill or sawing marble, a flax spinning machine and a canal dredger.
Fulton disliked war and he had the unique idea that the way to end wars would be to destroy all warships in existence, and do it as quickly as possible. So he designed a torpedo and later built the submarine Nautilus, adapting some of the ideas, no doubt, of a contemporary, David Bushnell. While in France in connection with the submarine he made the acquaintance of Robert Livingston, then United States minister to France.Livingston, with his brother-in-law, Colonel Stevens, and Nicholas Roosevelt had built several unsuccessful steamboats in America, yet they were still enthusiastic about the possibilities of steam navigation. Livingston and Fulton became close friends and in 1804 built a steamboat model - but the engine was so heavy that it quickly sank to the bottom of the River Seine. It was later raised and after many changes it worked fairly well, but above all, it convinced the two men that a successful full scale steamboat could be made.
Now they turned their attention to their native land, America, because it was there that the real need for such a means of transportation existed. This was the America after the Revolution - a land of restless people, people who saw millions of acres of virgin soil to the west - separated from markets only by poor transportation. All they had were narrow mountain trails and rivers which could be navigated only down-stream by rowboats and barges. Fulton and Livingston could visualize hundreds of steamboats transporting thousands of people and tons of goods and produce up as well as down those waterways. Livingston would supply the finances - Fulton the ingenuity - an excellent, and very necessary combination.Fulton did not invent the Clermont as a flash of genius. In fact, the steamboat, like the automobile, was not a single invention but a combination of many. These ideas did not occur all at once - they were the result of experience and evolution. Many men made essential contributions. One group, including Newcomen and Watt, had evolved the steam engine. Another group made up of Symington, Rumsey, Fitch, Stevens and Robert Fulton contributed the ideas for harnessing the steam engine to the boat.
Fulton had a combination that those who preceded him did not possess. He had excellent mechanical ability and, being an artist, he was able to clearly draw all the structural details. He also had the financial backing of Livingston and then there was the crying need of the times for just such a means of transportation. In addition to all this, Fulton possessed the ability to coordinate all of these factors in such a practical way that people could easily see their great value and willingly supplied means for their development.
The skill of Fulton and the confidence of Livingston are some of the reasons why on that August day in 1807 the ridicule turned to cheers when the Clermont steamed up the Hudson. And the thousands of inventors and their financial backers that followed are some of the reasons why the original thirteen states became forty-eight, and why our nation became one of the richest and most powerful in the world. 
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