John Bull and Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations
Inventions and Discoveries

In 1769 the Scotsman, James Watt (1736-1819), patented an improved version of the steam engine which ushered in the Industrial Revolution. Americans were quick to seek ways to apply Watt's invention to the needs of their country.

The idea of using steam power to propel boats occurred to American inventors soon after the potential of Watt's new engine became known. John Fitch (1743-1798) is generally conceded to have been the United States's pioneer in steam navigation. He successfully launched and operated a steam powered vessel on the Delaware River on August 22, 1787, in the presence of members of the Constitutional Convention. Here is one of Fitch's early sketches of a steam boat.

The famous iron arch bridge, spanning the Mississippi River at St. Louis, is often called the Eads Bridge in honor of James B. Eads (1820-1889), who designed it in 1867 and saw it through to completion in 1874. When challenged about the practicality of his design, Eads cited Telford's London bridge design of 1800.

Here is one of Benjamin Henry Latrobe's designs for the Washington Canal. Latrobe (1764-1820) learned the techniques of canal building in England from engineer, John Smeaton (1724-1792). After immigrating to the United States in 1796, Latrobe was involved in numerous canal building and water supply projects. He worked on the designs for the canal during the period that he was Surveyor of Public Buildings in Washington from 1803 to 1812.

George Stephenson's (1781-1848) construction, in the north of England, of his first locomotive was in 1814; his first successful run was in 1825. Shortly thereafter, Americans were building railroads in imitation of the British and made numerous innovations on British locomotives, such as Jervis' "bogie," a device that allowed the engine's front wheels to swivel and negotiate steep, winding tracks.

In 1825, British inventor William Sturgeon (1783-1850) exhibited a device that laid the foundations for large-scale electronic communications: the electromagnet. Sturgeon displayed its power by lifting nine pounds with a seven-ounce piece of iron wrapped with wires through which the current of a single cell battery was sent.

In 1830 an American, Joseph Henry (1797-1878), demonstrated the potential of Sturgeon's device for long distance communication by sending an electronic current over one mile of wire to activate an electromagnet which caused a bell to strike. Thus the electric telegraph was born. Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872), whose sketches of a "magnetized magnet" in operation are shown here, successfully exploited Henry's invention commercially.

On May 1, 1851, Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition of Works of Industry of All Nations in London's Hyde Park. The first world's fair, the exhibition brought together the best manufactured products of seventy-seven nations. The building in which it was held, nicked-named the "Crystal Palace," was itself a technological marvel of iron and glass devised by Joseph Paxton. More than six million people from many nations visited the exhibition during its five and a half-month run.

The American Pavilion, which featured large numbers of inventions and improvements in agricultural machinery, was at first criticized by the British press. However, certain products, including Colt's revolver, McCormick's reaper, and Day and Newell's patent lock changed British opinion and demonstrated the U.S. potential for becoming a leading industrial power. Rising in the pavilion's center was a trophy of vulcanized rubber by the Goodyear Rubber Company.

A striking example of the American propensity to imitate British models, the New York Exhibition of 1853 was inspired by and attempted to replicate the London event of two years earlier. It was housed in a building that aspired to copy in so far as possible the London Crystal Palace. Though advertised as an exhibition of "science, art, and industry," the New York Exhibition appeared to emphasize the arts to a greater degree than its London counterpart.

In this cartoon a post-mortem is being held on the Great Exhibition of London of 1851 between Britons, represented as John Bull, and Americans. The Yankees are boasting and the British are lamenting that American entries took the prizes in agricultural implements at the Exhibition (a McCormick reaper is at the far right). A Briton consoles himself that "these Americans are bone of our bone, and the origin of their genius is British."

The Atlantic cable, promoted by American entrepreneur, Cyrus Field (1819-1892), was a major Anglo-American enterprise that led to closer relations between Britain and the United States. Between 1857 and 1866 five expeditions attempted to span the Atlantic with a cable. A cable was successfully laid in 1858, but operated for only a month. Efforts were resumed after the American Civil War and in 1866 success was achieved; Field rejoiced that it was like "clasping hands across the sea."

Invented by Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), a Scottish immigrant to America, the telephone revolutionized communications throughout the United States, Britain, and the world. Here are Bell's notes of a conversation with his assistant, Thomas Watson, in October 1876 in which the two men express satisfaction with the improvements achieved in voice communication since Bell's initial success the preceding March. "It is the best I ever heard," Bell exultantly told Watson.

The typewriter was another product of American technological ingenuity that attained widespread use in Britain after the Civil War. Invented immediately after that conflict, the typewriter was converted into a commercial success by the Remington Company and by 1890 "the machine began to occupy an important place in the British commercial world." The paper in the typewriter seen in this advertisement contains a quotation from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

British technology, high and low, continued to flow into the United States after the Civil War, the water closet, i.e., the flush toilet, being but one example. Seen here is a variation of Thomas Crapper's (1837-1910)"Pull and Let Go" design for flush toilets, perfected in 1884.

In the mid 1850s the English inventor Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) patented a process for cheaply and rapidly converting pig iron into steel, thus further accelerating the Industrial Revolution. During the Civil War, an American, Alexander Lyman Holley (1832-1882), redesigned the Bessemer process, increasing its efficiency and laying the foundation for the swift growth of the American steel industry under the leadership of entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie.

This cartoon of Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) as the "Macmillion" in a kilt made of the American flag was drawn in 1901, after the Scottish immigrant to the United States had made his fortune in the steel industry, using the Bessemer process. Pictured here endowing four universities in his native Scotland, Carnegie was one of the great philanthropists of all time, creating in the United States a network of local, public libraries among his other benefactions.

The motion picture was another technology in which the United States achieved dominance in the British market during the course of the twentieth century. There were two decisive steps in the creation of the modern motion picture: the transition from the "peep show" to the projection of images over a distance, accomplished in the 1890s by Thomas A. Edison's (1847-1931) Vitascope; and the talking picture, introduced in the American movie the Jazz Singer in 1927.

In the twentieth century the United States achieved technological leadership in certain areas that rivaled British technological dominance early in the 19th century. One area in which the United States took the lead was manned flight. Here is Orville Wright's diary entry of December 17, 1903, describing the first successful manned flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville Wright (1871-1948) was at the controls of the flight, lying prone on the lower wing of the aircraft.

Orville Wright sent his first successful plane to the Science Museum in London after a disagreement with the administration of the Smithsonian Institution. The director of the Science Museum, J.B. Davy, during World War II, wrote to Orville Wright, assuring him that the plane was safe from German aerial bombardment. In 1948, at Wright's request, the plane was returned to the United States and put on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

Henry Ford (1863-1947) pioneered mass production, which revolutionized industrial output in the twentieth century. Ford brought his innovative methods to Britain, building cars at Manchester and later at Dagenham. Here are Model T Fords, on an assembly line in Detroit and an ad for British Fords, ca. 1916.

Skyscrapers are another distinctive American contribution to twentieth century technology that have become features of the British landscape. Seen here is a prospective study of the Beach Road Project in Singapore by the distinguished American architect, Paul Rudolph (1918-1997). Rudolph's pupils, including Sir Norman Foster (b. 1935) and Richard Rogers (b. 1933), have built prize-winning skyscrapers in Great Britain.

Following in the tradition of Babbage, the American Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) developed electronic "tabulating" machines which could process large amounts of data by a system of punching cards. Hollerith's machines proved themselves in expediting the compilation of census data in 1890 and 1900. Shown are instructions for the operation of Hollerith's machine, a punch card, and a key plate through which a punch perforated the cards. Hollerith later worked for IBM.

Immediately after World War II the United States began developing "super computers," machines capable of processing massive amounts of information at high speeds. Initially developed for military applications, these computers allowed the United States to establish technological dominance in this vital field. Here is a flow diagram, devised in 1950 by John von Neumann (1903-1957) for the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), one of the early American super computers.

The structure of the DNA molecule was one of the finest examples of cooperation between British and American scientists. American, James Watson (b. 1928) and Englishman, Francis Crick (b. 1916) and published their discovery in 1953, and received the Nobel Prize in 1962 for their achievement.