Tuesday, February 15, 2011

3 2 1

3 things I learned

1.The telegraph tranformed our communication system.

2. The Railroad revolutionized the was we got from one place to another.

3. James Watt gave us the means to virtually unlimited power.

2 things that interested me

1.learning about how the telegraph was developed

2.learning how inventions changed the way we think.

1 question I have

1. Will the technological revolution which we are all now experiencing be as big in the way we go about our lives as the industrial revolution?

Essential Question

What made this period so dramatic as to qualify it as a revolution? This period qualifies as a revolution because it drastically changed the sociopolitical views and lifestyle choices of people throughout the world. This was mainly caused by the migration of workers from rural areas to cities, but it also is partly due to the political movements such as that for womens suffrage.

Spotlight on Gold

The Great california goldrush of the 1950's was sparked by the American desire for risking it all to try and get somewhere in life. It would appear that even now that same desire has not left us. Americans today buy Gold in the hope taht it will make them rich, in the same ways their grandfathers fantacized over the precious yellow metal.

The transcontinental railroad

built by the central pacific railroad of california and the Union pacific railroad, the transcontinental railroad connected the United states and gave Americans a safe and fast mode of transportation from one coast to the other. Built between 1863 and 1869, the "overland route" as it was originally called was a technilogical marvel of its time that rivals the panama canal.

The American Civil War

The civil war was caused by the political and geographic seperation of the North and the South in the United States at the time. It cost more US lives than any other war in American history and is recognized for the end of Slavery in the US which it was responsible for.

Samuel Morse- the telegraph



The telegraph, and with it morse code, were extremely important inventions during the industrial revolution. For the first time in history, people could transmit information almost instantaneously across vast distances. His first long distance telegraph wire was strung between washington D.C. and blatimore Maryland. His first official message is the now famous "what hath God wrought"

James Watt- improved steam engine

Born in 1736, James Watt was drawn to steam engines, which were invented 30 or so years earlier but were extremely inefficient. When asked to repair one of these primitive engines, Watt observed that adding a condenser would greatly increase the efficiency. This breakthrough allowed, for the first time in history, for humans to work with thousands of times more power than a horse or a man could provide. It is this that made Watt's contribution so momentous.