Reference
- Robert Fulton: Credo Reference(born Nov. 14, 1765, Lancaster county, Pa., U.S.—died Feb. 24, 1815, New York, N.Y.) U.S. inventor and engineer. Born to Irish immigrant parents, he studied painting with Benjamin West in London but soon turned to engineering. After designing a system of inland waterways, he tried unsuccessfully to interest the French and British governments in his prototypes of submarines (see Nautilus) and torpedoes. In 1801 he was commissioned by Robert R. Livingston to build a steamboat, and in 1807 Fulton’s Clermont made the 150-mi (240-km) journey up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in 32 hours, cutting 64 hours off the usual sailing time. It became the first commercially successful steamboat in the U.S. He later designed several other steamboats, including the world’s first steam warship (1812). He was a member of the commission that recommended building the Erie Canal.
Streaming Media
- Invention of the SteamboatAuthor and economist John Steele Gordon discusses Robert Fulton's steamboat, and the monopoly that he and his partner have on steam-powered navigation.
- Robert Fulton's SteamboatArtist Robert Fulton turned to science and invention to make a living. His steamboat design revolutionized travel on the Hudson River and played significant roles in the development of New York City and in America's growing economy.
- Robert Fulton and Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson and Robert Fulton were friends who shared many common interests and corresponded about inventions and projects, like the Eerie Canal.
Perspectives
The Fire of His Genius
None of the spectators who gathered on the Hudson River shore on August 17, 1808, could have known the importance of the object they had come to see and, mostly, deride: Robert Fulton's new steamboat. But as Kirkpatrick Sale shows in this remarkable biography, Fulton's "large, noisy, showy, fast, brash, exciting, powerful, and audacious" machine would -- for better or worse -- irrevocably transform nineteenth-century America. Set against a brilliant portrait of a dynamic period in history, The Fire of His Genius tells the story of the fiercely driven man whose invention opened up America's interior to waves of settlers, created and sustained industrial and plantation economies in the nation's heartland, and facilitated the destruction of the remaining Indian civilizations. Probing Fulton's genius but also laying bare the darker side of the man -- and the darker side of the American dream -- Kirkpatrick Sale tells an extraordinary tale with deftness, zest, and unflagging verve.
Robert Fulton and the Submarine
That Robert Fulton devoted some attention to the possibility of an underwater boat during the years when his mind was laboring with plans for the propulsion of boats by steam, has been known since that time. Not, however, until 1896, did it become clear to what extent he had carried his ideas. In that year Lieut. Emile Duboc discovered in the Archives Nationales in Paris the full account of Fulton’s negotiations with the French Government and the plans of the boat that he had constructed, and in which he actually plunged. Other investigators, chiefly Lieut. Maurice Delpeuch of the French navy and Mr. S. L. Pesce, have made public this interesting record. To their respective treatises, “Les Sous-Marines à travers les Siècles” and “La Navigation sous marine” the author of this book is indebted for much information.
Online Resources
- Robert Fulton's TorpedoesCutcliffe and Fabbri feature Robert Fulton, usually remembered as the American inventor of the steamboat and designer of other technical systems, such as a canal system that used inclined planes instead of locks to raise and lower canal boats, and an early submarine that he originally called a plunging boat. A dedicated innovator, Fulton hoped to make his fortune by offering his torpedo system to the highest bidder, and he tried in earnest to sell it to at least three national government--the French, the British, and the US. Furthermore, he considered his torpedo system more important than the steamboat, but history proved otherwise.