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Or, how Fulton's n launched our modern world. By Frank Wicks

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Robert Fulton's abilities as engineer and as artist come together in the diagrams he drew for his 1809 patent application. Fulton, a celebrated figure in his own time, was honored at the age of 200 by a U.S. postage stamp in 1965. : THIS YEAR MARKS the bi­ traveled to London in 1787 to be mentored by Benjamin ~ centennial of one of the West, an American-born painter who had become the ~ world's great technological official historical artist for the court of King George Ill. 3breakthroughs-the first In London, Fulton received notice as an artist and . ~ commercially successful demonstrated an inventive genius. He made a better mar­ Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/129/10/44/6383540/me-2007-oct6.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 - ~ r r r ~ ~ r~,.. ~ r - ~ r "" r - r r" steamboat. It departed from ble-cutting machine. He followed by devising better on Aug. 17, 1807, for a 150-mile journey up ways to build and locks that were proliferating the river to Albany, N.Y. With a speed of 5 mph, it ar­ throughout and Europe. rived the next day. It wasn't fast by today's standards, but Fulton also saw an opportunity to invent weapons. remember that the same voyage in 1609 had taken Hen­ David Bushnell had built a one-man called ry Hudson weeks to make in his sailing ship Half Moon. the during the American Revolution. It failed in The steamboat has been described as America's first an attempt to sink a British ship in New York harbor. great invention. The river steamboat helped shape the Fulton thought he could do better. He built a submarine United States and the world we live in. called the Nautilus to deliver explosives he called torpe­ . and engines came to define many disci­ does. He first tried to sell it to the British to sink French plines of mechanical engineering, and ultimately led to ships, and was in trying to sell the submarine to mechanical engineering education and the formation of to sink British ships when he met Livingston. the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. After Before leaving the United States, Livingston had ob­ two centuries of service, the created its tained monopoly rights to use steamboats on the Hudson own obsolescence as it provided the springboard tech­ River. Even more important would be the Mississippi nologies for internal combustion engines, turbo machin­ River, which Livingston was essentially in Paris to buy. ery, and electric power. Livingston was in the visionary position of having pro­ For several decades, various attempts had been made at cured monopoly rights before he had a practical steam­ powering boats with steam. Some had been technical boat. He believed Fulton's skills in designing the subma­ successes but commercial failures. Fulton's steamboat was rine could be well applied to a fundamentally simpler a dramatic success. Scheduled passenger and transport surface vessel. immediately followed the first voyage. It was named the The best engine for propulsion had been manufactured Clermont, for the huge estate of for 20 years in Britain by the partnership of Matthew Fulton's partner, Robert Livingston, who had funded Boulton and . Capable of 24 horsepower, it the project. was powering the in British facto­ The commercial success, as so often is the case, was due ries. It was a modification of the engine that Thomas to a remarkable convergence of the right partners with Newcomen had developed a century earlier to pump the right technology at the right place and time. water out of a coal mine. It was reasonably safe because Livingston was born in 1746 into an extended family of the high-pressure side was about atmospheric pressure of land owners that included the Schuylers and Van Rens­ 15 psi. The low-pressure side was a vacuum produced by selaers, who dominated commerce and government. He removing air and condensing steam .. had served on the drafting committee for the Declara­ Watt had dramatically improved the efficiency of the tion of Independence and had been the Chancellor of N ewcomen engine by making the condensing chamber the New York court system during the days of the Con­ separate from the cylinder. Boulton had developed better tinental Congress. In 1789, he administered the oath of tools for making it. Britain had placed an embargo upon office at 's inauguration. selling this important technology to the United States, and In 1803, sent Livingston to , it was through the intervention of future president James where he negotiated with Napoleon for the Monroe, who was serving as the Minister to Britain, that Purchase. At $15 million, it has been called the greatest Fulton arranged to have one sent to New York. real estate deal in history. It was during this mission that When Fulton returned to the States in 1807, the engine Livingston met Robert Fulton. was waiting in a warehouse, but the steamboat was not Fulton had been born in 1765 on a small farm in Lan­ his priority. President Jefferson was worried about anoth­ caster County, Pa., where he learned practical mechanics. er war with Britain. Fulton persuaded Jefferson that it He became a silversmith in during the years Frank Wicks. a frequent contributor to this magazine. is a mechanical of the Revolution. He also displayed talent as an artist, engineering professor at Union College in Schenectady. N.Y. He is also a and caught the attention ofBenjamin Franklin. member of the Steamship Historical Society of America and served as a With a letter of introduction from Franklin, Fulton shipboard engineering officer.

mechanical engineering October 2007 45 would be cheaper to have a moted earlier by George Washington. It was also favored means of blowing up by , who had designed a similar sys­ British ships than it would tem. The jet propulsion needed no engine, but was inef­ be to build a navy. ficient. Most of the energy went to the jet and not much Fulton attempted a dem­ to propelling the boat. onstration in New York, but James Fitch had a hardscrabble life and remarkable suc­ it failed. cess with a steam engine that powered oars to take a fer­ A not-yet-famous 24-year­ ry across the at a speed of 8 mph during old writer named Washing­ the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. ton Irving observed that By the time Fulton developed the Clermant, both Rum­ "the good people crowded sey and Fitch were dead, but Fulton still had his hands full to see the British navy defending against patent claims and competition.

blown up in effigy" and In February 1814, Fulton and his lawyer were crossing Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/129/10/44/6383540/me-2007-oct6.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 were disappointed when the Hudson River from New Jersey after a stressful court THUR:TON. "the wooden brig refused to procedure. They got off the ferry to walk across some be decomposed." thin ice near the shore. His lawyer fell through. Fulton Now out of the weapons business, Fulton turned to the ' rescued him, but at great cost. Fulton died a few days lat­ steamboat. Before leaving France, he had built a model er from respiratory problems compounded by exposure that performed moderately well on the River and to the wet and cold. had measured the drag of various hulls. . Fulton was mourned as a national hero. He had de­ Unlike a wind-powered vessel that needed width for signed 13 successful steamboats, including three that stability, a vessel without sails could be long and narrow were operating on the Mississippi. Towns and streets to minimize drag. The Clermant was 142 feet long and across the nation were named in his honor. He was only 14 feet wide. Installed at the middle was a beam that buried in one of the Livingston vaults in lower Manhat­ teeter-tottered up and down, driven by the steam engine. tan near the spot where he had launched the Clermant Converting the up-and-down motion to rotary power just seven years earlier. drove a paddle wheel on each side. The Livingston and Fulton heirs would expand their Following the success of the Clermant, Fulton became a fleet and monopolize steamboat commerce on the Hud­ member of the extended . At the age of son River, and extend their claim to the Mississippi until 42, he married his partner's 24-year-old cousin, Harriet it was successfully challenged in 1824. In a landmark case Livingston. They would have four children. that is still taught in law schools, argued and United States Supreme Court Chief Justice ruled that the state-issued monopoly was un­ PATENTS AND THIN ICE constitutional. Steamboats had become a vital part of The commercial success and huge profit potential of interstate commerce that only the federal government the Clermant became an invitation for competition. The could regulate. United States patent system was a work in progress. Pri­ The next year, the Erie was completed from Al­ or steamboat patents were compounding the confusion. bany to Buffalo, completing a water route through the The Patent Act of 1790 had established that a board wilderness from New York to the Great Lakes. While the composed of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and steamboat was vital for the rivers, sailing ships would Attorney General examine and issue patents. Thomas dominate the oceans for another generation, and horses Jefferson was Secretary of State at the time. and mules on a tow path would provide the most practi­ Steamboat patent applications were filed by several in­ cal propulsion on the canals for another century. ventors, including James Fitch and . Each Steamboat companies proliferated as new territories had already built somewhat different but workable were settled and borders expanded. Within a decade, steam-powered boats, but without commercial success. more than 100 steamboats were operating on the Hud­ Jefferson was frustrated by the priority arguments of each son, with another 700 carrying passengers and cargo on inventor. His solution was to issue each inventor a patent rivers, lakes, and bays. Canals and railroads were built on the same day-Aug. 26, 1791. The arguments would from points where river navigation ended. be left for .the courts to decide. While the paddle wheel is now the symbol of a river steamboat, it was not always the obvious method for PROGRESS AND DISASTERS propulsion. Nicholas Roosevelt, a great-great uncle of The steamboat also changed the cultural life of the President , had built a human-pow­ young country. It provided low-cost recreational travel ered paddle wheel boat as a youth and claimed patent for the multitudes. made his first rights. Roosevelt in 1811 would travel from to fortune by selling rides on a fleet of 100 boats before he via the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on a moved on to railroads. steamboat that Fulton had helped him design. As an artist, Fulton had traveled to Europe for the best Rumsey's boat used a steam jet, which had been pro- opportunities. The steamboat allowed artists of nature,

46 October 2007 mechanical engineering Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/129/10/44/6383540/me-2007-oct6.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

Fulton's patent application included a view of the steamboat in the Hud­ Exhausting directly to the atmosphere eliminated. the son River highlands. Robert Thurston (opposite), ASME's first president, typified a generation of engineers inspired by a steam-powered navy. need for a condenser. A high-pressure engine was simpler than the old mod­ els, and more dangerous. Boiler and piping failures such as Frederic Church and Thomas Cole, to travel and would result in devastating explosions. Samuel Clemens paint the natural beauty of America's rivers, mountains, was a young steersman on the Mississippi, and from that and wilderness. experience took the pen name , from the The first steamboat boiler design comprised a copper leadsman's call meaning 12 feet of water and safe going. vessel with a fire underneath. It used a lot of firewood, While Twain romanticized life on the river for readers but there was a new fuel on the way. throughout the world, he was haunted by the agonizing The canals were making coal more readily available. death of his younger brother Henry from a steam explo­ Eliphalet Nott, who was serving a 62-year tenure as pres­ sion on the riverboat in 1858. .ident of Union College, had achieved fame by inventing Some of the best European engineers traveled to the a home stove that could burn anthracite coal. Nott next United States with new ideas for ship propulsion. turned his attention to propulsion. His 1831 steamboat Swedish-born John Ericsson introduced the propeller, was the first to boil water inside tubes, which improved failed in attempts to replace steam with a hot air engine, safety and provided better heat transfer, and was also the but became a national hero and was honored by Con­ first to be fueled by coal. gress for his design of an armor-plated gunboat, the Mon­ Low-pressure engines had been adequate for pumps, itor. It had engaged the Confederate ironclad factories, and Hudson River steamboats. However, more (better known now by its original name, Merrimack) in a power was required to overcome the stronger currents in historic naval standoff. the Mississippi and for the rapidly expanding railroad. The U.S. Civil War was the first conflict that used steam The solution was to use high-pressure steam at 100 psi. power for combat and transport. Navy vess~ls provided a

mechanical engineering October 2007 47 training ground for a new generation of engineers. One of them, Robert Thurston, served as a shipboard engi­ neer blockading southern ports. He had received a Ph.D. in engineering in 1859 at age 20 from Brown University in his native Rhode Island. Thurston had spent his youth in the shops ·owned by his father, who made steam engines and boilers. Mter the war, he taught at the Naval Academy and studied engi­ neering in Europe. He returned to become a professor of mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute, where he pioneered a curriculum that combined theory, research, and shop experience.

When ASME was founded in 1880, Thurston was elect­ Downloaded from http://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/memagazineselect/article-pdf/129/10/44/6383540/me-2007-oct6.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 ed its first president. In 1885, he became director of the newly founded Sibley School o(Engin,eering at Cornell University. His book The Steam Engine is a classic that provides history, theory, design, and applications.

END OF AN ERA When about 10 million people, equal to a quarter of the population of the United States, visited the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, most of them Robert Livingston, a framer of the Declaration of Independence, was traveled by steam-powered boats and trains. It was in­ Fulton's backer and partner in the steamboat project. tended to show the latest and the best. Alexander Gra­ ham Bell displayed his telephone there. Westinghouse would start 60 companies and also be­ The central exhibit was a 1,400-hp steam engine built come a president of ASME. by George Corliss. It stood several stories high. Also on He invented air brakes and railroad equipment, a tele­ display was an internal combustion engine, which could phone switchboard, and other mechanical and electrical be fueled by a refined version of oil, which had been dis­ equipment. In addition, he pioneered the use of tur­ ·covered 17 years earlier in western Pennsylvania. It sym­ bines to drive generators for the transformer-based al­ bolized the beginning of an end. ternating-current electric power system that we use In the story of , we can find an today. It was called Westinghouse current in order to example of how the steam engine fell out of favor. distinguish it from 's mostly steam­ Westinghouse grew up working in his father's agricul­ engine-driven direct-current systems. tural equipment business in Schenectady, N.Y. It made Henry Ford is another example of one who took threshing machines and steam engines to power them. As advantage of steam engines. During his youth, he worked a teenager, he served in the Civil War as a naval engineer, as a traveling mechanic on Westinghouse agricultural and started to envision turbines as a more efficient, com­ steam engines. That led him to a job as an engineer at pact, and powerful alternative to steam engines. an EdisonElectric plant in Detroit. Ford's first vehicle used a steam engine. Ford quickly recognized, however, that an internal combustion engine would be better. For his next vehicle, he made a petroleum-fueled spark-ignition engine that The Original used steam pipes for cylinders. It was the start of the age of the personal automobile. . Clermont The instant starting and convenience of the internal combustion engine led to the demise of small steam en­ he Clermont estate of Robert Livingston is pre­ gines, and steam turbines would replace large steam en­ t served as a National Histone Landmark, and is gines for electric power and ships. The steam turbine operated as a state park. It is located 100 miles north also led to a new generation of turbo machinery in the of on the east shore of the river. form of internal combustion gas turbines and aircraft The art display in the mansion includes portraits and jet engines. works by Robert Fulton. There are historic gardens Robert Fulton's steamboat and steam engines became and nature trails. things of the past, but we feel their influence all around A separate building includes a model of the 1807 us. They were the machines that helped create many in­ steamboat. Details are available at a Web site, dustries, and were forebears of the marvelous engines www.friendsofclermont.org. and machines of our modern world.•