Robert Fulton

Robert Fulton was an inventor who lived from 1765 to 1816. He was born in Pennsylvania.

  -- Robert Fulton

He was interested in the arts during his early years. He would paint whatever he saw. In Philadelphia he met and became friends with several wealthy people, including Benjamin Franklin, the Duke of Bridgewater and Earl Stanhope. With these people as his friends, he began experimenting with mechanics, which ultimately led to his invention of the steamboat. He went to Paris, where he designed an experimental submarine, named Nautilus, which caught the attention of the American ambassador to France, Robert Livingston. (Haven)

            Livingston convinced Fulton to return to America and focus on steamboat design. Fulton’s first steamboat was the Clermont. It was tested on the Hudson River, “sailing” from Greenwich Village to Albany in 32 hours. This same trip sometimes took sailing sloops four days to complete. He next built the New Orleans, which was faster, but too heavy and sat too low in the water for shallow rivers. It ran aground and sank. (Boorstin) This showed that steamboats needed bigger engines and flatter bottoms. Fulton, however, did not continue his work on steamboats. But, his contributions to the development of steamboats is undeniable.                                                                          The Nautilus -

 -- Clermont

 References

1)   Robert Fulton. Wikipedia. 7 Nov. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fulton>.

2)   Robert Fulton. Ed. Stanley L. Klos. 7 Nov. 2007 <http://www.robertfulton.org/>.

3)   Boorstin, Daniel J. Inventors and Discoverers. Washington, D.C: National Geographic Society, 1988.

4)   Haven, Janet. Inland Navigation. American Studies. 8 Nov. 2007    <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/transport/front.html>.