America’s First Tech Boom

The most famous statement uttered during America’s Gilded Age wasn’t a line of poetry or a political slogan. It was a command shouted through a tangle of wires in Alexander Graham Bell’s Boston lab on March 10, 1876.

“Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

It was the world’s first phone call, and the sound of a new era, when technological progress became one of the nation’s dominant forces.

Spanning the years between the end of the Civil War (1861-65) and the turn of the 20th century, the Gilded Age was a period of dizzying industrial growth. Railroads stitched the continent together, factories roared, and cities swelled with newcomers. Out of this turbulence came a wave of invention that transformed communication, power, information, entertainment, and transport. The telephone, which marks its 150th birthday in March, was only one of many devices to emerge from this era.

What made the United States such fertile ground for new technologies wasn’t just the individual genius of a group of inventors, historians say, but the social chemistry of the age. Waves of immigrants supplied low-wage labor and helped create an expanding consumer class hungry for new products. And the U.S. had a new group of wealthy business people willing to bet on untested ideas.

The result was a kind of national workshop, where the Gilded Age’s hunger, ambition, and abundance of wealth were channeled into technologies that would help shape the modern world. Here are five of them.

On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell said one of the most famous lines of America’s Gilded Age. It was shouted through a tangle of wires in his Boston lab.

“Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

It was the world’s first phone call. This was the beginning of a new era, when technological progress became one of the nation’s dominant forces.

Spanning the years between the end of the Civil War (1861-65) and the turn of the 20th century, the Gilded Age was a period of dizzying industrial growth. Railroads brought the continent together, factories roared, and cities swelled with newcomers. Out of this turbulence came a wave of invention that transformed communication, power, information, entertainment, and transport. The telephone marks its 150th birthday in March. It was only one of many devices to emerge from this era.

Historians say the United States became a place for new technologies not just because of talented inventors, but because of the conditions of the time. Immigrants provided cheap labor and helped create a growing group of consumers eager to buy new products. At the same time, wealthy business leaders were willing to invest in risky new ideas.

Together, these factors turned the nation into a kind of workshop, where the energy, ambition, and wealth of the Gilded Age helped produce technologies that shaped the modern world. Here are five of them.

For most of human history, music wasn’t portable, and it wasn’t the soundtrack of our lives. Listening to music meant attending a live performance. That changed in 1877 as inventor Thomas Edison began tinkering with ways to record sound itself. He developed the phonograph, which used a needle to etch sound vibrations into a rotating cylinder wrapped in soft tinfoil. A second needle retraced those grooves to play the sound back. To test the machine, Edison recited the opening lines of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” When the device repeated them perfectly, he had proved that sound could be recorded and replayed.

For most of human history, music wasn’t the soundtrack of our lives. It wasn’t portable. Listening to music meant attending a live performance. That changed in 1877 as inventor Thomas Edison began tinkering with ways to record sound itself. He developed the phonograph. It used a needle to etch sound vibrations into a rotating cylinder wrapped in soft tinfoil. A second needle retraced those grooves to play the sound back. To test the machine, Edison recited the opening lines of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” When the device repeated them perfectly, he had proved that sound could be recorded and replayed.

Even Edison didn’t yet grasp his invention’s full potential—conceiving of it more as a dictation tool than anything else—and he soon set it aside to focus on other projects. But others saw what it could become. A few years later, German American inventor Emile Berliner replaced Edison’s fragile cylinder with a flat disc that could play longer recordings and, crucially, be mass-produced. Music could now be recorded, copied, and sold. Record labels emerged. Radio programming followed. Sound no longer belonged only to concert halls and opera houses. Says Peter Jakab, former curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum: “The phonograph brought music into our daily lives.”

Even Edison didn’t yet grasp his invention’s full potential—conceiving of it more as a dictation tool than anything else. He soon set it aside to focus on other projects. But others saw what it could become. A few years later, German American inventor Emile Berliner replaced Edison’s fragile cylinder with a flat disc. It could play longer recordings and be mass-produced. Music could now be recorded, copied, and sold. Record labels emerged. Radio programming followed. Sound no longer belonged only to concert halls and opera houses. Says Peter Jakab, former curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum: “The phonograph brought music into our daily lives.”

In 1888, George Eastman did for photography what Edison had done for electric light: He made the technology accessible to the masses. His Kodak box camera, the first portable camera to hit the market, came preloaded with enough film for 100 pictures. When the roll was finished, the owner mailed the entire camera—which weighed about 2 pounds—to Eastman’s Rochester factory, where technicians developed the film, made prints, reloaded the camera, and sent everything back. Eastman captured the idea in a now-famous slogan: “You press the button, we do the rest.”

By separating picture-taking from the messy task of processing, which required bathing large glass plates in chemical solutions, Eastman turned photography from a specialist craft into a popular hobby. At $25 (about $850 in today’s dollars), the Kodak was still a splurge, but it let middle-class families record vacations and informal scenes at home instead of relying on stiff studio portraits.

“Before Eastman, all photography was professional,” says Ruth Schwartz Cowan, a technology historian at the University of Pennsylvania. “Now the ordinary person could take a picture.”

Newspapers and magazines, now able to run on-the-scene photographs, changed how Americans saw wars, disasters, and political rallies. Eastman pushed the idea further in 1889 when he introduced transparent celluloid roll film that inventors such as Thomas Edison could run through early motion picture cameras. The same roll-film technology that let ordinary people capture family picnics also gave rise to movies, newsreels, and, eventually, the film industry in Hollywood.

In 1888, George Eastman made photography technology accessible to everyone. His Kodak box camera was the first portable camera to hit the market. It came preloaded with enough film for 100 pictures. The new camera weighed about 2 pounds. When the roll was finished, the owner mailed the entire camera to Eastman’s Rochester factory. Then technicians developed the film, made prints, reloaded the camera, and sent everything back. Eastman captured the idea in a now-famous slogan: “You press the button, we do the rest.”

Eastman separated the picture-taking from the messy task of processing the film, which required bathing large glass plates in chemical solutions. He turned photography from a specialist craft into a popular hobby. At $25 (about $850 in today’s dollars), the Kodak was still a luxury item. But it let middle-class families record vacations and informal scenes at home instead of relying on stiff studio portraits.

“Before Eastman, all photography was professional,” says Ruth Schwartz Cowan, a technology historian at the University of Pennsylvania. “Now the ordinary person could take a picture.”

Newspapers and magazines were now able to run on-the-scene photographs. This changed how Americans saw wars, disasters, and political rallies. Eastman pushed the idea further in 1889 when he introduced transparent celluloid roll film that inventors such as Thomas Edison could run through early motion picture cameras. The same roll-film technology that let ordinary people capture family picnics also gave rise to movies, newsreels, and, eventually, the film industry in Hollywood.

After years of testing, Orville and Wilbur Wright turned the dream of human flight into reality as the Gilded Age drew to a close. Inspired by other inventions of the period, such as the internal combustion engine, these two Ohio bicycle mechanics set their sights on the sky.

Wilbur was the studious planner, Orville the restless tinkerer. Instead of betting on one spectacular machine, the brothers methodically attacked three linked problems that had stumped earlier would-be pilots: wings that could create lift, controls that could balance and steer, and a propulsion system light enough to keep the craft airborne.

“The Wrights understood that the airplane wasn’t just one invention, it was many of them, all of which had to work in concert for the machine to fly,” says Jakab, of the Smithsonian.

As the Gilded Age drew to a close, Orville and Wilbur Wright turned the dream of human flight into reality. Inspired by other inventions of the period, such as the internal combustion engine, these two Ohio bicycle mechanics set their sights on the sky.

Wilbur was the studious planner and Orville was the restless tinkerer. Instead of designing on one machine, the brothers methodically attacked three linked problems that had stumped earlier would-be pilots. They needed wings that could create lift, controls that could balance and steer, and a propulsion system light enough to keep the craft airborne.

“The Wrights understood that the airplane wasn’t just one invention, it was many of them, all of which had to work in concert for the machine to fly,” says Jakab, of the Smithsonian.

Systematic testing, which the brothers began in 1899, was critical to their success. They built a wind tunnel to measure how air flowed over hundreds of wing shapes, then used the data to adjust their designs—an approach that remains central to aerospace research and development today. From there they moved from models to full-scale craft, starting with kites, then gliders with movable rudders, and finally, a powered airplane driven by an ultralight engine and hand-carved propellers.

On December 17, 1903, at windy Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, their hard work finally took off. Orville flew 852 feet in 59 seconds, the first sustained, controlled flight of a powered, heavier-than-air craft with a pilot aboard. The brothers kept refining their design, but the essentials of modern aviation were already there, poised to carry the U.S. out of the Gilded Age and into a new century defined by rapid movement and the world’s interconnectivity.

The brothers began systematic testing in 1899. It was critical to their success. They built a wind tunnel to measure how air flowed over hundreds of wing shapes. Then they used the data to adjust their designs—an approach that remains central to aerospace research and development today. From there they moved from models to full-scale craft. They started with kites and then gliders with movable rudders. Finally, they designed an airplane driven by an ultralight engine and hand-carved propellers.

On December 17, 1903, at windy Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, their hard work finally took off. Orville flew 852 feet in 59 seconds. It was the first sustained, controlled flight of a powered, heavier-than-air craft with a pilot aboard. The brothers kept refining their design. The essentials of modern aviation were there, ready to carry the U.S. out of the Gilded Age and into a new century defined by rapid movement and the world’s interconnectivity.