How did robert fulton die
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Robert Fulton
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile; Samuel Morse did not invent the telegraph; nor did Robert Fulton invent the steamship. But like Morse and Ford after him, Fulton used his insight and energy to turn a challenge of engineering into a large-scale commercial success, thereby transforming the world.
Fulton was born in a farmhouse outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1765. At age 18, he left home for Philadelphia, hoping to make his fortune as an artist, specializing in miniature portraits. The Revolutionary War now over, Philadelphia was a hotbed of political, scientific, and commercial activity. After 1785, its figurehead was Benjamin Franklin, who had just returned from Europe. After painting Franklin's portrait, Fulton is said to have won his friendship and a letter of introduction to the artistic community of London, where he moved in 1786.
After exhibiting in the Royal Gallery in 1791, Fulton suddenly abandoned the fine arts for the "useful arts." His first efforts were in canal construction, but by 1793, he was designing steam-powered ships. After
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Robert Fulton was born to a farming family near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1765. He learned to read and write at home and then was sent to a Quaker school for his early education. According to John Steele Gordon in the Reader's Companion to American History, Fulton showed early aptitudes for invention, building a rocket when he was a teenager for Independence Day and building a human-powered paddle-wheel boat for his friends to fish in. In his adolescence, he learned the art of a gunsmith and then was an apprentice to a jeweler in Philadelphia, where he specialized in creating miniature portraits on ivory for lockets and rings. His painting skills were noted, and he was taken on as a student by the great painter Benjamin West in London. However, when he failed to succeed as an artist, he turned to engineering.
His main interests lay in boats and water travel. Virginskii reported in Robert Fulton that in 1796, Fulton published his first literary work: "Report on the Proposed Canal between the Rivers Harl and Helford, London." Later that year, he published his sec
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Scientist of the Day - Robert Fulton
The Clermont (North River) of Robert Fulton steaming up the Hudson River, wood engraving in Louis Figuier, Merveilles de la Science, vol. 1, 1867 (Linda Hall Library)
Robert Fulton, an American inventor, was born Nov. 14, 1765, in Pennsylvania. Fulton started out as an artist, and he studied under (and lived with) Benjamin West in London for several years. While in England, he became interested in canal engineering, and he published a book in 1796, advocating the use of winches to pull canal boats up inclined planes, instead of using locks to change levels. We have A Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation in our collections, as well as a French translation of 1799. Fulton’s machinery was ingenious, but his advice was not followed, as all the English canal engineers preferred canals with locks. Fulton went to Paris, where he was engaged to invent a submarine, which he did. Called the Nautilus (this was well before Jules Verne used the name for the submarine of Captain Nemo), it successfully submerged in the Se
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