Biography of Robert Fulton, Inventor of the Steamboat

Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765—February 24, 1815) was an American inventor and engineer who is best known for his role in developing the first commercially successful steamboat. America’s rivers opened to commercial trade and passenger transportation after Fultons steamboat, the Clermont, made its maiden voyage along the Hudson River in 1807. Fulton is also credited with inventing the Nautilus, one of the world’s first practical submarines. Fast Facts: Robert Fulton Known for: Developed the first commercially successful steamboatBorn: November 14, 1765 in Little Britain, PennsylvaniaParents: Robert Fulton, Sr. and Mary Smith FultonDied: February 24, 1815 in New York City, New YorkPatents: US Patent: 1,434X, Constructing boats or vessels which are to be navigated by the power of steam engines Awards and Honors: National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006)Spouse: Harriet LivingstonChildren: Robert Fulton, Julia Fulton, Mary Fulton, and Cornelia Fulton Early Life Robert Fulton was born on November 14, 1765, to Irish immigrant parents, Robert Fulton, Sr. and Mary Smith Fulton. The family lived on a farm in Little Britain, Pennsylvania, which was then still a British American colony. He had three sisters—Isabella, Elizabeth, and Mary—and a younger brother, Abraham. After their farm was foreclosed on and sold in 1771, the family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Though he had been taught to read and write at home, Fulton attended a Quaker school in Lancaster at age eight. He then worked in a Philadelphia jewelry shop, where his skill at painting miniature portraits for lockets inspired the young Fulton to pursue a career as an artist. Fulton remained single until age 43 when in 1808, he married Harriet Livingston, the niece of his steamboat business partner, Robert R. Livingston. The couple had a son and three daughters together. From Artist to Inventor In 1786, Fulton moved to Bath, Virginia, where his portraits and landscapes were so well-appreciated that his friends urged him to study art in Europe. Fulton returned to Philadelphia, where he hoped his paintings would attract a sponsor. Impressed by his art, and hoping to improve the city’s cultural image, a group of local merchants paid Fulton’s fare to London in 1787. Though he was popular and well-received in England, Fulton’s paintings never earned him more than a meager living. At the same time, he had taken note of a series of recent inventions that propelled a boat with a paddle, which was moved back-and-forth by jets of water heated by a steam boiler. It occurred to Fulton that using steam to power several connected rotating paddles would move the boat more effectively—an idea he would later famously develop as the paddlewheel. By 1793, Fulton had approached both the British and United States governments with plans for steam-powered military and commercial vessels. In 1794, Fulton abandoned his career as an artist to turn to the very different, but potentially more profitable area of designing inland waterways. In his 1796 pamphlet, Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation, he proposed combining existing rivers with a network of manmade canals to connect towns and cities throughout England. He also envisioned methods for raising and lowering boats without the need for costly mechanical lock-and-dam complexes, specially-designed steamboats for carrying heavy cargo in shallow water, and designs for more stable bridges. While the British showed no interest in his canal network plan, Fulton succeeded in inventing a canal dredging machine and obtaining British patents for several other related inventions. The Nautilus Submarine Not daunted by England’s lack of enthusiasm for his canal ideas, Fulton remained dedicated to building a career as an inventor. In 1797, he went to Paris, where he approached the French government with an idea for a submarine he believed would help France in its ongoing war with England. Fulton suggested a scenario in which his submarine, the Nautilus, would maneuver undetected beneath British warships, where it could attach explosive charges to their hulls. â€Å"Should some vessels of war be destroyed by means so novel, so hidden and so incalculable the confidence of the seamen will vanish and the fleet rendered useless from the moment of the first terror.† —Robert Fulton, 1797 Considering the use of Fulton’s Nautilus submarine to be a cowardly and dishonorable way to fight, both the French government and Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte refused to subsidize its construction. After another failed attempt to sell the idea, Fulton was granted permission by the French Minister of Marine to build the Nautilus. Robert Fulton’s submarine Nautilus. Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain The first tests of the Nautilus were conducted on July 29, 1800, in the River Seine at Rouen. Based on the success of the trial dives, Fulton was granted permission to build a revised model of the Nautilus. Tested on July 3, 1801, Fulton’s improved Nautilus reached a then-remarkable depth of 25 feet (7.6 m) carrying a crew of three and remaining submerged for over four hours. Fulton’s Nautilus was eventually used in two attacks against British ships blockading a small harbor near Cherbourg. However, due to winds and tides, the British ships eluded the slower submarine. Designing the Steamboat In 1801, Fulton met then-U.S. ambassador to France Robert R. Livingston, a member of the committee that had drafted the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Before Livingston had come to France, his home state of New York had granted him the exclusive right to operate and profit from steamboat navigation on rivers within the state for a period of 20 years. Fulton and Livingston agreed to partner up in order to build a steamboat. On August 9, 1803, the 66-foot-long boat that Fulton designed was tested on the River Seine in Paris. Although the French-designed eight-horsepower steam engine broke the hull, Fulton and Livingston were encouraged that the boat had reached a speed of 4 miles per hour against the current. Fulton started designing a stronger hull and ordered parts for a 24-horsepower engine. Livingston also negotiated an extension of his New York steamboat navigation monopoly. In 1804, Fulton returned to London, where he tried to interest the British government on his design for a semi-submersible, steam-powered warship. However, after British Admiral Nelson’s decisive defeat of the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, the British government decided it could maintain its then undisputed mastery of the seas without Fulton’s unconventional and unproven steamships. At this point, Fulton was close to poverty, having spent so much of his own money on the Nautilus and his early steamboats. He decided to return to the United States. The Steamboat Clermont In December 1806, Fulton and Robert Livingston reunited in New York to resume work on their steamboat. By early August 1807, the boat was ready for its maiden voyage. The 142-foot-long, 18-foot-wide steamboat used Fulton’s innovative a one-cylinder, 19-horsepower condensing steam engine to drive two 15-foot-diameter paddlewheels, one on each side of the boat. On August 17, 1807, Fulton and Livingston’s North River Steamboat—later known as the Clermont—began its trial voyage up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. A crowd gathered to watch the event, but the onlookers expected the steamboat to fail. They jeered at the ship, which they called Fultons Folly. The ship stalled at first, leaving Fulton and his crew scrambling for a solution. A half-hour later, the steamboats paddlewheels were turning again, moving the ship steadily forward against the Hudson’s current. Averaging nearly 5 miles per hour, the steamboat completed the 150-mile trip in just 32 hours, compared to the four days required by conventional sailing ships. The downstream return trip was completed in just 30 hours. Clermont, the first steam ship, designed by Robert Fulton, 1807. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images In a letter to a friend, Fulton wrote of the historic event, â€Å"I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners, beating to the windward, and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved.† With the addition of additional sleeping berths and other improvements, Fulton’s North River Steamboat began scheduled service on September 4, 1807, carrying passengers and light freight between New York and Albany on the Hudson River. During its initial season of service, the North River Steamboat suffered repeated mechanical problems, caused mainly by the captains of rival sail-powered boats who accidentally† rammed its exposed paddlewheels. During the winter of 1808, Fulton and Livingston added metal guards around the paddlewheels, improved the passenger accommodations, and re-registered the steamboat under the name North River Steamboat of Clermont—soon shortened to simply Clermont. By 1810, the Clermont and two new Fulton-designed steamboats were providing regular passenger and freight service on New York’s Hudson and Raritan rivers. The New Orleans Steamboat From 1811 to 1812, Fulton, Livingston, and fellow inventor and entrepreneur Nicholas Roosevelt entered into a new joint venture. They planned to build steamboat capable of traveling from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, a journey of over 1,800 miles through the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. They named the steamboat New Orleans. Just eight years after the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory from France in the Louisiana Purchase, the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers were still largely unmapped and unprotected. The route from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Cairo, Illinois, on the Ohio River required the steamboat to navigate the treacherous â€Å"Falls of the Ohio† near Louisville, Kentucky—a 26-foot elevation drop in about one mile.   Route of the maiden voyage of the steamboat New Orleans. Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain The New Orleans steamboat left Pittsburgh on October 20, 1811, and arrived in New Orleans on January 18, 1812. While the trip down the Ohio River was uneventful, navigating the Mississippi River proved a challenge. On December 16, 1811, the great New Madrid earthquake, centered near New Madrid, Missouri, altered the position of previously-mapped river landmarks, such as islands and channels, making navigation difficult. In many places, trees downed by the earthquake formed dangerous, constantly moving â€Å"snags† in the river channel that blocked the ships path.  Ã‚   The successful—albeit harrowing—first voyage of Fulton’s New Orleans proved that steamboats could survive the numerous perils to navigation on America’s western rivers. Within a decade, Fulton-inspired steamboats would be serving as the main means of passenger and freight transportation throughout America’s heartland. First Steam-Powered Warship When the English navy began to blockade U.S. ports during the War of 1812,  Fulton was hired by the U.S. government to design what would become the world’s first steam-powered warship: the Demologos. Essentially a floating, mobile gun battery, Fulton’s 150-foot-long Demologos featured two parallel hulls with its paddle wheel protected between them. With its steam engine in one hull and its boiler in the other, the heavily armed, armor-clad vessel weighed in at a hefty 2,745 displacement tons, thus limiting it to a tactically dangerous slow speed of about 7 miles-per-hour. Though it underwent successful sea trials during October 1814, the Demologos was never used in battle. Robert Fulton’s steam-powered warship Demologos. Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain When peace came in 1815, the U.S. Navy decommissioned the Demologos. The ship made its last voyage under its own power in 1817, when it carried President James Monroe from New York to Staten Island. After its steam engines were removed in 1821, it was towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where it served as a receiving ship until it was accidentally destroyed by an explosion in 1829. Later Life and Death From 1812 until his death in 1815, Fulton spent most of his time and money engaged in legal battles protecting his steamboat patents. A series of failed submarine designs, bad investments in art, and never-repaid loans to relatives and friends further depleted his savings. In early 1815, Fulton was soaked with icy water while rescuing a friend who had fallen through the ice while walking on the frozen Hudson River. Suffering a severe chill, Fulton contracted pneumonia and died on February 24, 1815, at age 49 in New York City. He is buried in the Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery on Wall Street in New York City. Upon learning of Fulton’s death, both houses of the New York State legislature voted to wear black mourning clothes for the next six weeks—the first time such a tribute had ever been paid to a private citizen. Legacy and Honors By enabling affordable and dependable transportation of raw materials and finished goods, Fulton’s steamboats proved essential to the American industrial revolution. Along with ushering in the romantic era of luxurious riverboat travel, Fulton’s boats contributed significantly to America’s westward expansion. In addition, his developments in the area of steam-powered warships would help the United States Navy become a dominant military power. To date, five U.S. Navy ships have born the name USS Fulton. Robert Fulton 5 cent United States commemorative postage stamp. Getty Images Today, Fulton’s statue is among those displayed in the National Statuary Hall Collection inside the U.S. Capitol. At the United States Merchant Marine Academy, Fulton Hall houses the Department of Marine Engineering. Along with telegraph inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, Fulton is depicted on the reverse of the 1896 United States $2 Silver Certificate. In 2006, Fulton was inducted into the â€Å"National Inventors Hall of Fame† in Alexandria, Virginia. Sources Dickinson, H. W. â€Å"Robert Fulton, Engineer and Artist: His Life and Works.† University Press of the Pacific, 1913.Sutcliffe, Alice Crary. â€Å"Robert Fulton and The Clermont.† The Century Co., 1909.Latrobe, John H.B. â€Å"A Lost Chapter in the History of the Steamboat.† Maryland Historical Society, 1871, http://www.myoutbox.net/nr1871b.htm Przybylek, Leslie. â€Å"The Incredible Journey of the Steamboat New Orleans.† Senator John Heinz History Center, October 18, 2017, https://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/blog/western-pennsylvania-history/the-incredible-journey-of-the-steamboat-new-orleans. Canney, Donald L. â€Å"The Old Steam Navy, Volume One: Frigates, Sloops, and Gunboats 1815-1885.† Naval Institute Press, 1990.

How the Great Gatsby and a Clockwork Orange show...

Through literature, many authors have attempted to represent the societies in which they live and what they think society may become in the future if things continue to be looked over such as political corruption. This is clear in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’. Fitzgerald tries to encapsulate the corruption that lay beneath the extravagance of society in the roaring twenties. In contrast, Burgess’s novel, ‘A Clockwork Orange’, depicts a futuristic society in which the novelist fears about mankind’s capacity for corruption are explored. In both novels, it is made quite clear from the introductions, that society is corrupt. The corruption of society is introduced more subtly in ‘The Great Gatsby’, compared to ‘A†¦show more content†¦The use of the phrase â€Å"viddy him swim in his own blood while we counted the takings†, shows how criminals such as Alex and his â€Å"droogs†, can get away with such vicious acts of crime so often that it has become a hobby for them as they take so much enjoyment from the acts. Also the casual tone depicted from the text suggests the careless nature that Alex has towards the vulgar acts. These combined together add to the theme of corruption in society in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. It is also clear from both novels that the main characters are severely corrupt. The characters are both part of society in the books and therefore, add to the emphasis on a corrupt society. There is speculation in the novel as how to Gatsby came into his wealth. There are many indications from people whom attend his parties, as to where the wealth stemmed from, crime. It is even said that Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once. Others say that its more that he was a German spy during the war. The word â€Å"spy† suggests something corrupt about his new found fortune as it has connotations of him being secretive yet violent. This shows a corrupt society because people are speculating about Gatsby’s wealth, with thoughts of him being a criminal, yet still attend his parties. Another connotation of people attending his

Market Research and Consumer Behavior

Question: Summarize the article on marketing research and analyze organizations use of qualitative, quantitative or both types of research. Answer: The aim of the assignment is to summarize the article on marketing research and analyze organizations use of qualitative, quantitative or both types of research. The author chooses to evaluate an article titled Why Localizing Marketing Doesnt always work by Niraj Dawar. Localizing the global marketing brand is one of the most controversial debates in large multinational organizations. The consumers are an important part of an organization and greatly influence the functioning of markets. Branding is influenced by many factors such as consumer habits, consumers tastes and preferences, media retail trade and consumer lifestyle. The argument of the marketers is that they lose local consumers due to achieving global branding efficiency (Dawar, 2016). Analysis has showed that consumers are different across markets and countries and is greatly influenced by product packaging and advertising execution. The research is related to the behavior of consumers and the factors that affect their pu rchasing decision. Quality and price of the product influences the purchasing decision of consumers. The author has used both the qualitative and quantitative methodology to conduct the research. Qualitative analysis is used to describe the theoretical concept of marketing and consumer behaviors while quantitative analysis is used to test the hypothesis framed and analyze the data. The hypothesis framed is related to analyzing the consumers in Michigan and the way they are different from those in bordering Ontario. The article uses a large sample size to test the significance. The test says that the result of the hypothesis is different for every time it is tested (Babin, 2016). The research shows that consumers are same across the nation and the cultural boundaries as the basis needs of all the humans is same. The qualitative study is used to support the quantitative study. The universal needs of human are a desire for security, a sense of belonging and fulfill the desire of the family. Hence, the article summarizes the statistical tools used to conduct the market research and describes the findings of the results (Silecchia et al., 2016). Relevance of the topic The topic is in relevance with the operations of todays organizations. Since many organizations spend much amount of money in promotion, advertisement, packaging, branding and localizing it is also essential for the marketers to understand the behavior of consumers in the market. Various factors affect the purchasing decision of consumers. The decision of localizing the brand should greatly depend on the consumers and their behavior. The research shows that if large sample size is taken then the test shows that there is a significant difference in consumers across borders (Gollwitzer et al., 2016). Business opinion of the significance The tests suggest that since all the humans have basis needs of fulfilling its desire the behavior of customers is same in cultural boundaries and nations. The larger the sample the larger is the differences in the significance. The markets and media are becoming global tat is hampering the local customers. Hence localizing marketing doesnt always work due to differences in the behavior of customers. References Babin, B. J. (2016). Special Session Title: Looking Forward and Back at Survey Research Response Issues in Marketing Research. InLooking Forward, Looking Back: Drawing on the Past to Shape the Future of Marketing(pp. 711-711). Springer International Publishing. Dawar, N. (2016). Why Localizing Marketing Doesnt Always Work. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 30 September 2016, from https://hbr.org/2016/09/why-localizing-marketing-doesnt-always-work Gollwitzer, P., Bieleke, M., Sheeran, P. (2016). Enhancing consumer behavior with implementation intentions. InRoutledge Taylor Francis Group. Silecchia, L. A., Carothers, L., Perciasepe, B., Farrell, C. (2016). The Morality of Market Mechanisms.Environmental Law Reporter,46, 10006.

Wretched and Divine The Story of the Wild Ones by Black Veil Brides free essay sample

Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones was released three months ago, and has soared greatly among the charts. The album is pretty much a literal story through music. New instruments were used for this album and it turned out to be a wonderful hit. For those who do own the album, and understand it, you have my respect and are true music lovers. Let’s move onto the tracks of the album. Exordium is the first song on the album and also states how people see God, rather than other’s do. The following tracks in the album talk of how the battle with the church called F.E.A.R. and also there are tracks that represent the church. â€Å"I Am Bulletproof New Years Day F.E.A.R. Transmission 1: Stay Close Wretched and Divine We Dont Belong F.E.A.R. Transmission 2: Trust Devils Choir Resurrect the Sun Overture Shadows Die Abeyance Days Are Numbered (feat. We will write a custom essay sample on Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones by Black Veil Brides or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Bert McCracken of The Used) Done for You Nobodys Hero Lost It All (feat. Roberta Freeman and Juliet Simms of Automatic Loveletter) F.E.A.R. Transmission 3: As War Fades In the End – Has become a nationwide hit for many people of all ages, and those who even do not like the band. F.E.A.R. Final Transmission All in all I do believe this album is truly daring and a taste of what people needed to hear. Most believe the band is satanic and this whole album proves the believers wrong. Now let’s hear some of your comments to the album. Thanks for reading, Different Perspective.