d
South Dakota, Montana, Washington (1889), Idaho, Wyoming (1890), Utah
(1896), and Oklahoma (1907).

CHAPTER XXXIV

MECHANICAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS

%529. Mechanical Progress.%--The mechanical progress made by our
countrymen since the war surpasses that of any previous period. In 1866
another cable was laid across the bed of the Atlantic Ocean, and worked
successfully. Before 1876 the Gatling gun, dynamite, and the barbed-wire
fence were introduced; the compressed-air rock drill, the typewriter,
the Westinghouse air brake, the Janney car coupler, the cable-car
system, the self-binding reaper and harvester, the cash carrier for
stores, water gas, and the tin-can-making machine were invented, and
Brush gave the world the first successful electric light.

%530. Uses of Electricity.%--Till Brush invented his arc light and
dynamo, the sole practical use made of electricity was in the field of
telegraphy. But now in rapid succession came the many forms of electric
lights and electric motors; the electric railway, the search light;
photography by electric light; the welding of metals by electricity; the
phonograph and the telephone. In the decade between 1876 and 1886 came
also the hydraulic dredger, the gas engine, the enameling of sheet-iron
ware for kitchen use, the bicycle, and the passenger elevator, which has
transformed city life and dotted our great cities with buildings fifteen
and twenty stories high.

The decade 1886-1896 gave us the graphophone, the kinetoscope, the
horseless carriage, the vestibuled train, the cash register, the
perfected typewriter; the modern bicycle, which has deeply affected the
life of the people; and a great development in photography.

%531. Rise of Great Corporations.%--That mechanical progress so
astonishing should powerfully affect the business and industrial world
was inevitable. Trades, occupations, industries of all sorts, began to
concentrate and combine, and corporations took the place of individuals
and small companies. In place of the forty little telegraph companies of
1856, there was the great Western Union Company. In place of many petty
railroads, there were a few trunk lines. In place of a hundred producers
and refiners of petroleum, there was the one Standard Oil Company. These
are but a few of many; for the rapid growth of corporations was a
characteristic of the period.

%532. Millionaires and "Captains of Industry."%--As old lines of
industry were exp