Pioneering in the News
Take a look at some of the first newspaper reports
on various inventions that changed our lives.
These are excerpts from the actual articles.
These can be read to a class for comment or
example. Have the students write their own
newspaper article about an invention of their
choice, placing themselves in the times when an
invention was made. They can include all the
negative arguments they believe people may have
had at that time.
Pocket calculator -- The following was written on October 20, 1961.
POCKET COMPUTER CAN HANDLE TASKS OF UNIT 150 TIMES ITS SIZE--Texas Instruments, Inc., has developed a vest pocket computer. The gadget isn't much bigger than a pack of cigarettes and weighs only 10 ounces, but it will do the same tasks as a conventional transistorized computer 150 times its size and 48 times heavier, the company claims . . . Initial use of equipment made from the networks is expected to be in the missile and space field . . . Future price reductions and development will lead to industrial uses in a few years and perhaps eventual consumer uses, the company feels. At the moment the company can suggest no practical industrial or consumer uses, but officials are in no way perturbed.
The telephone -- From the first reviews of Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, here is a quote from Elisha Gray, who invented the Telegraph Relay.
As to Bell's talking telegraph, it only creates interest in scientific circles . . . it's commercial values will be limited.
The typewriter -- Henry Harper Benedict, Board member of Remington Standard Typewriter Company (creators of the first typewriter) wrote the following about the typewriter in the late 1800s:
The machine is very crude, but there is an idea there that will revolutionize business . . .We must on no account let it get away.
The submarine -- When an early American submarine was launched, the New York Times reported in the May 17, 1897 edition:
Without celebration the HOLLAND, the little cigar-shaped vessel owned by her inventor, which may or may not play an important part in the building of the navies of the world during years to come, was launched from Lewis Nixon's shipyard this morning.
The computer -- In a classic understatement, Popular Mechanics Magazine reported in March, 1949:
Where a calculator on the ENIAC [the country's first general-purpose electronic computer] is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers of the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons.