The Most Important Inventions of the 19th Century

Innovations that Changed the World

By
Mary Bellis
Mary Bellis
Inventions Expert
Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell.
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Updated on May 29, 2024

The 19th century brought us great inventions thanks in large part to the assembly line, which sped up the factory production of goods. In a way, it was the age of machine tools—tools that made tools and machines that made parts for other machines, including interchangeable parts. It also gave birth to the notion of a professional scientist. In fact, the word "scientist" was first used in 1833 by William Whewell. All of this contributed to a wave of innovation.

Inventions including the telegraph, typewriter, and the telephone led to faster and wider means of communication. From automobiles to laundry machines and batteries, the following list (by no means exhaustive) chronicles some of the most important innovations that took shape in the 19th Century.

Why the 19th Century Spurred Great Inventions

The Civil War (from 1861 to 1865) was a historic event that forever changed the way Americans thought about their history, dividing the cultural understanding of the nation into two distinct periods: everything that came before the war, and everything that happened afterward. It also created an urgent demand for new technologies and strategies to meet the challenges of warfare on an unprecedented scale.

The Second Industrial Revolution (from 1865 to 1900) was another watershed era that redefined not only the American way of life but also life around the world. Inventions that relied on newly harnessed means and putting electricity, steel, and petroleum to use spurred the growth of railways and steamships and transformed everything from farming to manufacturing.

01
of 10

1800–1809

Man operating machine punching cards for Jacquard looms, 1844.
Print Collector/Getty Images/Getty Images

The first ten years of the 19th century may not have been the most fertile for new technology, but the impending Second Industrial Revolution would follow soon enough. Here are some of that decade's most important innovations:

  • 1800: French silk weaver J.M. Jacquard invents the Jacquard loom.
  • ​1800: Count Alessandro Volta invents the battery.
  • 1804: Friedrich Winzer (Frederick Albert Winsor) patented coal gas.
  • 1804: English mining engineer Richard Trevithick develops a steam-powered locomotive but is unable to produce a viable prototype.
  • 1809: Humphry Davy invents the arc lamp, the first electric light.
  • 1810: German Frederick Koenig invents an improved printing press.
02
of 10

1810–1819

Steam locomotive of 0-4-2 wheel arrangement, by George (1781-1848) and Robert Stephenson (1803-1853), built for Cambrian Railways, UK, engraving
De Agostini Picture Library / Getty Images
  • 1810: Peter Durand invents the tin can.
  • 1814: The first successful steam locomotive, designed by George Stephenson, makes its debut.
  • 1814: Joseph von Fraunhofer invents the spectroscope for use in the chemical analysis of glowing objects.
  • 1814: Using a camera obscura, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took the first photograph. The process takes eight hours.
  • 1815: Humphry Davy invents the miner's lamp.
  • 1816: René Laënnec invents the stethoscope.
  • 1819: Samuel Fahnestock patents the soda fountain.
03
of 10

1820–1829

Engraving of the Williams Typewriter by E. Poyet
Bettmann Archive / Getty Images
  • 1823: Charles Mackintosh invents his eponymous raincoat (a.k.a. "the Mac") in Scotland.
  • 1824: Professor Michael Faraday invents toy balloons.
  • 1824: Joseph Aspdin takes out an English patent for Portland cement.
  • 1825: William Sturgeon invents the electromagnet.
  • 1827: John Walker invents modern-day matches.
  • 1827: Charles Wheatstone invents the microphone.
  • 1829: W.A. Burt invents the typographer, the precursor to the typewriter.
  • 1829: Louis Braille develops his eponymous method of raised printing to be read by the blind.​​​​
04
of 10

1830–1839

Colt Frontier revolver, invented by Samuel Colt (1814-62), c1850.
Print Collector/Getty Images / Getty Images
  • 1830: Frenchman Barthelemy Thimonnier invents a rudimentary sewing machine.
  • 1831: Cyrus H. McCormick invents the first commercially viable reaper.
  • 1831: Michael Faraday invents the electric dynamo. 
  • 1834: Henry Blair, the second African American to receive a U.S. patent, invents the corn planter.
  • 1834: Jacob Perkins invents an ether ice machine, a precursor to the modern refrigerator.
  • 1835: Solymon Merrick patents the wrench.
  • 1835: Charles Babbage invents a mechanical calculator. 
  • 1836: Francis Pettit Smith and John Ericcson team up to invent the propellor.
  • 1836: Samuel Colt invents the first revolver.
  • 1837: Samuel Morse invents the telegraph. Morse code arrived the following year.
  • 1837: English schoolmaster, Rowland Hill, invents the postage stamp.
  • 1839: Thaddeus Fairbanks invents platform scales.
  • 1839: Charles Goodyear invents vulcanized rubber.
  • 1839: Louis Daguerre invents the daguerreotype.
05
of 10

1840–1849

Howe's Sewing Machine, by Thomas, 1866.
Print Collector/Getty Images / Getty Images
  • 1840: Englishmen John Herschel invents the blueprint.
  • 1841: Samuel Slocum patents the stapler.
  • 1844: Englishman John Mercer invents a process to increase the tensile strength and affinity for dyes in cotton thread.
  • 1845: Elias Howe invents the modern sewing machine.
  • 1845: Robert William Thomson patents pneumatic tires made of vulcanized rubber.
  • 1845: Massachusetts dentist Dr. William Morton is the first to use anesthesia for a tooth extraction.
  • 1847: Hungarian Ignaz Semmelweis invents antiseptics.
  • 1848: Waldo Hanchett patents the dentist's chair.
  • 1849: Walter Hunt invents the safety pin.
06
of 10

1850–1859

Isaac Merrit Singer's first sewing machine, patented in 1851 (1880).
Print Collector / Contributor/Getty Images
  • 1851: Isaac Singer invents his eponymous sewing machine, and four years later, patents a sewing machine motor.
  • 1852: Jean Bernard Léon Foucault invents the gyroscope, crucial to the development of navigation systems, automatic pilots, and stabilizers.
  • 1854: John Tyndall demonstrates the principles of fiber optics.
  • 1856: Health science pioneer Louis Pasteur develops the process of pasteurization.
  • 1857: George Pullman invents his eponymous sleeping car for trains.
  • 1858: Hamilton Smith patents a rotary washing machine.
  • 1858: Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir invents a double-acting, electric spark-ignition internal combustion automobile engine fueled by coal gas, which he patents two years later. 
07
of 10

1860–1869

Gatling rapid fire gun, 1870. Artist: Anon
Print Collector/Getty Images / Getty Images
  • 1861: Elisha Graves Otis patents elevator safety brakes, creating a safer elevator.
  • 1861: Linus Yale invents his eponymous cylinder lock.
  • 1862: Richard Gatling patents his machine gun.
  • 1862: Alexander Parkes creates the first man-made plastic.
  • 1866: J. Osterhoudt patents a tin can with a key opener.
  • 1866: Englishmen Robert Whitehead invents the torpedo. 
  • 1867: Alfred Nobel patents dynamite.
  • 1867: Christopher Scholes invents the prototype for the modern typewriter.
  • 1868: George Westinghouse invents air brakes.
  • 1868: Robert Mushet invents tungsten steel.
  • 1868: J.P. Knight invents the traffic light.
08
of 10

1870–1879

Early Phonograph
Hulton Archive / Getty Images
  • 1872: A.M. Ward creates the first mail-order catalog.
  • 1873: Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire.
  • 1876: Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.
  • 1876: Nicolaus August Otto invents the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine.
  • 1876: Melville Bissell patents the carpet sweeper.
  • 1878: Thomas Edison invents the cylinder phonograph (known then as the tin foil phonograph).
  • 1878: Eadweard Muybridge invents moving pictures. 
  • 1878: Sir Joseph Wilson Swan invents the prototype for a practical electric lightbulb. 
  • 1879: Thomas Edison invents the first commercially viable incandescent electric light bulb.
09
of 10

1880–1889

Three-wheeled Benz motor car, 1886.
Print Collector/Getty Images / Getty Images
  • 1880: The British Perforated Paper Company debuts toilet paper.
  • 1880: English inventor John Milne creates the modern seismograph.
  • 1881: David Houston patents camera film in roll format.
  • 1884: Lewis Edson Waterman invents the first practical fountain pen.
  • 1884: L. A. Thompson built and opened the first roller coaster in the United States at a site on Coney Island, New York.
  • 1884: James Ritty invents a functional mechanical cash register.
  • 1884: Charles Parson patents the steam turbine.
  • 1885: Karl Benz invents the first practical automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. 
  • 1885: Gottlieb Daimler invents the first gas-engine motorcycle. 
  • 1886: John Pemberton introduces Coca-Cola.
  • 1886: Gottlieb Daimler designs and builds the world's first four-wheeled automobile.
  • 1887: Heinrich Hertz invents radar.
  • 1887: Emile Berliner invents the gramophone. 
  • 1887: F.E. Muller and Adolph Fick invent the first wearable contact lenses.
  • 1888: Nikola Tesla invents the alternating current motor and transformer.
10
of 10

1890–1899

Escalator at the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's Cortland Street Station, New York, 1893.
Print Collector/Getty Images / Getty Images
  • 1891: Jesse W. Reno invents the escalator.
  • 1892: Rudolf Diesel invents the diesel-fueled internal combustion engine, which he patents six years later.
  • 1892: Sir James Dewar invents the Dewar vacuum flask.
  • 1893: W.L. Judson invents the zipper.
  • 1895: Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière invent a portable motion-picture camera that doubles as a film-processing unit and projector. The invention is called the Cinematographe and using it, the Lumières projected the motion picture for an audience.
  • 1899: J.S. Thurman patents the motor-driven vacuum cleaner.

19th-Century Roots, 21st-Century Technology

We might embrace the 21st-century technology that has rendered some of these marvels obsolete, and we might not know the names of the 19th-century inventors who created the precursors to computers, smartphones, and streaming media. However, more than a century after their inventions first saw the light of day, their ideas live on, continuing to inspire current and future generations of inventors, scientists, and innovators.

If you're curious about the inventions that followed in the 20th century, read this piece detailing early 20th-century inventions such as the computer, television, lie detector, and even teddy bear, and this one outlining inventions in the late 20th century.

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Bellis, Mary. "The Most Important Inventions of the 19th Century." ThoughtCo, May. 29, 2024, thoughtco.com/inventions-nineteenth-century-4144740. Bellis, Mary. (2024, May 29). The Most Important Inventions of the 19th Century. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/inventions-nineteenth-century-4144740 Bellis, Mary. "The Most Important Inventions of the 19th Century." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/inventions-nineteenth-century-4144740 (accessed September 6, 2024).