Inventions of Widespread Use During the rapid industrialization of the late nineteenth century, America began to take shape as the society we know today. Telephones began appearing in houses; electric lights started illuminating the streets; the telegraph transmitted information quickly from one place to another. The era was characterized by increasingly fast travel and communication, and by the sudden profusion of products designed to ease domestic life. The widespread use of devices like the sewing machine changed the pattern and the pace of life -- even sanitation was improved, as this drawing of an indoor toilet from the 1870's would attest. With the advent of mass production in both rural and urban areas, large agricultural consolidations drove many small farmers out of work and to the cities, where they found work in factories. In a way, America became a smaller nation, bound together physically by the hundreds of miles of train tracks from New York to California and personally by the emerging long-distance telephone systems. As America's economy metamorphosed from an agriculturally based system to a consumer-driven one, Americans swept these new products and services into their homes and daily lives. The pages listed below showcase some of the most common new inventions and innovations of Mark Twain's time. On each page is a list of New York Times articles contemporary with the machine or invention and pertaining to them. The articles are not meant to represent the most pertinent or striking events surrounding the development and distribution or use of these inventions, but rather to provide a taste of the variety of issues that surrounded them as they made their way into the daily lives of Americans. These articles are what Mark Twain would have possibly read in the morning newspaper as he sat down to work on Connecticut Yankee, and the general tone that the articles cast on the innovations would not only have shaped Twain's view of them, but general American society's view as well. Each page also has one article from a periodical on an issue related to the invention or innovation at hand. The Inventions The Telephone and Other Communication Devices Electricity Electric Lights Railroads and Other Modes of Transportation Inventions of Widespread Use | Voices of the Times | "How the Other Half Lived" Celebrating American Ingenuity Student Home | Teacher Home | Related Links | Bibliography | "Mark Twain in His Times" Website This site is maintained by Kellan R. Harne.