Today, inventiveness reaches beyond the invention.
The University of Houston's College of Engineering
presents this series about the machines that make
our civilization run, and the people whose
ingenuity created them.
The English gave us the
steam railway. They ran a passenger line in London
in 1808. After that, railway systems took off in
We put our energies into the steamboat during those
years. We didn't run a commercial railway until
1827. And we began by using English locomotives.
A member of the Philadelphia Museum worried about
that state of affairs. He went to Matthias Baldwin,
a young printer. Baldwin had worked at wood
engraving and book-making. He'd already
revolutionized the printing of calico. He'd also
invented his own steam engine to power his shop.
So, in 1830, Baldwin designed and built a little
four passenger demonstration railway for the
museum. Right away, a rail- way firm in
Philadelphia hired him to build a full scale
That's how Baldwin gave us one of our first
commercial locomotives in 1832. He named it Old
Ironsides, after the famous ship. And with that he
launched a new career.
He finished his second locomotive in 1834. This
time he invented means for raising steam pressure
from 60 pounds per square inch to 120. That meant
far better performance.
In no time he outperformed the English. By the time
he died in 1866, he'd made 1500 steam locomotives.
He'd made one improvement after another.
Yet Baldwin's story doesn't read like other 19th
century industrialists. While he was still young,
he fought to change the Pennsylvania suffrage law.
The vote was limited to "free male white citizens."
Baldwin stood in a brave minority who tried to
include free Black men.
Years later, as Civil War clouds gathered, he'd
become so staunch an abolitionist that the South
boycotted his locomotives. He had, after all, begun
with books and printing -- primary tools of
freedom. They'd left their stamp on him.
Late in life, Baldwin built churches. He founded
science institutes. He fostered art. He raised
money to care for wounded veterans. This maker of
engines knew invention is an act of love -- love of
people, of beauty, of knowledge, and of freedom.
When he began, America only had 250 miles of
railway. We were a cultural backwater. Baldwin knew
that books, art, the railway, and invention itself,
all set us free. He knew that inventors invent far
more than machinery. Baldwin knew that inventors
also give shape and form -- to the world they live
I'm John Lienhard at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds