"None of the well-dressed crowd that gathered on the Hudson River side of Lower Manhattan on the hot afternoon of August 17, 1808, could have known the importance of the object they had come to see and, mostly, deride: Robert Fulton's new steamboat, the North River, the boat that is frequently - and wrongly - remembered as the Clermont. But, as Kirkpatrick Sale shows in this biography of Fulton, the North River's successful four-day round-trip to Albany proved a technology that would transform nineteenth-century America, open up the interior to huge waves of settlers, create and sustain industrial and plantation economies in the nation's heartland, and destroy the remaining Indian civilizations and most of the wild lands on which they depended. The North River's four-day trip introduced the machines and culture that marked the birth of the Industrial Revolution in America. The Fire of His Genius tells the story of the extraordinarily driven and ambitious inventor who brought all this about, probing into the undoubted genius of his mind but, too, laying bare the darker side of the man - and the darker side of the American dream that inspired him."--BOOK JACKET.
Chapters: Pennsylvania roots --Many, many a silant solitary hour --A prospect of considerable profits --An adventurer armed with fortitude --A curious machine for mending politics -- Works of genius and utility -- Wifey, hub, and toot -- Steamboat experiments -- Un succes complet et brillant -- Alias Robert Francis -- Mine is no common cause -- America -- Hudson River triumphs -- Monopolies are justly held as odious -- All the weight on one fulcrum -- The happiness of the earth -- The cupidity of many -- Fickle fortune -- Two such friends -- Useful and honorable amusements -- The nation's benefactor -- Stag at bay.
Summary
Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Fulton flourished in Philadelphia, London, Paris and New York City. Contemporary letters, diaries, paintings and drawings were used in the writing of this book. Fulton begins as a fine arts painter, and then moves on to engineering. He develops the world's first steamboat service, thrusting America to the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. At the same time, he invents a means of raising boats on canals and a system of submarine warfare. Fulton's pursuit of fame and fortune is played out against the backdrop of the American and French revolutions, the Napoleonic wars, the Jefferson administration and the War of 1812. The book shows the extraordinary array of artists, scientists, diplomats, businessmen, and intriguing women with whom he interacted.
