Overview

The nineteenth century brought the world telephones, telegraphs, steamboats, electric lights, movies, sewing machines, cars, electric motors, the railroad, Ferris wheels, and aspirin. It was the age of invention, ending with the famous pronouncement in 1899 that "Everything that can be invented has been invented" (Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents). There are many candidates for the century's greatest invention, but the winner may be the future itself. While history has seen individuals, such as Francis Bacon, who imagined a world different from that of their parents, most people throughout history did not. They have expected their professions, tools, and entertainments to be essentially the same as those of their parents and grandparents. In the nineteenth century this changed, as inventors and their inventions captured the public imagination.

It is no coincidence that two important literary genres were born in the 1800s: the...