A period of rapid advances in technology started soon after the United States gained its independence in 1783 and continued through the mid-nineteenth century. It was driven by a remarkable group of inventors and innovators who created the machines that served industry. Most of these machine makers, who called themselves "mechanicians," received their training as apprentices (people who are bound to work for someone else for a specific term in order to learn a trade) in machine shops, where the tools of industry were made. In these shops, American machinists learned from each other by trading ideas and sharing their designs. Their goal was to reduce human labor by mechanizing (equipping with mechanical power) the work done in industries and on farms.

Though the nation repected its inventors, the systems by which they were rewarded, notably patents (government grants of exclusive authority to an inventor...