Nineteenth Century Technology

 

There are some things in this world of technology that I just assume are a twenty-first century invention. Technology seems to be speeding along so quickly that many of us just can't keep up. I remember when I was a teenager working at a hardware store and the owner had gotten a new phone. He was actually walking around the store with no cord attached! We were all amazed and watched him as he talked to customers on the phone and walked over to the item he was discussing with them. It seemed impossible that a phone without a cord could transfer sound. 

Fast forward another ten or fifteen years and cordless phones were in every home. But then the big talk was that they were working on a phone that you could be in the middle of the woods and could make a call. It seemed preposterous! And yet today even impoverished nations rely on cell phones.

I just take for granted a little too much that all this technology is from our era. But in a previous post about computers, I shared that Charles Babbage from the 19th century is considered the father of the computer. Today I'd like to talk about the fax machine. Fax machines were in their heyday from the 1980's through the early 2000's. But have you ever thought about when they were invented? If I asked you to guess, what would the decade be?

Alexander Bain

Would you be shocked to know that the first fax was sent before Alexander Bell got his patent for the telephone? It's true. The first fax machine was invented by a Scotsman named Alexander Bain in 1843. To put this into perspective, this is prior to the Civil War. He made the first two-dimensional image that would improve the telegraph and patented it on May 27, 1843. However, the images were poor quality and improvements to his creation needed to be made.

Frederick Backwell, an English physicist, was up to the challenge. He not only improved on Bain's concept, but he also went to the 1851 World Fair in London and took a working version of his invention and demonstrated it there.

Neither Bain's nor Blackwell's inventions were ever considered a real success, however, they did pave the way for another inventor. 

Giovanni Caselli, an Italian abbot invented a commercial fax machine. After demonstrating his invention to Napoleon in 1860, his creation was used in France between Paris and Lyon and would continue to be used commercially.

Giovanni Caselli

Caselli's invention

Arthur Korn, a German inventor, improved on the fax machine, yet again. His improvements allowed for photographs to be sent via optical scanning. This new improvement was a great help to the newspaper industry as they latched onto the new technology in 1906. Korn's creation was also a help to law enforcement. The German police began using his invention to send photographs and fingerprints.

How about you? Do you take for granted that most of technology is from our century? Were you surprised that the fax machine was invented almost 200 years ago? Do you know of any technology that would surprise us when they were invented?