"In the summer of 1790, the world's first commercial steamboat carried passengers between Philadelphia and Trenton. Its inventor was not Robert Fulton--he wouldn't launch his steamboat on the Hudson for another seventeen years--but a silversmith from Connecticut named John Fitch. Three years earlier, Fitch built the first American steam engine compact and powerful enough to propel a boat, which he mounted on an odd-looking oar-propelled vessel. Among the early witnesses to his efforts were members of the Constitutional Convention. Soon after, he and a rival steamboat inventor from Virginia began a bitter fight for patent rights. Their battle led to the first U.S. patent act, one of the first laws of the new republic. In the process, several Founding Fathers were dragged into the conflict, including Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. Steam tells the two-decade saga of America's first significant venture into technology, from Fitch to Fulton, and of the forgotten men whose perseverance helped move the young nation westward.
"Andrea Sutcliffe is a writer and editor who lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Steam is her ninth book."
Bibliography:
Quoted text from: Sutcliffe, Andrea. Steam back cover. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
From the guide to the Andrea Sutcliffe book research files for "Steam", circa 2000-2004, (Craven Hall Historical Society)
