20th Century Tech: The Awesome Aughties (1901-10) Quiz

Answer: Vacuum cleaner

Hubert Cecil Booth patented this friend of the housewife in 1901. I use the term "friend" loosely, however. First, this early vacuum required a horse and six men to operate it. Second, an unintended consequence of the invention of the vacuum cleaner, once it became a more manageable device, was that standards of cleanliness rose, requiring housewives, servants, and custodians to spend that much more time on cleaning the floors, upholstery, curtains, etc.

The humble vacuum cleaner is a fundamentally important electronic appliance and is related to another important invention, the air compressor, which is used in many applications today, including air conditioning (up next).

Answer: Air conditioning

Ben Franklin experimented with alcohol and freezing water. Willis Carrier perfected this using ammonia. More modern air conditions use fluorinated hydrocarbons or other liquids.

Air conditioning makes life bearable and increases human productivity in hot and humid climes. It is a life-saver for people with allergies, asthma, and chronic bronchitis. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has ranked air conditioning among the top ten innovations of all time.

Answer: Powered flight

Powered heavier-than-air flight has two requirements: onboard propulsion (such as a propeller, a jet, or a rocket), and mechanical power, (generated by an engine).

What the Wright Brothers did at Kitty Hawk was solve problems of power and control that had plagued other pioneers of flight. Wing-warping, a system of cables and pulleys to twist the edges of the wings in opposite directions, managed roll control (motion about the longitudinal axis), while a steerable rear rudder provided yaw control (motion about the vertical axis). They also solved the power problem by using an internal combustion engine of their own design and manufacture. They also used data from wind tunnel experiments to design better wooden propellers.

Answer: Thermionic diode (vacuum tube)

Thomas Edison had observed one-way current between the heated and unheated elements in his lightbulb. John Ambrose Fleming realized the Edison effect could be used as a radio detector -- a radiotelegraphic device that receives and interprets telegraphic, not audio, signals (in other words, Morse code).

He created the Fleming valve, the first true thermionic diode, commonly called the vacuum tube. "Thermionic" refers to the emission of charged particles by an incandescent material (such as found in a lightbulb, which vacuum tubes resemble). Eventually vacuum tubes would be used in just about all electronics for decades until selenium rectifiers and eventually transistors replaced them in the 1960s.

Answer: Directional antenna

Guglielmo Marconi created a functional wireless telegraphy system using radio waves and so is often called the inventor of radio. In 1895 he made a transmission breakthrough by increasing the height of his antenna, and he sought to compete with the transatlantic cable. Among many developments along the way to this goal he invented the first *directional* antenna, that is, one that receives greater power from specific directions or in a narrow angle, which increases performance and reduces electromagnetic interference from other sources.

There was little improvement over Marconi's antenna until the 1920s when Hidetsugu Yagi invented the "beam antenna" or the "parasitic array", often called Yagi aerial, a sharply directional antenna comprised of three or more elements in parallel, with the principal line of radiation extending along their centers.

Answer: Flushometer

Home toilets have raised tanks that employ gravity to flush, but many commercial institutions use the flushometer for tankless operation in their restrooms. The valve is divided into a lower chamber connected to the pressurized water system, and an upper chamber into which water is allowed through a pinhole in the diaphragm (or the piston) to the equalized pressure. Push the handle, and a relief valve tilts the diaphragm/piston to let water flow from the upper to the lower chamber, which causes the pressurized water to displace the diaphragm/piston, and into the toilet bowl the water flows!

When William E. Sloan, founder of the Sloan Valve company, introduced his first model of the Royal Flushometer in 1906, but he found that many plumbers were loathe to give up their tanks, but the water savings overcame the reluctance. The flushometer requires a larger supply-line than is found in most homes and smaller buildings, which is why the tank is still around. In the 21st century, the classic flushometer has found itself gradually being replaced by the automatic (touchless) flushometer, which essentially operates the same way.

Answer: Electric washing machine

The Hurley Electric Laundry Equipment Company of Chicago sold the described Thor washing machine in 1907, making it the first electric-powered washing machine sold in the USA. It was designed by engineer Alva J. Fisher, who patented it in 1910. The "electric" designation, which we take for granted today, is important to distinguish it from hand-cranked mechanical washers. A wringer was added some years later.

By shifting directions of the drum, the machine is prevented from compacting the clothes into a tangled wad. There was also an emergency stop rod for safety.

Answer: coffee filter

Melitta Benz was a Dresden homemaker tired of the bitter taste that boiling ground coffee beans left in her morning cup of Java, and brewing coffee with linen was no better. After much experimentation, she innovated a way, when boiling water over ground coffee, to filter the liquid with one of her sons' blotter paper.

She cut the paper into little round pieces and put them in a metal cup. Recognizing the commercial potential, she patented her invention and founded the Melitta Bentz Company (with her husband Hugo and her sons as her first employees).

In 1909, she sold 1200 cups at the Leipzig Trade Fair, and the company expanded from there. After her eldest son took over, the company perfected the form of the coffee filter that was still in use in the early 21st century.

Answer: Bakelite

Plastics were originally made from natural substances like rubber and shellac. Celluloid, made from plant cellulose and camphor, was partially synthetic. But Bakelite, named for Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland, created a fully synthetic plastic resistant to heat and non-conductive of electricity, a lightweight and durable material moldable into infinite shapes. Bakelite allowed the manufacture of all kinds of goods, from chess sets to tableware to clocks to radios to lamps, that would have been inaccessible to many people. Bakelite dominated plastics until the 1960s, though it continued to be used long after that in certain electrical systems.

Answer: Neon lamp

Specifically the positively charged ions (cations) are attracted to the negative terminal, and the free electrons head for the positive terminal After the ions obtain enough energy to be excited, then as they return to a "calmer" state, a photon of light is released.

This was originally called "electrical gas-discharge lighting". There were other gases used by other engineers and inventors, but Georges Claude needed to find a use for the neon produced as a waste product of his air liquefaction business. In December of 1910 at the Paris Motor Show he demonstrated the first neon light. Neon produces an orange light, but Georges figured out how to use other gases to make other colors, like hydrogen for red and mercury for blue, and he essentially had a monopoly on neon signs until the 1930s.