The Rise of Steam—The Steam Rises Steam engines were used in various machines.  Here a fire wagon is pulled by a horse but the water is pumped by a steam engine.  Below   A steam powered loom made large textile factories possible.  The theory of using steam to run an engine was more than 100 years old by the time it came into widespread use. The theory is simple; water is heated to create high pressure steam injected into a cylinder, pushing a piston up and down or back and forth. The piston is connected to a shaft, which then moves to turn a propeller, a wheel on a locomotive, or some useful machine motion. Much more efficient engines could have been designed much earlier, however, metal fabrication and machining technology had not advanced far enough to have built better designs.   As metal working skills improved, designs for boiler shapes, piston connections, and even how the steam engine was positioned, quickly improved. By 1848, steam te...

The Sultana explodes on the Mississippi north of Memphis April 27, 1865. Over 1,500 people of the 2,000 aboard died. River Boats-- And you think the Boeing 737 is unsafe??!! Most of us have a vision of steamboats formed by movies and TV.    There is the classic musical Showboat. And I remember James Garner in the old TV series Maverick   about a riverboat gambler. The show's theme music ended with the lyrics "Luck is the lady he loves best."  You bet! (pardon the pun.) Safety standards were non existent.   Riverboat journeys themselves were a gamble.  With little to no regulation and no safety features, riverboats were floating death traps. A July 1860 St. Louis newspaper reported matter-of-factly that 267 riverboats had exploded, burned, sunk, collided, or run aground between St Louis and New Orleans  in the previous six months! The deadliest river boat loss occurred when the  Sultanah  exploded in April 27,1865. ...