Wanamaker, John. Born at Philadelphia, July 11, 1838; established clothing house of Wanamaker & Brown, 1861; established department store in Philadelphia, 1876, and in New York City, 1896; Postmaster-General, 1889-93; founded Bethany Sunday School, 1858; president Philadelphia Y. M. C. A., 1870-83.
Morgan, John Pierpont. Born at Hartford, Connecticut, April 17, 1837; entered banking business, 1857, and developed present firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., largest private bankers of the United States.
Hill, James J. Born near Guelph, Ontario, September 16, 1838; removed to Minnesota, 1856; entered transportation business; general manager St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Ry. Co., 1879-82; president since 1883; built Great Northern, with steamship connection with Japan and China, 1883-93; president of Great Northern system since 1893.
Harriman, Edward Henry. Born at Hempstead, Long Island; entered Wall Street as clerk at age of fourteen; entered New York Stock Exchange eight years later; was president and chairman of the board of directors of the Union Pacific, Oregon Short Line, Southern Pacific, Texas & New Orleans, and many other great railway systems; died near New York City, September 9, 1909.
CHAPTER X
INVENTORS
It is a curious fact that the men to whom the world owes most generally get the least reward. The genius in art or letters is seldom recognized as such until long after he himself has passed away—his life is usually embittered by derision or neglect. But, in the history of civilization, the lot of no man has been harder or more thankless than that of the inventor. Poverty and want have always been his portion, and even after he had won his triumph, had compelled public recognition of some great invention, it was usually some one else who won the reward.
America has been especially strong in the field of invention. Indeed, practically all the great labor-saving devices of the past century and more have originated here. "Yankee ingenuity" has passed into a proverb, and a true one, for the country which has produced the steamboat, the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the electric telegraph, the phonograph, the telephone, the typewriter, the reaper and binder, to mention only a few of the achievements of American inventors, may surely claim first place in this respect among the nations of the world. There are few stories more inspiring than that of American invention, and as benefactors to their race, the long line of American inventors may rightly rank before even the great philanthropists whose careers are outlined elsewhere in this volume. Indeed, if we judge greatness by the benefits which a man confers upon mankind, such men as Whitney and Howe and Morse and Bell and Edison far surpass most of the great characters of history.
First of the line is Benjamin Franklin, whose many-sided genius gives him a unique place in American history. His career has been considered in the chapter dealing with our statesmen, but let us pause for a moment here to speak of his inventions. One of them, the Franklin stove, is still in use in hundreds of old houses, and as an economizer of fuel has never been surpassed; another was the lightning-rod. He introduced the basket willow, the water-tight compartment for ships, the culture of silk, the use of white clothing in hot weather, and the use of oil to quiet a tempest-tossed sea. From none of his inventions did he seek to get any return. The Governor of Pennsylvania offered to give him a monopoly of the sale of the Franklin stove for a period of years, but he declined it, saying, "That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad to serve others by any invention of ours"—a principle characteristic of Franklin's whole philosophy of life.