ShmoopTube

00:01

No let's stretch our brain's way back to our first

00:05

unit and remember thomas knew common steam engine from seventeen

00:10

twelve they're going really stretching right now We're ready for

00:13

the real workout so cooling steam to create a vacuum

00:18

which pulls a piston a way of turning with heat

00:21

in tow work All those things kind of revolutionized humanity's

00:24

use of energy and that we talked about how the

00:26

invention of steam power changed a lot of stuff we

00:30

didn't get into the nitty gritty details Time to change

00:32

that some of the most important early applications of steam

00:35

power happened in the transportation world trains and railroads and

00:39

get the lion share of attention in the transportation history

00:42

But that's not necessarily fair Putting steam engines on the

00:46

oceans was just as earth shattering time to stop trains

00:50

from stealing the spotlight Their people were going to make

00:52

this our cause Anyone wanna protest with us while we

00:56

make our nifty protest signs let's actually talk about steamships

00:59

after the invention of the cement and it wasn't too

01:02

long until somebody had the bright idea to put an

01:04

engine in a boat and it turned out to be

01:06

a very bright idea steam travel made some people oceans

01:10

of money on insanity Steamships could cross the atlantic ocean

01:15

in a week So trade between europe and the us

01:17

and basically everywhere else went totally nuts Of course only

01:21

industrialized countries had steam ships and they didn't give them

01:24

out for fun Why would they when it was more

01:27

enjoyable to intimidate countries without them Fair or not Steamships

01:31

made the world smaller We all know what that means

01:34

Globalization Baby steamships could make way more trips back and

01:39

forth across the ocean so each individual ticket wasn't so

01:42

pricey Even the poor could finally cross the ocean with

01:45

ease and be king of the world Okay sure they

01:49

did it in cramped tiny cabins but it sure beats

01:51

swimming Not surprisingly more people started crossing the atlantic and

01:55

loads of those people were immigrants to the united states

01:59

Did we say loads Then we met boatloads literal foot

02:02

loads between eighteen thirty nineteen fourteen more than thirty million

02:06

immigrants traveled from europe to the u s european politics

02:10

had something to do with that But well steamships definitely

02:14

helped others weren't doing it to find work or to

02:16

escape trouble at home and they did it for fun

02:20

it's Not that people never traveled for fun before but

02:23

steam travel opened it up to a growing group of

02:26

upper middle class types who just wanted to see the

02:28

world well In eighteen seventy seven ulysses s grant former

02:32

u s president and civil war hero decided to take

02:36

a quick jaunt around the world With his family He

02:39

steamed across the atlantic to see europe and then took

02:41

another steamer up the nile and then another one into

02:45

south asia Well fifty years previously a dangerous slow wildly

02:50

expensive and very weird journey By the eighteen seventies it

02:54

was well really no big deal And afterwards grant became

02:57

infamous for killing parties by forcing everyone to watch his

03:02

vacations lives Hey it beats looking at pictures of someone's 00:03:05.665 --> [endTime] baby

Full Transcript