Douglas DC-3

Source: American Airlines. The DC-3, introduced in 1935, was one of the first reliable and low-cost aircraft able to transport 21 passengers with a crew of 3. By 1938, it carried 95% of all American air traffic. The above American Airlines DC-3 is labeled a “Flagship Skysleeper” because long-distance services, such

Wright Brothers First Flight, 1903

Source: Library of Congress Photo 2A13. Orville and Wilbur Wright of Dayton, Ohio, made rapid progress in developing the first airplane after writing to the Smithsonian Institution in 1899 asking for publications about flight. They soon developed a large kite using an innovative system of flight controls and wing-warping that

Comparison between a Contemporary and a Second World War Tanker

Ships became increasingly larger and specialized in the second half of the 20th century. This led to the development of general cargo ships, tankers, grain carriers, barges, mineral carriers, bulk carriers, methane carriers, and container ships. Tankers, which were built to carry the enormous petroleum traffic of the post-World War

United States Maritime Commission Cargo Ships, 1938-1947

Source: adapted from B.J. Cudahy (2006) Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World, New York: Fordham University Press. p. 8. The United States Maritime Commission was established by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 to devise a merchant shipbuilding program to equip the United States with a fleet of

Cost and Production of Ford Vehicles, 1908-1924

Source: Case File of Henry Ford, Committee on Science and the Arts, 1928 Cresson Medal. In the early stages of their diffusion, automobiles were essentially assembled by hand, making them very expensive and affordable only to a small (wealthy) segment of the population. As the production efficiency of the assembly

Assembly Line of the Ford T Model, 1913

Source: Detroit Public Library, Item number EB01a026. Early in the 20th century, the American industrialist Henry Ford massively applied the assembly line principle to produce the first affordable car, the Ford Model T. The first car assembly line appeared in Highland Park, Michigan, in 1913. This marked the beginning of

Ford T Town Car, 1915

Source: Henry Ford Museum . Many different models of the first mass-produced car were made including the Touring, the Roadster, the Center Door, the Coupe, the Mountain Wagon, the Town Car, and the Speedster. In the early 1920s, Ford T’s accounted for half the cars sold in the United States.

Length of the World’s Largest Railway Systems, 1913

Source: Railway Age Gazette, 1915. By the early 20th century, rail transportation was the dominant inland transport system with extensive networks in operation in major industrialized countries, but also in the developing world where railways were used to bring resources to port cities. For most, the extent of the network

Horse-Drawn Carriage, Dublin c1900

Source: The National Archives of Ireland, NLI, CLAR 17. “There was a type of employee at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution whose job and livelihood largely vanished in the early twentieth century. This was the horse. The population of working horses actually peaked in England long after the Industrial