Rapidly developing technological innovation and mass production have become such hallmarks of our industrialized world that we may fail to consider the events and individuals that laid the groundwork for our many conveniences today. Beginning in Europe in the mid-18th century, the Industrial Revolution continued growing and spreading as innovators around the world began modifying old machinery and methods for production or creating new ones. This lively volume profiles a number of the minds behind some of history's greatest industrial advances, including Robert Fulton, Margaret Knight, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford.

John Kay -- James Hargreaves -- Richard Arkwright -- James Watt -- Edmund Cartwright -- Samuel Crompton -- Robert Fulton -- Eli Whitney -- Samuel Slater -- The Stephenson Family -- George Stephenson -- Robert Stephenson -- George Robert Stephenson -- Samuel F.B. Morse -- Charles Goodyear -- Cyrus Hall Mccormick -- Elias Howe -- Andrew Carnegie -- Margaret E. Knight -- John D. Rockefeller -- Elijah Mccoy -- George Westinghouse -- Alexander Graham Bell -- Thomas Alva Edison -- Early life and career -- Menlo Park -- The phonograph -- The electric lightbulb -- "Invention factory" in West Orange -- Later years -- Nikola Tesla -- Henry Ford -- Charles Martin Hall -- George Washington Carver -- The Wright brothers -- Guglielmo Marconi -- Lee de Forest -- Nora Stanton Blatch Barney.