Our compendium of 25 of the most crazy-creative, thinking-outside-the-box inventions in American history
An insight at a county fair in 1873 transformed the West
Mechanized picking of cotton transformed the South
The gas plasma panel offered a brighter display with no flicker and higher contrast, but took 30 years to perfect
A new approach to impressing sound on radio waves created less static
Stephanie Kwolek invented one of the world’s most versatile materials, and a new branch of polymer chemistry
A poor immigrant scrounged materials from junkyards to invent a device that worked five times faster than lasting by hand, making shoes affordable for millions
Serial doodler, drafter, and brainstormer, New Hampshire–born Earl S. Tupper was an inventor obsessed with improving everyday household objects.
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