Winter 1991

Jan Matzeliger, a poor black immigrant, struggled alone to become an inventor and in the early 1880s succeeded in devising a machine that revolutionized the industry

The practical engineering activities of the greatest twentieth-century theoretician nourished his thought and changed our world

In a little-known Vermont museum the tools that built industrial America tell the tremendous story of how they did it

For half a century airplanes flew ever faster, ever higher. Then progress abruptly reached its limits—perhaps forever. The reasons are both technical and political.

It did more than make trains go faster—it swept away a rich, century-old way of life

At the height of his fame and success, America’s greatest inventor embarked on a disastrous project that cost him ten years and all his fortune