Week 5 Summary Essay

              In week five I learned about four more amazing inventions that have made this beautiful world what it is. The inventions are the microphone, the typewriter, the Braille Reading System, and the sewing machine. Here is just a little bit about them and what they can do every day.

              The first thing I learned about this week was the microphone. People have been trying to make their voices louder to communicate to a crowd since Ancient Greece. And they have been working on solutions for years, but only a couple of them really worked until Charles Wheatstone came along. In 1827, Wheatstone invented the concept of the microphone. Thomas Edison was led to invent the modern-day microphone after further progress on the electric telegraph. The microphone made a huge impact on history, helping people to communicate with other people much easier.
             
              The next thing I learned about this week was the typewriter, and how it was invented. William Austin Burt invented and patented the typewriter in 1829, but it was not commercially successful. After his patent was expired, many people and companies copied and upgraded his idea. Sholes and Glidden released a typewriter in 1874 and succeeded. Typewriters can allow people to write faster than they can with pencil and pen. This invention has played a very important role in history.

               This week, I also learned about Louis Braille and how the Braille Reading System was invented. During the Napoleonic Wars in France, Napoleon asked one of his soldiers named Captain Charles Barbier to devise a coded system of writing for the other men. Although, a lot of the soldiers were blinded by gun powder, so they couldn’t read it. After losing his eyesight at three years old, Louis Braille invented an improved version of Barbier’s system, except it was for blind people. Helen Keller was the first person to get a college degree while blind and deaf, and one of the reasons how is she used Braille’s System. In addition to Keller, Braille helped thousands of people and fulfilled their lives.

              The final invention that I learned about this week was the sewing machine. Bart Thimonnier invented the sewing machine in France in 1829, but American inventers found the most success in developing them by 1850. With a sewing machine, it is so much easier and faster to make high-quality clothes and fabric. Women gained more free time, for they did not have to spend every second mending and making clothes by hand.

              Do you see what I mean now? These inventions aren’t just inventions; some of them can also be lifesavers. We use these types of inventions every day, we just don’t realize it. I can’t wait to see what awesome stuff I am going to learn about next week.