Inventors
Big Inventions
Medicine & Health
Inventions We Can't Live Without!
Massachusetts Inventions
100

Electric light bulb, Kinetoscope, and Phonograph are among his most famous inventions.

Thomas Edison 

100

This invention made it possible to cover a wound with a clean pad of gauze and sticky tape.

What is a Band-Aid?

100
In 1819, French doctor Rene' Laennec invented an instrument to listen to a patient's heart and lungs.
What is stethoscope?
100
In 1913, Clarence Crane a candy maker in Cleveland, Ohio was looking for an alternative to chocolate which melted in the summer heat. He tinkered with a machine originally designed to make pills and invented a round hard candy in the shape of a little O. He noticed that the shape reminded him of a device used to rescue swimmers in the water.
What are Life Savers?
100
In 1847, the first commercial cards with messages of love & friendship were mass produced in Worcester by Esther Howland.
What is a valentine?
200

Invented dynamite, a fairly safe explosive, and donated most of his fortune to fund Prizes to honor the best work each year in the areas of literature, chemistry, physics, medicine and peace.

 Alfred Nobel (Nobel Peace Prize)

200

This developed after students at Yale University made a game of gliding empty metal pie plates through the air. In 1964, Wham-O introduced the first professional model and a new sport was born.

What is a frisbee?

200
In 1895, William Roentgen used electricity and a vaccum to form a new type of radiation that could produce an image of bones and tissue on a photographic plate.
What is an X-ray?
200
In the late 1800s it could take up to a half hour to get dressed because of all the cords, laces and rows of buttons on clothing. Even shoes were buttoned closed. It took 3 inventors and 20 years to perfect this invention first called a "hookless slide fastener>"
What is a zipper?
200

This team sport was first developed in Worcester, MA in 1880. It involved small pins, a ball and an alley.

What is bowling?

300

While running a school for the deaf, he and his partner, Thomas Watson, invented the telephone in 1876.

Alexander Graham Bell

300

In 1930, an inn in Wakefield, MA needed a new dessert and the owner added one new ingredient to an old favorite recipe. Chocolate lovers were in heaven.

What is the chocolate chip cookie?

300
In 1788 Edward Jenner, an English doctor, perfected a system of protecting people from a fatal disease called smallpox by infecting them with a less serious disease, cowpox.
What is vaccination?
300
Multiple versions of this invention were tried to extend the season for ice skaters. In 1863, H.L. Plimpton of London, England patented his design with 2 parallel sets of wheels - two in front and two in back - and a new year round leisure activity was born for children of all ages. More changes followed over the next century plus...
What are roller-skates?
300
In 1837, Samuel Morse invented the electric telegraph and a simple pattern of "dots" and "dashes" to send information across an electrified wire.
What is Morse Code?
400

This Scottish engineer is known for developing an improved design for a steam engine that led to the Industrial Revolution.

Who is James Watt?

400
A California business man saw the need for durable pants during the Gold Rush of the 1840's. Canvas was available and he hired a local tailor to cut and sew "waist-high overalls. Eventually, he switched his fabric to denim and dyed it indigo blue. An American classic was born.
What are Levis or jeans?
400

Alexander Fleming, A Scottish researcher, discovered the first substance, penicillin, that could kill bacteria. This led to discovering or manufacturing many more of these drugs that can control infections by killing bacteria.

What are antibiotics?

400
Cellucotton was invented when a cotton shortage developed during World War 1. This product could be used in hospitals as bandage material. When the war ended so did the cotton shortage, so the Kimberly-Clark Company looked for new ways to market their product. It worked well to remove cold cream and make-up - by 1929 these sheets "popped-up" in boxes all over America.
What is Kleenex?
400
1898, the first American system of transportation that ran entirely underground was opened was opened in Boston.
What is a subway system?
500

He didn't invent the automobile but he did change the way automobiles were manufactured making them faster and cheaper to build.

Who was Henry Ford?

500
In the 1930s,George Nissen, who grew up jumping on his bed, perfected a jumping surface made from canvas attached to a metal bed frame.He wanted something that could fold up for storage, be large enough to be safe, and be high enough so that the jumping surface would not touch the floor.
What is a trampoline?
500

William Morton, a Boston doctor, is credited with the first use of this substance during surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846. His patient not only survived the operation but felt no pain as he slept through it.

What is an anesthetic? 

500

In 1945, Gimbel's Dept, Store in New York sold out of 10,000 devices (sold for $12.50 each) advertised as "fantastic...miraculous fountain pen...guaranteed to write for two years without refilling." The first patent for such a device was awarded in 1888, but took almost 60 years to perfect...now we can buy them for less than a $1.00 in all colors.

What is ballpoint pen?

500
In 1926, Dr. Robert Goddard took the first step that led the United States to the first manned moon landing in 1969 in an orchard in Auburn, MA.
What is a liquid fuel rocket?
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