The Machines That Built America

In the 1870s communicating with distant family requires sending a letter, and waiting days or weeks for a reply. The telegraph is faster, but too expensive for most people. When communication giant Western Union offers a colossal cash prize to anyone who can improve its network, two daring inventors go head-to-head in a fight that will forever change the way humans connect. Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray will stop at nothing to lay claim to the new technology and dominate the market. But there can be just one winner in this battle involving fraud, corruption and ground-breaking innovation that ultimately leads to the advent of the world's most common device: the telephone.

At the dawn of the 20th century, America is transforming from a primitive agrarian society to a modern Mecca of technology, mass production and automation. Factories are stocked full of machines that require maintenance from new tools. With a growing need for speed and efficiency, a few visionary companies--Black and Decker, Milwaukee, DeWalt--create the power tools that revolutionize how America is built, and how many Americans spend their weekends now.

In 1893, sending information across America is a time-consuming process. Letters travel slowly by land, and those who can afford it, send telegrams along a limited network of fixed wires. But two rival inventors have the same idea for improving things: wireless communication. Nikola Tesla is one of the most famous and successful thinkers of his day, single-handedly changing the way electricity is supplied and generated. Guglielmo Marconi is a young, uneducated Italian inventor who ignores scientific consensus and goes with his gut. Both want to rid the world of wires and send messages through the air. With millions of dollars on the line, the two men battle to dominate the new market and bring radio to the masses.

Housework in the late 1800's is back-breaking labor and has been for centuries. It takes 40 hours a week to maintain a sanitary home and preserving food in an icebox is a luxury only the rich can afford. But with America plugging in to electric power, a flood of innovation is not only changing industry, it's revolutionizing the home. The new technology makes housework easier and gives women opportunities to work outside the home. Today's home appliance market is worth more than a billion dollars, but 100 years ago, it exists only in the imaginations of a few daring inventors.