Many know Abraham Lincoln as the president during the Civil War, an honest man with a stovepipe hat and a way with words, and the face on the one cent coin. But before he made his mark on politics, Lincoln devoted time and energy to another pursuit: inventing.
During a journey from Niagara Falls to his hometown of Springfield, Ill., Lincoln developed the idea for a device that helped lift a boat in shallow water, PM wrote in March 1924. A system of pulleys and ropes was designed to inflate bellows on the side of the ship when the keel hit sand.
Quoting a lawyer who aided Lincoln in patenting his invention, PM reported, "'One morning he walked into my office with a model of a western steamboat under his arm,' said Z. C. Robbins. … 'After a friendly greeting, he placed it on my desk and proceeded to explain the principles embodied therein.'" Robbins wasted no time, obtaining patent No. 6469 on May 22, 1849.
While he was never granted another patent, Lincoln took an interest in new guns and rifles while in office. At the beginning of the Civil War, the president himself tested a rifle on the south lawn of the White House. "'I believe I can make this gun shoot better,' said Mr. Lincoln, and took from his vest pocket a small wooden sight he had whittled from a pine stick, and adjusted it over the sight of the carbine. He then shot two rounds and of the fourteen bullets, nearly a dozen hit the paper," PM quoted a White House clerk.
While military contractors keep developing weapons of war, there are plenty of advanced technologies still missing from everyday use at home. From a no-water sonic shower to nontangling cable, PM's resident roboticist Daniel H. Wilson takes this new look look at 10 inventions we're still waiting for. —Brian Lisi