America's genius for innovation

pt. I. Pathfinders to a new civilization

The heroes who got America going

John Fitch : first steamboat

Robert Fulton : successful steamboat services

Oliver Evans : high-pressure steam engine

Henry Miller Shreve : freed the waterways

The steamboat war : liberating business

Eli Whitney : the cotton gin to the machine age

Samuel Slater : dressing America

Francis Cabot Lowell : the Lowell girls

Sam Colt : a mass market

Samuel Finley Breese Morse : the telegraph

Cyrus McCormick : American big business

Isaac Merritt Singer : first successful American multinational

Charles Goodyear : vulcanized rubber

Albert Augustus Pope : democracy on wheels

Edwin Drake : drilling for oil

Levi Strauss : blue jeans

Elisha Otis : the safety elevator

Lewis Tappan : credit rating

Theodore Dehone Judah : transcontinental railway

The big four : Collis Potter Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins

pt. II. America takes off

Adventurous men unite a continent

section I: Inventors

Thomas Alva Edison : science of innovation

Leo Hendrik Baekeland : plastic

Wilbur and Orville Wright : wings

Garrett Augustus Morgan : gas mask

Edwin Howard Armstrong : modern radio

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, Lee de Forest, Michael Pupin

section II: Democratizers

Henry Ford : the people's car

Ford's loneliest hour : George Selden's patent

George Eastman : the Kodak

Sarah Breedlove Walker : self-made American businesswoman

Amadeo Peter Giannini : the people's banker

Martha Matilda Harper : retail franchise network

Raymond "Pappy" Ingram Smith : chance

Juan Terry Trippe : jet age

Donald Calvin Burr : the People Express pioneer

General Georges Doriot : venture capital

section III: Empire builders

Ida Rosenthal : Maidenform Bra tycoon

The blow against the corset : Caresse Crosby

Samuel Insull : cheap electricity for all

Philo T. Farnsworth : television

Walt Disney : entertainment empire

Jean Nidetch : Weight Watchers clubs

Thomas Watson : IBM

Herman Hollerith, John Patterson

Thomas Watson Jr. : mainframe computers

Ken Olsen : minicomputers

Estee Lauder : cosmetics company

Malcom McLean : containers, luxury travel

Jim Sherwood

Edwin Land : Polaroid

Ruth Handler : Barbie

pt. III. The digital age

The electronic elves of Silicon Valley

Gary Kildall : PC software

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs

Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson : biotech industry

Ted Turner : CNN, 24-hour electronic news

Joan Ganz Cooney : Sesame Street

Raymond Damadian : MRI scanner

Russell Simmons : marketing maestro of hip-hop

Pierre Omidyar : eBay

Larry Page and Sergey Brin : Google

Ten lessons

Innovators gallery.