Fall 2010

Our compendium of 25 of the most crazy-creative, thinking-outside-the-box inventions in American history

An insight at a county fair in 1873 transformed the West

Mechanized picking of cotton transformed the South

The gas plasma panel offered a brighter display with no flicker and higher contrast, but took 30 years to perfect

A new approach to impressing sound on radio waves created less static

Stephanie Kwolek invented one of the world’s most versatile materials, and a new branch of polymer chemistry

A poor immigrant scrounged materials from junkyards to invent a device that worked five times faster than lasting by hand, making shoes affordable for millions