San Antonio College Library

"A late eighteenth-century technologist, [Fulton] believed in Research-and-Development a hundred and fifty years before the phrase itself was coined. This biography holds surprises for those who think of Fulton only as the inventor of the steamboat. He designed dozens of things, from marble-cutting machines to primitive submarines (which he called plungeboats) and torpedoes. Fulton did not, in fact, invent the steamboat at all- there were many versions...

Robert Fulton was a renaissance man. Starting out as a fine arts painter, he produced the world's first steamboat empire, thrusting America to the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. At the same time, he invented a means of raising boats on canals and a system of submarine warfare. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvainia, he flourished in Philadelphia, London, Paris and New York City.