ROBERT FULTON AND THE STEAMBOAT

by Ralph Nading Hill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 1954

Sidewheeler Saga (1953 p. 212) places Ralph Nading Hill as a ready biographer of the man who made the sidewheelers possible. Like Morse, Robert Fulton started out as a painter. Forth from a poor boy's struggle for economic security in Philadelphia, Fulton went to England to study with Benjamin West, but for him the break with art came sooner, when at the age of 30 he realized that for him art was long and life short and steam was on his mind. It had been since his youthful interest in science and mechanics and with a dream to make a submarine to end wars, he went to France and built one at a blacksmith's shop in Rouen. His trials with the French and British governments were ignominious but ended in achievement, for Fulton went home to build the Clermont and start a new era. Hill's spare prose makes this a departure from the chattier Landmark books, but well developed facts are clean and straight from the shoulder.

Pub Date: Sept. 20, 1954

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION