Advanced Search
Advanced Search

Thumbnail-size images of copyrighted artworks are displayed under fair use, in accordance with guidelines recommended by the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, published by the College Art Association in February 2015.

Robert Fulton Inventor of Steam Vessels


Robert Fulton was born at Little Britain, Pa. in 1765 and died Feb. 24th. 1815. At first a portrait and landscape painter but always a mechanic. It was 1793 that he first conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam. James Watt had given him an inkling of the idea by showing him his steam engine and after much experimenting in Paris he came to America where his first steamboat, the Clermont, made a progress of 5 miles an hour and was 140 feet long and 16 1/2 feet beam. This was in 1807. From that time forth steam boats rapidly increased in size and number. Rights to his patents were disputed and owing to anxiety, exposure etc. he died at the early age of 49, and was buried in Trinity Church yard, New York. In 1901 a monument was erected there by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He was at work on explosives, and torpedoes
Publisher: M.T. Sheahan, Boston, MA (American, 1903–1910)
American
1908

Medium/Technique Chromolithograph and metallic pigment on card stock.
Dimensions Vertical: 14 x 8.9 cm (5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.)
Credit Line Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Archive—Gift of Leonard A. Lauder
Accession Number2015.8461
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPostcards

DescriptionFront: COPYRIGHT 1908 BY M.T. SHEAHAN, BOSTON.
Back: divided. Mint.
SHEAHAN'S FAMOUS PEOPLE 953
Copyright 1908 by M.T. Sheahan, Boston.
ProvenanceBetween 1950 and 2015, acquired by Leonard A. Lauder, New York, from various postcard dealers in Europe and the United States; 2015, gift of Leonard A. Lauder to the MFA. (Accession Date: September 24, 2015)