INVENTIONS

Though there were many new inventions during the era of the Gilded Age, the most important one the the creation of the transcontinental railway. In 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad opened up the western mining and farming regions. The new track connected previously isolated areas with larger markets and allowed for the growth of commercial farming and mining, which created a national marketplace. The Union Pacific Railroad company began the construction of the transcontinental line in Nebraska and pushed westward. The Central Pacific Railroad company pushed itself eastward from Sacramento, which in 1869 met the Union Pacific Railroad line near Promontory, Utah. 

Other New Inventions

• 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
• 1879 Thomas Edison invents lightbulb
  
• 1887 Rowell Hodge patents barbed wire
  
• 1891 Jesse W. Reno invents the escalator
  

Cities had expanded  to become large and impossible walk across. With the invention of the electric trolley people didn't have to walk any more

          In 1891  William Naismith invented basketball

Phineas T. "P.T." Barnum and James A. Bailey started the circus and made up the slogan, "The Greatest Show on Earth"

Baseball became "American pastime" and a professional league started in the 1870's.

In the late 1800's Croquet was invented and it was considered risqué because it exposed the ankles of women and encouraged flirting.

Skyscrapers were invented in the late 1880's 
 by architect Louis Sullivan. The first 
skyscraper was Working in Chicago