What is the greatest invention of the 1870s?

A single decade gave us recorded sound, the electric lamp and a phone call, plus a few humbler ideas that quietly changed how people worked, fenced land and got dressed.

1. 1
   Incandescent light bulb

   Thomas Edison's long-lasting carbon-filament lamp of 1879, which made electric light practical for homes.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Telephone

   Alexander Graham Bell's 1876 patent for transmitting speech over wires, which put a voice at the end of every line.
   970pts
3. 3
   Cash register

   James Ritty's 1879 'Incorruptible Cashier', built in a Dayton saloon to stop staff pocketing the takings.
   582pts
4. 4
   Phonograph

   Edison's 1877 tinfoil cylinder machine, the first device that could record sound and play it back.
   582pts
5. 5
   Four-stroke engine

   Nicolaus Otto's 1876 internal combustion engine cycle, the basis of almost every car engine since.
   513pts
6. 6
   Penny-farthing

   The high-wheel 'ordinary' bicycle of the early 1870s, the first machine to be called a bicycle and a symbol of the Victorian era.
   434pts
7. 7
   Electric railway

   Siemens & Halske's 1879 Berlin locomotive, the first electric passenger train, ancestor of trams and metros.
   434pts
8. 8
   Blue jeans

   Copper-riveted denim work pants patented by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss in 1873, the ancestor of every pair of jeans worn today.
   233pts
9. 9
   Carbon microphone

   The carbon transmitter developed by Hughes, Berliner and Edison in 1877-78 that made telephone calls loud and clear.
   233pts
10. 10
    Gramme dynamo

    Zenobe Gramme's 1871 generator, the first to produce smooth direct current on an industrial scale.
    233pts
11. 11
    QWERTY typewriter

    The Sholes and Glidden typewriter sold by Remington from 1874, which introduced the QWERTY keyboard still on our screens.
    0pts
12. 12
    Barbed wire

    Joseph Glidden's 1874 twisted-wire fencing that closed the open range of the American West.
    0pts

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