• Skill: Cause and Effect

Have you heard the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention"? It means that when people need something they don't have, they invent something that meets the need. As you complete the activities in Clever People, Clever Solutions, you'll learn about some smart inventors who found clever solutions to challenging problems.

Start by clicking the first activity below.

Take-Home Activity: Put On Your Inventor's Cap

If you don't already have a copy of this activity, click the link above. Then print out the page or copy the instructions.

People use inventions every day to solve problems. If their soup gets cold, they heat it in the microwave. If their shirt gets wrinkled, they press it with an iron. Most of us take these inventions for granted. None of them just appeared in stores one day, though. Each was invented by a clever person—or maybe several clever people working together. These inventors looked for ways to solve problems—both little and big—and gave us the gadgets that make our lives easier.

What inventions do you use to help you solve everyday problems? Work with a partner to make a chart like the one below. List a few items you use a lot and the problems they solve. Remember, each of these items was once a new idea.

When you are done with your chart, read about some inventions and the people behind them. Were any of their inventions in your chart?

When you go for a walk on a dark night, how do you find your way? You probably use a flashlight. You might be surprised to know that the flashlight started out as a completely different invention—an electric flowerpot. Inside the flowerpot, there was a tube with a battery and a light bulb inside. The light bulb would shine on a flower or plant in the flowerpot. No one had any use for an electric flowerpot, though. Then a Russian immigrant named Conrad Hubert saw a way to use this invention to solve a real problem—helping people see in the dark. He took the tube out of the pot, made it longer, and created the first electric flashlight about one hundred years ago. People saw the flashlight's usefulness right away. Conrad Hubert started the Eveready Flashlight Company. Now that was a really bright idea!

You might wonder who invented the refrigerator, the coolest home improvement ever made. No one person can make that claim, but Dr. Mary Engle Pennington had a lot to do with making refrigerators work better. Pennington solved the problem of humidity control. If humidity gets too low in a refrigerator, food dries out. If humidity gets too high, food spoils. Thanks to Mary Engle Pennington, you can keep the humidity in a refrigerator just right. That means you can eat leftover birthday cake two days later and it won't be moldy or stale!

Now read about two people who brought big changes to the clothing and shoe industries. You might even be wearing the product of one of their ideas now.

Go to "Clothes and Shoes for All" and complete the worksheet.

If you don't have a copy of the worksheet, click "Clothes and Shoes for All" Worksheet. Then print out the page or copy the instructions.

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Stitches with Staying Power

Most people who came to California during the Gold Rush were searching for gold. Levi Strauss had a different reason for joining the Gold Rush. He was a merchant from Bavaria who had come to the United States to make a better life for himself. When he sailed into San Francisco from New York, he brought supplies with him to sell to miners. Levi quickly sold almost everything he had brought. The one thing he could not sell was a roll of thick, strong cloth called canvas. He thought he could sell this cloth as a material for tents or wagon covers. Instead, he was told, "Should've brought pants."

A gold miner's work was hard on clothes. All day long the miners would kneel and dig in dirt or gravel. Most pairs of pants wore out quickly. Levi had an idea. He had a tailor make a pair of work pants from the canvas. You might call these the first pair of Levi's. The pants were a hit! Soon Levi's canvas pants were selling very well. In fact, he couldn't get enough cloth to make pants for all the miners who wanted them!

Levi and a partner started a company. They planned to make his popular pants as well as other kinds of clothes. Later they started using a blue denim cloth that was called genes in France. In America, the pants came to be known as "blue jeans" or just "jeans." When the company added copper rivets to make the pants even sturdier, the jeans we know today were born. Levi Strauss's company became one of the biggest clothing companies in the country. People around the world still use his name every time they call a pair of denim pants "Levis."

Machine Built to Last

Do you own a pair of shoes that fit you? That might seem like a silly question. At one time, though, it wasn't silly at all. In the past, shoes were made entirely by hand. Because of this, they cost a lot of money. Owning new shoes that fit was a sign of wealth. That was before the invention of machines that could make shoes. Now, thanks to many inventors and the machines they created, the average person can afford to buy new shoes.

Perhaps the most important of all shoemaking machines was invented by Jan Matzeliger. Matzeliger's invention allowed shoes to be made entirely by machines. Jan Matzeliger was born in South America. His ancestors were from Africa on his mother's side and from Holland on his father's side. In 1873, Matzeliger came to the United States in search of a better life, much as Levi Strauss had done. He found work in the shoe factories of the Northeast. Soon he learned how all kinds of shoemaking machines worked. However, there was no machine that could do the important step of attaching the sole of a shoe to the upper part. This step is called lasting. Since lasting had to be done by hand, it took a long time to make each pair of shoes. As a result, shoes cost a lot of money.

Matzeliger thought he could build a machine for lasting shoes. Other people told him it could not be done. He took on the challenge anyway. The young man worked long and hard on the design for a machine. He watched workers lasting shoes by hand. He tried to make his machine copy their movements. His first two tries failed, but he did not give up. He lived and worked in very poor conditions, and his health became quite bad. After a while he ran out of money. Luckily, he found two men who agreed to pay for his tools and supplies. Finally, he built a machine that could last 75 shoes in one day. That number climbed as he improved his machine. Jan Matzeliger had invented a machine people said could not be made! His machine cut the cost of shoes in half. Many more shoes were made than ever before. Matzeliger made it possible for the average person to afford new shoes!

When you finish the "Clothes and Shoes for All" Worksheet, use Rate Yourself to judge how well you did on this Reading Journey.

If you don't have a copy of Rate Yourself, click Rate Yourself. Then print out the page or copy the instructions..

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