Steamboat

Robert Fulton, USA, patent of 1809. Commercial steam navigation that redrew river trade.

Overview

Fulton's North River Steamboat, the Clermont, ran New York to Albany in 1807 under a New York state monopoly from his patent rights with Robert Livingston. John Fitch had demonstrated steam boats two decades earlier, holding 1791 patents, but died broke before the market matured. Fulton's craft proved schedules and profits possible. Steamboats soon stitched American rivers into trade arteries. The 1824 Gibbons v Ogden Supreme Court case broke his monopoly, founding federal commerce power.