Tradition of Innovation

FacultyYale's Early Inventors

Dotted with water-powered mills and rich in craftsmen with mechanical skills, Connecticut was a center of the Industrial Revolution in the United States. So it was not surprising that Yale produced inventors and entrepreneurs who helped forge the new nation's technological and scientific advances. more »

 

Faculty

20th-Century Inventors

In the 20th century, Yale graduates and faculty continued to make transformative scientific discoveries and technological advances, including the invention of a vaccuum tube for radio amplification and the creation of the forerunner of the artificial heart. more »

At a Glance

1775 David Bushnell builds first combat submarine

1794 Eli Whitney’s cotton gin is patented

1858 Eli Whitney Blake invents stone crusher for road paving

1906 Lee DeForest invents triode radio vacuum tube

1949 William H. Sewell Jr. builds mechanical blood pump – forerunner of artificial heart

1989 Sidney Altman shares Nobel Prize for fundamentally important discovery in biological sciences that RNA could serve as an enzyme, or bio-catalyst