The Age of Steam

This page provides a single entry point to all the posts in the story of the steam engine.

  1. Introduction
  2. The Weight of the Air
  3. The Pumping Engine
  4. The Triumvirate: Coal, Iron, and Steam
  5. James Watt, Instrument Maker
  6. The Steam Revolution
  7. The Steamboat Inventors: The First Generation
  8. The Steamboat Inventors: The Second Generation
  9. High Pressure, Part I: The Western Steamboat
  10. High Pressure, Part II: The First Steam Railway
  11. The Rail Revolution
  12. Steamships, Part I: Crossing the Atlantic
  13. Steamships, Part 2: The Further Adventures of Isambard Kingdom Brunel
  14. Britain’s Steam Empire
  15. America’s Steam Empire
  16. The Pursuit of Efficiency and the Science of Steam
  17. Steam and Electricity: Electric Light
  18. Steam Revolution: The Turbine
  19. Twilight of the Steam Age, Part 1: Internal Combustion