Robert Fulton in Europe: An American Hustler Invents Himself

The book presents Robert Fulton, the purported inventor of the steamboat, in a new and more significant light: as a hustler. Except for Benjamin Franklin, Fulton was the most famous and iconic inventor of the early American republic, a position he held into the twentieth century. But he did not invent the steamboat, nor did any of his other claimed inventions ever gain much traction in his day. Rather he copied or elaborated the ideas of others, seldom achieving adoption or success with any of his knockoffs. Indeed, his greatest invention was himself, posing as an “engineer” and a “gentleman.” But hustlers have played an important and largely unrecognized role in American history. Even America’s most famous inventor, Thomas Edison, admitted to having something of the hustler in him. These were people who, in the modern argot, chose to “fake it till you make it.” Fulton finally made it, and along the way his rags-to-riches story reveals much about the economies and patent systems of England, France, and the United States, where he spent his whole life. And the key roles of capital and political influence in his final success reveals much about innovation in the industrialized world that first appeared in his lifetime.