Is This Progress?

1876: Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone

1876: Melville Bissell patents the carpet sweeper

1877: Thomas Edison invents the tin foil phonograph

1884: James Ritty invents the first working mechanical cash register

1885: Harim Maxim invents the machine gun

1886: Josephine Cochrane invents the dishwasher

1886: John Pemberton invents Coca Cola

1887: Rowell Hodge patents barbed wire

1891: Jesse W. Reno invents the escalator

1893: W.L. Judson invents the zipper

1895: The Lumiere brothers invent a portable motion picture camera

1898: Edwin Prescott patents the roller coaster

1901: The first radio receiver successfully receives a transmission

Progress?

• Thorstein Veblen– The Theory of the Leisure

Class (1899)• “predatory” traits• Achievements• “conspicuous

consumption”