Robert Fulton never claimed to have invented the idea of a steamboat. It is doubtful anyone could successfully make that claim. Once Thomas Newcomen and James Watt had proved the economic feasibility of stationary steam engines to remove water from mines, many mechanically minded Europeans and Americans speculated about how such engines might be used to move ships, wagons, and railcars. All three goals would be achieved in the nineteenth century.

Fulton insisted an idea was not an invention; demonstration of its workability was decisive. He believed his French experiments had revealed the fundamental relationships between engine power, propulsive mechanism, and hull design that changed steamboats from ideas to commercial reality. Fulton claimed that his major contribution in constructing the first commercially successful steamboat were his designs for the paddle wheels on each side of his boat.

There had already been much discussion about how to use steam power to produce propulsion. Benjamin Franklin thought paddles would not generate enough power and suggested propelling a jet of water out the back of the boat to move it forward, but attempts to build such ships were unsuccessful. One inventor built a ship with oars attached to horizontal bars on each side of his vessel, looking like an ancient galley with steam power replacing galley slaves, also without success. Another tried screw propellers with blades similar to those on windmills at the rear of his ship. At one point, Fulton considered stern paddles that moved side to side like a fish tail. Others tried versions of paddle wheels at the rear or the sides of vessels, but they lacked Fulton's carefully tested design.

On oceangoing ships, paddle wheels were problematic; storm waves could raise them out of the water, making steering difficult. On the broad, relatively smooth American rivers, however, the paddle wheel was an effective impeller in the early nineteenth century. Only after the heyday of the Mississippi steamboat was over did efficiently designed screw propellers become the mechanism of choice. Until then, Fulton's side paddle-wheel design dominated early American steamboats as they stimulated the economic development of the country.

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