[Gutenberg 2900] • The Age of Invention: A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest

For the beginnings of the enslavement of steam, that mighty giant whose work has changed the world we live in, we must return to the times of Benjamin Franklin. James Watt, the accredited father of the modern steam engine, was a contemporary of Franklin, and his engine was twenty-one years old when Franklin died. The discovery that steam could be harnessed and made to work is not, of course, credited to James Watt. The precise origin of that discovery is unknown.