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Inventors and Inventions

Granville T. Woods

Granville T. Woods
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 8 to 9
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   8.2

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    incubator, synchronous, collision, further, hands-on, conduction, booming, electronics, rail, technology, furnace, inventor, spare, engineer, advance, spike
     content words:    Civil War, Transcontinental Railroad, Promontory Point, East Coast, United States, Granville T., Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph, Once Granville Woods, Granville Woods, Bell Telephone

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Granville T. Woods
By Sharon Fabian 		  
1     Americans were traveling by rail. In the second half of the 1800's railroad transportation was booming. Both the North and the South had used railroads to transport troops in the Civil War. In 1869, the long awaited Transcontinental Railroad was finally completed when they drove in the final spike at Promontory Point, Utah. On the East Coast, railway travel was becoming popular, and lines were extended to carry more and more passengers. By the late 1800's, there were about 200,000 miles of track in the United States.
 
2     As the railroad system grew, trains were also becoming larger and more powerful. Much of the railroad technology was new too. The result of all of this growth and change was that railroads became dangerous for workers and for passengers. Switchmen and brakemen knew that their job was dangerous; many of them died while doing their job.
 
3     A collision between two trains must have been a horrible sight, but unfortunately, collisions did happen since early trains had no way of communicating with each other or with the train station.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
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