The Heroic Age of American Invention

Infobox Book |
name = The Heroic Age of American Invention
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Dust-jacket for "The Heroic Age of American Invention"
author = L. Sprague deCamp
illustrator =
cover_artist = Robert Flynn
country = United States
language = English
series =
subject = American history
publisher = Doubleday
release_date = 1961
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pages = 290 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Heroic Age of American Invention" is a 1961 science book for children by L. Sprague de Camp, published by Doubleday. It was reprinted in 1993 by Barnes & Noble under the title "Heroes of American Invention".

By "heroic age" the author means the era of American history in which individual initiative and enterprise constituted the primary thread in technical innovation, roughly from the early 1800s until mass production and corporate enterprise outpaced that of the individual aroung the time of World War I. The story of innovation is told through the biographies and inventions of thirty-two key inventors of the United States' industrial revolution, whom de Camp feels were pivotal in converting the country from an agrarian nation to an industrial one.

Some of the inventors spotlighted include Robert L. Stevens, George Westinghouse, Samuel Morris, Samuel Colt, Cyrus McCormick, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison.

References

*cite book | last=Laughlin | first=Charlotte | coauthors=Daniel J. H. Levack | title=De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography | location=San Francisco | publisher=Underwood/Miller | pages=66 | date=1983