Robert Fulton
American engineer and inventor (1765–1815)
- Fame60.3
- Momentum3.8
- Scientists rank#249
Source-basedStable
- Fame60.3
- Momentum3.8
- Scientists rank#249
- Wikipedia15.9K
Lived 1765–1815, aged 50United States
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Summary
Updated 2026-06-21
He turned the steamboat from novelty into commerce — the 1807 run up the Hudson, New York to Albany and back in 62 hours, rewrote how rivers worked in America.
Biography
About
Fulton caught the steam bug at twelve, visiting a Pennsylvania delegate who'd seen Watt's engine in England and couldn't stop talking about it. By 1800 he was in France building Nautilus for Napoleon — the first practical submarine — and sketching out naval torpedoes for the British Navy. But the legacy locked in 1807: the North River Steamboat carried passengers 300 nautical miles on the Hudson, proved the economics worked, and turned every major American river into a different kind of artery. He died in 1815, eight years after the trip that changed the map.
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Fame
Stable60.3
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum3.8
Historical23.9
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
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- Pantheon 2.0High confidencedatabase · pantheon.world
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