The Steam Engine and Trade Shows Pushed America to Greatness

The Steam Engine and Trade Shows Pushed America to Greatness

by Larry Kulchawik 

Two of many inventions that transformed the American economy from good to great were the stream engine and trade shows. Both catapolted the financial strength and trade opportunities within the USA. The steam engine has been replaced with better solutions, and trade shows continue to grow as a haven of opportunity for business growth.

In late 1700, inventors in England were the first to build a steam engine. This created the biggest impact on the industrial revolution when it made its way in the United States. New businesses began to grow, but the vast space between cities in the USA made it difficult to trade and to deliver goods in a timely manner. The coal-fired steam engine was in many respects the decisive technology for the growth of the Industrial Revolution in America.

Like trade shows, the steam engine was invented in Europe and made its way to success in the USA. The invention of the steam engine in England, by Richard Arkwright in 1776, was instrumental in the development of the English textile industry. The steam engine driven machines helped the English to weave faster than ever before. The markets were now full of English cloth, and then they soon applied the concept to create steam locomotives.

It was soon thereafter that American inventors, Peter Cooper and Tom Thumb, developed the first steam locomotives in the United States. The coal burning engine led to the replacement of horse drawn trains. Rail transportation in America connected the states to create a unified economy. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that the development of electric and diesel locamotives began to replace steam locomotives.

Like the steam engine, trade shows were also started in Europe. American ingenuity developed their own ways of using the tools in their own way. This is what made America great. Running and improving on new ideas to make them better. Like the steam engine, trade shows in America grew to be a powerful driver that pushed the American economy forward each decade.

We, as suppliers to the exhibit industry, are not the main reason for its success. We are simply the engineers who feed coal to create the steam that pushes the train (trade show marketing) forward. The exhibitors who travel on the train do so to arrive at a destination- added sales. Without their success from the journey, we don’t need a train (or a trade show) in its present state. Exhibitor success is the reason the train (trade shows) traveled forward. We only add the fuel to feed the engine.

For more on the history of trade shows in the United States, read our book entitledThe Invisible Industry. An industry influenced by early World Fairs and grew to represent a $1trillion economic impact for the USA. The American Model of organizing a trade show event is uniquly different than in the rest of the world.

Trade Shows- the Steam Engine of Marketing Success

When calculating the size and impact of a trade show event within any given city we must realize the big investments that these cities needed to make to build a convention center. This included the infrastructure required for transportation, hotels, restaurants, and attractions to handle large crowds. The payback for this level of city investment takes years to break even, but these cities believed strongly in the power of face to face marketing.

The city investments to build a convention center was not- “build it and they will come”. Much thought, planning, promotion and guts was required to make this level of investment a success.

So why did they do it? They did it to grow their local economy.

So why do companies invest in trade shows? To grow their businesses.

So why does trade show marketing continue grow? It grows because the investment to present new products and services, in a face- to- face environment produces sales results. Eye to eye contact creates emotion. Emotion encourages a decision to buy. Trade shows stimulate emotion. They provide the stage for buying new ideas and products tha grow the overall economy.

Trade shows work. Trade shows mean business. Trade shows grow the economy.

Like our positive belief in the investments we made in the steam engine, will our belief in face-to -face selling continue in the same fashion moving forward?

What could possibly replace the present trade show model for selling and telling ideas to stir up the economy better?

What new ways to generate sales, and to share new ideas, could be created to take its place?

Our means of marketing, and our means of transportation, have a way of ever evolving.