Edwin L. Drake

Edwin's Life and Death

• Edwin L. Drake was born in 1819 in a town called Greenville in the state of New York
• His first job was actually as a railroad conductor
• He was digging for oil so often with out getting anything that the people of his town actually started calling him 'Crazy Drake'

Edwin's Life and Death (cont.)

• He died in 1880 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

What Edwin L. Drake Did

• He was the first person to successfully drill for oil on August 28th, 1859 after trying for a long time

Oil Helped Fuel the Industrial Revolution

• Edwin L. Drake was the first person to successfully drill for oil. This helped the U.S. in many ways. First of all, he helped discover how to collect large quantities of oil , because before, people were only able to get a small amount of oil by putting a piece of fabric on the water to collect the oil off the top of the water. It also helped because people can now buy oil, and factories use oil in their

Oil Helped (cont.)

• power driven machines, which also means there can be more machines that use oil, and more machines means there are more jobs and goods. this also created a lot of businesses, because people could have oil companies. We still use oil for a lot of things today, so this helped a lot.

References

• http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/DrakeOilWell.html
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/drake_hi.html
• http://www.anb.org/articles/10/10-02291.html