Describe how technologies (manufacturing, transportations, weapons, agriculture, etc.) have transformed US life. Please make sure your answer includes at least six concrete examples in the US history up to 1877.

From the first settling of the Americas up to 1890, America was the benefactor of global technologies. The settling of the colonies and exploration was primarily a European search for raw materials to be exported back to European producers of goods. Jamestown is considered the first settlement of America in 1607. At that time, the available technology in America was of European descent. The first industrial revolution began in Europe in the 1760s. The historical context and timeline of the American technological progression advance in America is a byproduct of European ingenuity. Compiling a list of significant technologies transforming American life would have to include what settlers brought with them from Europe. Choosing the technologies with the most significant impact on life in early America and, later, in the United States is subject to much debate and opinion.
One of the earliest technological advances which has both American and European beginnings is the octant, or Hadley’s quadrant, named for its English inventor and mathematician. Claim for inventing the octant is shared with American glazier Thomas Godfrey in 1730. The octant was an instrument used to measure and plot navigation by refracting light. The octant dramatically improved navigation and made measurement more accurate. The tool allowed the user to accurately predict north and south position within a few hundred feet.
A technological advance you may not have thought of that was critical to navigating inland waterways, like rivers, is the flat-bottom boat, or flatboat. Flatboats, as the name implies, have flat bottoms and wide bows. Previously, ships with broad and deep keels when navigating rivers frequently ran aground or were unable to float up rivers with changing depths. Flatboats floated higher and were less likely to run aground or get stranded on sandbars, as they could navigate water that was not as deep.
Because of their design (think of a modern barge), they could haul a large number of supplies without fear of being top-heavy. The inventor is said to be Jacob Yoder. In 1782, he used the flatboat to transport goods on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, which may have been the first time a river became a significant transportation route for commercial purposes in the US. It also accelerated population growth in the Ohio River Valley area, as traveling by river was much less complicated than a journey overland.
In 1787, an American miller invented the process by which grain could be milled into the flour with less labor and less loss from the process. Oliver Evans mechanized much of the process of refining grains into flour, which up to this point had been very much a labor-intensive production. Only two men were needed to work in his production facility. His creation facilitated automation of the process of refining grain into the flour, making it less expensive and a product much quicker to get to the consumer. Many northern mills adopted his automation, and it is said that even George Washington installed the equipment for use in his personal gristmill at Mount Vernon.
No one invention is revered or reviled as the next one, which is an American technological advancement. Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 revolutionized the production of cotton for use in making textiles. The cotton gin separated the gnarly stems and cotton seeds from the fibrous material of the cotton plant. Before the cotton gin, this was done by hand by slave labor. Whitney did not get rich from his invention. Whitney did hold a patent on the machine, but because patent laws were rarely enforced in the early years of the United States, many farmers built reproductions rather than purchase a device from him.
Whitney is revered for accelerating cotton production and creating a vibrant textile industry in the United States. Some historians revile him, accusing Whitney’s invention of perpetuating and increasing the use of slave labor in the United States as the demand for cotton soared. One other note of interest is that Whitney may not have invented the cotton gin. The original design may have been the genius of a wealthy female plantation owner-investor. Because females could not apply for patents, she turned the invention over to Whitney to get the patent and sell to farmers. Whitney may also take credit for interchangeable parts, which standardized the parts in machines, making them commercially available in place of having to hand-fashion the broken piece every time it was needed.
Two technologies which increased manufacturing capabilities are similar. The technologies are the milling machine and the wooden profile lathe. The milling machine fabricates metal, while the lathe shaves wood into shapes. Before either technology became common, fabricating metal or wood was done by hand. As you might imagine, imperfections and imprecision were common. The milling machine and profile lathe eliminated much of this problem, making the manufacturing of fabricated parts for machines, tools, and other uses more accurate. Consistency in the quality of parts led to more standardization and expansion. Milling machine technology became available in 1816, and the profile lathe followed in 1818. Simeon North is credited with milling machine technology, and Thomas Blanchard with the profile lathe.
In 1834, Hiram Moore invented the combine thresher. The combine thresher revolutionized production from harvesting wheat and other grains. Before the technology was developed, the process of harvesting grain, threshing (or separating the seeds from the stalks), and cleaning the grain was performed by three different machines. Moore’s technology was able to combine all three processes into one machine, significantly reducing the time it took to get grain to the mills to be processed into flour. It also increased the acreage that could be planted, as there was more manpower available from repositioning labor to other jobs, as one man using the combine thresher could do the job of three.
There are, of course, numerous other examples of technology that benefited Americans up to 1877. Included in the list is Morse Code (1836), which revolutionized communication; the circuit breaker (1836), which made electricity to homes and factories safer; and vulcanized rubber (1839), making the use of rubber in tires and other goods possible.
You may not have thought of sports as a technology. In 1845, baseball became the national pastime and a cultural benefit. If you were wondering, football came along about 1869. Airbrakes on trains were a huge technological improvement in 1872 that improved the safety of trains, allowed them to travel faster and increasing the ability of goods being transported across the country.
There are quite a few more technologies that could be added to the list. These are the few that deserve mentioning and had impact on the daily lives of most every citizen before 1877.
http://fileserver.net-texts.com/asset.aspx?dl=no&id=26920

https://blog.thomasnet.com/american-inventions-that-revolutionized-manufacturing

https://www.ushistory.org/us/25c.asp