In “Men of Achievement”, Philip Hubert writes about the famous inventors Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, Eli Whitney, Elias Howe, Samuel Morse, Charles Goodyear, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell as well as many others. Although it reviews their inventions it also examines the inventor: their origins, hopes, aims, principles, disappointments, trials and triumphs, their daily life and personal character. With over forty-five illustrations, “Men of Achievement” discusses the value of their work – the invention of steam, electricity, the telegraph, telephone, phonograph and the camera and Goodyear’s vulcanized rubber. With the patent laws of the time it also highlights how these men contributed thousands of millions of dollars to the nation’s wealth and received comparatively nothing in return.