After the Second World War the United States saw a great amount of technological advances. The ideas and inventions which came about during these years were some of the most influential and life changing happenings in American history. Morale was high, and people were given opportunity to work on these new ideas rather than worry about invasions and the possibility of a life built around fear and war. In 1946 a man by the name of John Biggins introduced the first credit card to America. With this new idea, a person would present the card (then only a piece of paper) to a merchant, and the bill for the purchase would be sent along to Biggins’ bank. The bank would then pay the bill, and the account holder would be responsible for reimbursing the bank at the end of the month. This was huge to the American people. As the years progressed consumers were able to purchase more items, and in the 1950’s the credit card was widely responsible for the boom in purchasing consumer goods. Charles Ginsburg invented the first video tape recorder in 1951. Ginsburg led a research team at a company called apex, and was primarily responsible for the bulk of the ideas and production of the device. With this new invention, video cameras images could be captured and stored magnetically on rolls of magnetic “tape”. The invention is one of the most prolific happening in human history, as it allowed moments to be saved and replayed by everyday people.
The year 1952 brought with it the invention of the bar code. Joseph Woodland, and Bernard Silver, working for IBM at the time, set up a shop in their Binghamton NY living room, and were devoted to creating a device which could scan items instantly for supermarkets. At the time is was a large machine composed of a 500w lightbulb and a photo tube. Using an oscilloscope, they were able to generate wave patterns depending on how