History's Best Selling Products of 1893

Revisiting 1893 presents a grand parade of items history, marked by swell Yankee ingenuity and home-front craftsmanship and enduring fan favorites. Unrivaled hits including Diesel Engine, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, and essential classics took top honors in living rooms and storefronts alike. Master craftsmen from industry leaders like Rudolf Diesel and Frederick Jackson Turner led the vanguard, engineering high-caliber releases that swept main street from coast to coast as genuine top-flight hits. Dive into the full historical rankings below to see which standout creations won the day.

1. Diesel Engine

   Released in 1893 by Rudolf Diesel

   On February 23, 1893, the future of industrial power took a definitive step forward, though not with the roar of an engine but with the stroke of a pen. On this day, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted German Patent DRP 67207 for a 'rational heat motor'. This date doesn't mark the first working prototype, which was still years away, but the crucial legal recognition of his groundbreaking theory. The patent protected his concept for an internal combustion engine based on the principles of the Carnot cycle, aiming for unprecedented thermal efficiency by igniting fuel through high-compression heat alone, a radical departure from the spark-ignition Otto cycle engines that dominated the late 19th century. This patent was the foundational document that enabled Diesel to secure funding and partnerships, turning his theoretical vision into a world-changing mechanical reality.

2. The Significance of the Frontier in American History

   Released in 1893 by Frederick Jackson Turner

   Published in 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner's "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" stands as a seminal work that fundamentally redefined the trajectory of American historical scholarship. Delivered at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, this essay arrived at a pivotal moment, coinciding with the official announcement by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1890 that a discernible frontier line no longer existed. Turner's thesis offered a powerful explanatory framework for understanding American exceptionalism, arguing that the unique experience of confronting and settling the vast western frontier was the crucible in which American democracy and character were forged, thereby providing a distinctly American narrative independent of European influences and setting the stage for decades of historical inquiry.