Such inventions fit our instincts about what "new technology" should look like: unlike paper and shipping containers, they are mysterious and complex, like the organic robot Rachael. Electricity should, by rights, have blossomed in US manufacturing in the 1890s, but in fact it wasn't until the 1920s that electric motors really delivered on their promise, and productivity surged. The older, steam-powered factories had delivered power through awe-inspiring drive-shafts, secondary shafts, belts, belt towers, and thousands of drip-oilers.