“God made men, but Sam Colt made them equal.” (A common 19th century adage)

The industrial revolution that unfolded in Western societies at the dawn of the 19th century altered daily life as a rapidly developing paradigm. Military weapons benefited from various upgrades and innovations, even as the soldiers and generals remained confined within Napoleonic tactics while struggling to learn about the new principles of physics and engineering.

By the time weapons industrialist Samuel Colt was born, the Lewis and Clark expedition sent to the Pacific by Thomas Jefferson had only recently returned with their report on the first overland continental journey. Outside of a small group of mountain men trapping and trading fur for European fashion magnates, few white settlers had found their way across the Great Plains. The firearms of the revolution demonstrated little difference between a soldier’s flintlock musket and a hunting weapon taken from the mantle.

Trapped in the same technological rut, as future wars drew near in the new century, Samuel Colt entered the pool of visionaries in search of the invention that would tip the power balance in favor of those who possessed it. As an observant child of the Industrial Revolution, Colt would ultimately lead the way with the most defining design changes in weaponry, and through constant trial and error, he gave the military what it wanted despite fierce resistance and apathy: an answer to the reloading conundrum. The half-minute intervals in which soldiers, lawmen, and hunters were at their most vulnerable was effectively eliminated after centuries of resignation, and the ensuing refinements to his handguns, in particular, were crucial to the outcomes of multiple wars, the American expansion west, and cowboy life along the frontier.

Samuel Colt: The Life and Legacy of the Man Who Invented America’s Most Famous Guns looks at the individual and firearms that helped shape the nation in the 19th century.