History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Lecture 3

Power Machinery• An Industrial Revolution in the late

Middle Ages?• Textiles, the Prototype of Mechanized

Industry• Traditional Technics of Domestic Textile

Production• The Mechanization of Spinning• The Mechanization of Weaving

History 398 Fall 2004

An Industrial Revolution in the Later Middle Ages?

• Mills in urban settings, often grouped together• Mills serving purposes other than grinding• Combinations of mills, but no record of

compound mills, i.e. powering several stones or tools by a single central source

• Yet, either isolated, unique, or small-scale• IR about power machinery of new sort,

combined with new source of power. Historically, result of new attitude toward machines which arose in Renaissance.

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

Roman Mills at Barbigal, ~300 (reconstruction

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

Centrality of Human Skills

• Thumb and forefinger• Twisting, drawing, and

winding• Shuttle and batten• Selection of pattern • 1760-1820 all mechanized

– emulation of human action– mechanical reparsing of task

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

The Mechanization of Spinning

• James Hargreaves: jenny 1764• Richard Arkwright: (water)frame

1769• Samuel Crompton: mule (= jenny +

frame) 1778• Effects

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

Cotton Calico

English Imported

1775 56,814 2,111,4391780 1,143,043 1,071,7751783 3,578,590 770,992

History 398 Fall 2004

Price of #100 yarn (185 yds/oz)

1786 36s1790 30s1792 16s1801 8s 9d1807 6s 9d1833 4s 9d (here stabilized)

History 398 Fall 2004

The Mechanization of Weaving

• Power loom– Edmund Cartwright (1786-88)

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

Power Looms in Manchester, Stockport

• 1818, 2000• 1821, 5733• 1825, 20,000 in Manchester

alone

History 398 Fall 2004

Number of Power Looms1803 1820 1829

1833 England 12,150 45,500 85,000Scotland 2,000 10,000 15,000Total 2,400 14,150 55,550 100,000

History 398 Fall 2004

Muslin weavers of Bolton received for 24

yds • 1793 £4• 1797 27s• 1807 18• 1817 9• 1827 6 6d

History 398 Fall 2004

The Mechanization of Weaving

• Power loom– Edmund Cartwright (1786-88)

• Automatic pattern selection– Joseph-Marie Jacquard (~1804)

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004

History 398 Fall 2004