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
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