Mokyr 5
Mokyr wants to redefine the industrial revolution--the
key is not economic growth but accelerating technological
change
- a cluster of macroinventions--age of
improvement
- not in all industries but not in a narrow
cluster
- focus was on production technologies
- not all in one country but making use of
inventions elsewhere
Steam engine:
- Watt was focused on improving efficiency
- not just a clever device, but economic value ("making
engines cheap as well as good" p. 87)
- history
of thermodynamics
- note that the technology comes first, then the science is
worked out to explain it
waterwheels also saw significant improvements in efficiency and
theory
the key bottleneck in iron-making was producing wrought iron--less
brittle than cast iron
- this was an obvious need and many people worked on the
solution
- Henry Cort 1784 developed a puddling and rolling process
- Darby's method of smelting iron with coke was just the
beginning of a series of improvements in smelting
- it was harder to invent a cheap way of making
steel--again a many step invention
Textiles
- the successful spinning innovation was the mule, which combined
two other (the jenny and the water frame)
- a major improvement, the self-acting mule, was slow to
catch on because it was expensive workers resisted the loss of
skilled jobs
- introduction of bleach--chemically whitening textiles is
easier than washing them
- machine printing
- weaving was slower to mechanize, but many inventors
Machine tools
- machines for cutting metal were key to making the steam
engines and textile machines and locomotives of the industrial
revolution
- standardization
of screw threads
Gas light
Flight via hot air balloons
technology dramatically reduced the cost of existing
products: 85% for cotton between 1780 and 1850
much of the necessary scientific knowledge existed 150 years
earlier, but not the skills
the incentives were high enough for people to spend years
developing a machine before it could be manufactured and sold