Origins of Modernity
Guns and Rails: Asia, Britain and America, 1760-1918
"transfer of technology from India."
"Whilst Indians had been making guns from brass since the sixteenth century (1500s), Europeans could at first only produce this alloy in relatively small quantities, because...they had no technique for smelting zinc."
p. 131
Technical | Social | Cultural | Personal
What is modernity?
convergence | standardization | adaptation | exaptation | serendipity | cultural expression | errors
Technical or formal aspect
"a new transport technology had emerged--the steam operated railroad. Vital to this were improvements in iron-working which allowed strong rails to be made. The first steam locomotive had been built by Richard Trevithick in 1802 at Coalbrookedale in Shropshire."
Colliery wagons were sufficient for cast iron rails -- but cast iron rails could not support railway steam locomotives were replaced by wrought iron in 1821.
Laid for the Stockton and Darlington Railways in 1825, UK.
US was 1827-1830 with the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O).
pp. 135-137.
Technical | Social | Cultural | Personal
Convergence:
"One other invention which played a crucial part in the development of railroads as a transport system was the electric telegraph....it was vital for the efficient management of the railroad."
"The electric telegraph, became a practical possibility only when batteries of a reasonably reliable and economical kind were available."
p. 137.
"In many ways it was the technological success of the iron industry that
made railroads possible..."
p.138.
By the 1850s the US had six times the miles of railroads possessed by Britain.
pp. 139-40.
Technical | Social | Cultural | Personal
Standardization:
evident in American manufactures, especially in firearms parts which in 1820s were characterized by interchangeable components or parts.
This was extended to steel making and machine tools.
pp. 145-146.
The "American system of Manufacturers... importance lay in the fact that the manufacture of intricate mechanisms for guns or other devices could now be organized in a manner analogous to the factory system..."
"In other word, with fewer skilled workers, and with machine paced work, a bigger quantity of guns, clocks, Yale locks,or any other standardized mechanical product could be made than by reliance on craft methods."
p.146.
Technical | Social | Cultural | Personal
Social & Organizational aspect
Locomotives could be built by people with experience of making machines for other industries, notably for cotton spinning, and the workshops used had many tools in common. Thus, in the 1830s, locomotve building developed strongly in the machines shops near the tectile mill complex at well, Massachusetts, and at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the Baldwin locomotive works grew out of an enterprise which had previously made machines for textile printing."
By 1839 most locomotives used in America where manufactured here, unlike Argentina which by 1857 had a railway with engines imported from Great Britain.
pp. 140-141.
Technical | Social | Cultural | Personal
The error of inevitability
"India was viewed by the British as an agricultural country."
Thus, "It is difficult to avoid the impression that such developments came late to India because railroads were not allowed the catalytic role they played in Europe and the United States, nor could shipyards develop their potential.
Steelworks and textile mills, when they came [to India], did not transform the whole of Indian society as western societies had been transformed, but remained islands of 'advanced' development surrounded by a more slowly changing and more traditional agricultural economy."
Are we any more than a composite reflection of the tools we use?
p. 149
Arnold Pacey, Technology in World Civilization
Technical | Social | Cultural | Personal
convergence | standardization | adaptation | exaptation | serendipity | cultural expression | errors | next
Pacey on Meaning | Pursell | Technology defined | Dimensions of Technology | Chronology of tools
 |
 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Tools of Toil: what to read. | ||
| Tools are historical building blocks of technology. | ||
Index | Site map | Vocabulary