Articles of interest

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Why the Nineteenth Century Shaped Who Americans Are Today: Part 2, the Industrial Revolution

A coal clinker from a railroad bed
The Industrial Revolution transformed the world. Even the parts of the world that it never touched directly have been shaped by it. Our world today is a wholly shaped by the Industrial Revolution and its implications. It's important to take a look at the background.

In the late 18th century the British engineer James Watt developed the modern steam engine, which transformed the way products were made. Prior to this development machinery was run by water power or power generated by humans or animals. Watt’s engine made it possible to run machinery using a furnace to hear water, create steam, and power a steam engine which in turn could power looms, presses, and other industrial machinery. Initially steam engines burned wood, but by the later 1700’s the mining of coal took on a sense of urgency as Britain’s forests continued to disappear.

Coal has been a major source of fuel since this time, and for over a century concerns have been raised about the environmental effect of burning coal. Not only does it contribute to climate change but the mining process destroys the area in which the mining takes place. I’m not going to rehearse the environmental effects of the use of coal right now.

There are four main types of coal—anthracite, bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite. Anthracite is the hardest, and most desirable because it produces more heat. It is also low sulfur. Bituminous has more sulfur and is softer but still produces a good amount of heat. Subbituminous is softer yet, and lignite is sometimes compared to hardened peat because it hasn’t undergone the same level of development under the ground.

When coal is burned it is not completely consumed by fire. Instead, impurities such as coke, slag and grit are left behind and coalesce into chunks called ‘clinkers.”  My father remembered his first job in the early 1930’s sifting clinkers in people’s basements to sort out any good pieces of coal.

Clinkers are actually a useful byproduct. When crushed they are often called “cinders” and they make a good pavement material.

Coal was also used to heat homes, the effects of which made the air in large cities in Britain and elsewhere toxic to breathe. Coal mining also necessitated (and still does) unsafe working conditions.  A black pall would constantly hang over cities.

The clinker pictured here came from an old railroad bed in New York where I lived a number of years ago. It is a reminder for me of the impact this mineral had on the development of industry.

It is clear that the goal of industry was to make inexpensive products that would create a ready market, an advantage over handmade products that were more expensive. We’ll get back to this in a minute.

What industry did in Britain, and later in the United States and Europe during the nineteenth century was to create the modern city. People left farms to work in a city in a factory. Public transportation did not exist until the advent of the railroad in the 1830’s and 40’s so workers had to live near the factories. Some factory owners built affordable housing nearby for workers to live in. What nobody took into account was the effect this had on society. People lived in close proximity to one another, and when disease made an appearance it tor through poor sections of a city. The 1854 cholera outbreak in London led to the development of the science of epidemiology, the study of how infectious disease spreads.

Many took notice of the effects of poverty and hardship on the poor laboring class in Britain. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels co-wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). They, and many other authors, wrote of the working conditions of factory workers which endangered their health and contributed to an early death. In addition, there were no laws regarding the employment of children, and children who started work in factories at an early age did not develop properly, and they suffered the loss of extremities because their smaller hands made them useful in particular jobs.


The manufacture of inexpensive cloth in the United States required the technology to make it. Robert Slater, a mill worker in England, memorized the plans for mill machinery and fled to Rhode Island with the plans in his head. He built a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1793, the same year as an important invention appeared in Connecticut.

Two of the most significant developments in the American Industrial Revolution came from the same person—Eli Whitney (1765-1825). Whitney ingeniously developed the idea of interchangeable parts, and famously demonstrated to government agents how he could put together a musket from parts picked out of barrels of identical parts. He also invented the cotton gin in 1793 which made it possible to grow cotton profitably. I have no idea if he understood the implications of this invention for the revival of the institution of slavery. The institution of slavery in its second phase was a violent and brutal partner to the Industrial Revolution. More on that next time.


Sunday, July 12, 2020

Why the Nineteenth Century Shaped Who Americans Are Today (Part 1)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the major influences that have made us who we are in the present day. There are a lot of them—recently, World War II, Vietnam, the rise of immigration to the United States, the development of the automobile and the building of the interstate highway system, the advent of computer technology and the Internet, all of those and more. But there is one period of time that laid a foundation for all of the above.

I enjoy playing chess against my computer. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. I notice a phenomenon that often happens in live games. One square becomes the focal point. Everything builds up until something breaks. American history, like the history of the rest of the world, tends to act in the same way.

The nineteenth century. Nineteenth doesn’t mean 1900-1999. Remember the first decade after the supposed birth of Christ (which actually happened around 5-4 BCE) there were only three digits in the years. In the first century there were only two. So the first century was 1-99, second 100-199, etc. The nineteenth century is by common acceptance 1800-1899, although technically it is 1801-1900 but we’ll not quibble about that.

Historically, when we’re talking about centuries it’s not necessarily about a strictly defined period of 100 years. Arguably, the end of the English Renaissance is with the death of Queen Elizabeth ! In 1603.  Similarly, it could be argued that in terms of historical trends and culture the nineteenth century ended in Europe in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I, when the world that had gradually come into being was destroyed—the world of empires, free trade, open borders, and pacifism, all the while below their feet a massive arms buildup was growing that would explode in 1914.

What is it about the nineteenth century? We’ll look at it in at least a couple of blog entries. I’m not sure how long it will take. I will include thoughts about a variety of historical artifacts.

In Western history the nineteenth century begins, to a degree, with the treaties of Paris (1814-15) ended the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon’s urge to conquer all of Europe was a culmination of the philosophical and military advances of the eighteenth century, a century that saw nearly constant warfare in Europe over a variety of issues including territory, claims to various thrones, etc.  Napoleon took over France in 1799 at the lowest point in the French Revolution.

The first artifacts are two pieces of paper money from Revolutionary France. They come from different periods in the Revolution but represent the same thing. The revolutionary government confiscated huge tracts of land from the nobility and also from the Roman Catholic Church. They may not have know what they were going to do with all that wealth in real estate but somebody came up with a seemingly brilliant idea (at the time). Let’s issue paper money based on the value of the land. The government held the land, and wasn’t going to sell it right away, so why not? The problem was inflation. It didn’t take long for hyperinflation to set in. Series after series of notes were issued to stay on top of the hyperinflation but it didn’t work. It didn’t work because real estate value fluctuates. You can ask any real estate agent about that.



What was supposed to be a source of stability for the Revolutionary government became a huge source of instability.

So, what does this have to do with today? Lots. Empires fell during this time. Not all, but some. More fell at the end of World War I. But this was the start. The map of Europe was redrawn for the better part of a century by the outcome of this period and set up Europe for another century of warfare, which in turn set up Europe for another half century of warfare.



Politically the United States tried as hard as possible to stay out of European wars but didn't entirely succeed. No troops were sent, but this period strongly influenced American politics and the economy, such as the Embargo during the War of 1812 that killed New England's trade with Britain. Jefferson's audacious Louisiana purchase in 1803 was brokered because Napoleonic France was broke. We were influenced by European politics and warfare in a way that we don't even know.

Next we'll look at the Industrial Revolution. After that, the advances in communication, slavery, the Civil War, and anything else that comes to mind. Put your hat on, it's going to be a bumpy ride!