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The making of machines to make machines was one of the most important aspects of the Industrial Revolution, but it must not be forgotten that the making of machine tools can be traced back a great many centuries. The lathe, for example, is the oldest known machine tool and dates back to antiquity. However, it was not until the late 17th Century that clockmakers, builders of scientific instruments, and furniture and gun makers began the changeover from wood-working lathes to ones capable of machining tool steel. They had a need for a variety of gear cutting, grinding, precise screw-cutting machines to fabricate their products. The development of precise machine tools for these purposes profoundly affected the art of navigation and paved the way for the industrial machine tools of the late 18th and early l9th Centuries, which made possible the construction of the steam engine and the machines it had to power. This in turn made possible the great advances in standards of living for many people throughout western Europe and North America.
The first satisfactory screw-cutting lathes were made by an English instrument maker, Jesse Ramsden (1735-1800) in 1770. His work had wide ramifications, probably inspiring a large screw-cutting lathe first designed by Henry Maudslay (1771-1831) in 1797 and produced in 1800. The micrometer for the bench work on this machine was accurate to 1/10,000 of an inch. Maudslay had a long-lasting influence on the British machine tool industry. Three of his assistants developed other variants of machine tools. Richard Roberts (1789-1864) introduced a more powerful lathe, and in 1817 built the first planing machine for metal, and shortly thereafter, his first gear cutting machine. He also improved the spinning mule and designed a punching machine for making rivet holes in 1847. Joseph Whitworth (1803-1887) improved and enlarged many of the early machine tools, which he first encountered in Maudslay's works. He is best known for constructing a measuring machine that could measure to an accuracy of one-millionth of an inch, and for first suggesting the standardization of screw threads in English industry. Probably Maudslay's greatest protege was James Nasmyth (1808-1890), whose inventions include the milling machine and a planing machine or shaper.
However, the prestige of being the greatest machine tool maker in England probably belongs to John Wilkinson, the Ironmaster (1728-1808). He invented the cylinder boring machine (the boring mill, circa 1775) that made Watt's steam engine a practical source of power. He was the first to demonstrate that coke made from coal could be used in place of charcoal to produce quality iron on a large scale. He designed in 1779, the first all-iron bridge constructed in England (1781), and his factory cast the iron for it. During the late 1780s he minted his own "wage tokens" when the English government failed to produce enough coins for him to pay his workers. At the same time (1787) he built the first iron barge to transport his iron products down the River Severn. He was an able businessman and an industrial genius, whose name is attached today to Wilkinson razor blades. Wilkinson offers us a significant example of the power of the producer, a man who was an inventor, creator, builder, and businessman.
Although Wilkinson took out a number of patents during his life, when he made his boring mill in 1775, he felt that secrecy was better protection against the pirating of his invention than a patent complete with drawings. He was probably right, for his machine works were the only ones to bore cylinders for the firm of Boulton and Watt for 25 years. In England, the first patent had been granted in 1552. Their abuse by the Crown for the issue of money-raising grants of monopoly let Parliament in 1624 to declare that such privileges were grievous and inconvenient. However, the Crown was left free to grant exclusive rights under letters patent for not more than twenty-one years to "the first and true inventor or inventors of manufactures." Neo-Tech businessmen, like Wilkinson, realized that state protection did not always accomplish what it set out to do, and that he was better off relying upon trade secrecy rather than seeking government assistance in protecting his invention.
Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) was an English blacksmith, who invented an atmospheric engine. Steam was admitted to a cylinder, condensed by a jet of cold water, and the vacuum created on the inside of the cylinder allowed atmospheric pressure to operate a piston, which was forced downward on its working stroke. In partnership with Thomas Savery who had patented a steam pump along similar lines in 1698, Newcomen and his other partner, John Calley, built their first engine on the site of a water-filled mine shaft in 1712. Newcomen engines were slow and inefficient, but they were better than any other device yet invented for pumping water out of mines.
The steam engine envisioned by James Watt (1736-1819) was suggested by a model Newcomen engine given to him to repair as part of his instrument-making duties for the University of Glasgow in 1765. His solution to the inefficiency of the Newcomen engine was to fit it with a separate condenser which could be connected to the cylinder by a valve. The condenser would be kept cool, while the cylinder would be kept hot (something not achieved by Newcomen). Although Watt patented his separate condenser in 1769, it was some years before he was to have a practical operating engine. His partnership with Mathew Boulton in 1773, their contract with John Wilkinson for accurately machined cylinders, their request that Parliament extend the Watt patent until 1800 (rather than letting it expire in 1783), and numerous other improvements to Watt's original design ultimately insured the supremacy of the Watt engine over the Newcomen. Watt's engines were originally used for pumping out mine shafts, but within two decades they were powering rotative drive shafts in other machinery. To a large extent Watt's engine was responsible for many of the improvements in life brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
Watt's patent for the separate condenser covered the use of high pressure steam, but since he was fearful of boiler explosions and bursting pipes he refused to develop such an engine. He even went so far as to suppress the working model of a high pressure engine, made by his assistant William Murdock in 1785. When Watt's patent expired in 1800, there were other inventors in England and America who advocated the use of high pressure steam. Richard Trevithick (1771-1833) had gained his experience around steam engines in the Cornish mines. By 1801, he had perfected his designs for a cylindrical boiler and high pressure engine and built several full size steam carriages which were patented and run on the English roads. During the first decade of the l9th Century, he built several more steam carriages, known as locomotives, which were used for hauling coal and ore out of the mines.
Railways had existed in Britain for about two centuries. They had first been wooden trackways along which horses hauled coal wagons to the nearest water transport. With the improvement in iron, wooden track was replaced by iron edged rails. Watt had regarded Trevithick's idea of placing a steam engine on wheels as highly irresponsible, but by 1825, people like Trevithick and George Stephenson (1781-1848), the leading figure among the early locomotive builders, had accomplished the seemingly impossible. Who would have believed that a fire burning steam engine would be able to propel a boxlike affair on wheels, carrying cargo many times its own weight? The first public railway in the world was opened in 1825 on the Stockton and Darlington line and was worked by a Stephenson locomotive. From then on it was only a matter of time until improvements were made in engines and rolling stock, especially by Stephenson's son, Robert. During the l9th Century, steam locomotives were exported from England to many countries of the world. These locomotives were one of the most important elements in reducing transportation time and costs and in allowing trade to flourish on inland routes. ...Again, mystic-free business was the relentless force responsible for creating and developing all important values.
The idea of the steam-powered boat had many proponents during the 18th Century. Inventors/businessmen in different parts of the world arrived at different solutions to the problems inherent in floating a steam engine and using it to propel itself through water. In America, John Fitch (1743-1798) designed a dual, 12 paddle assembly which was tested in 1786 on the Delaware River. What has been described as "the first practical steamboat" was built by William Symington (1763-1831) in Scotland in 1801. After he returned to America, Robert Fulton (1765-1815), who had built an experimental steamboat in France, constructed the "Clermont," with side paddles and powered by a Boulton and Watt engine. It began operations by carrying fare-paying passengers on the Hudson River in 1807, thus insuring its commercial success. Within decades steam-powered boats were making transatlantic crossings, providing merchants with increased ability to exchange their wares for foreign resources.
Some of the most controversial inventions of all times have been connected with the textile industry. Their use often led to riots or passage of laws which prohibited their introduction. Man's need for clothing has been a constant since the beginning of time and the spinning of wool fibre into yarn and the weaving of cloth have been staple industries in large parts of the world. The loom is of ancient origin, but the first modern invention to increase its efficiency was the flying shuttle patented by John Kay in 1733. This was a device that resulted in greater production from a single loom, cloth of greater width, and reduced the need for as many people to tend the looms. This was done by redesigning the mechanism which feeds out the weft, which is the thread that crosses the warp. Kay's device became immediately unpopular with weavers because of their fear of becoming unemployed. In 1755 he was attacked by a mob who destroyed one of his looms. He died a destitute man in 1764, although his flying shuttle was used widely after his death. The neocheaters realized that the use of Kay's invention would drastically change the world, make cloth less expensive and more readily available. Seeing these values, he was mistreated by the mystics.
The next major improvements in textile machinery were brought about by Richard Arkwright's (1732-1792) spinning machine and James Hargreaves' (d. 1778) invention of the jenny in the same year that Kay died. Arkwright's spinning frame required mechanical power and began the move from spinning as a cottage industry to the factory system. It produced the first satisfactory cotton warp, which made possible the manufacture of all-cotton goods. Hargreaves' machine used a patented roller and carriage system which made it possible to use finer and stronger yarns than ever before. Others, like Edmund Cartwright, became interested in applying mechanical power to hand looms, when in 1784 he had a chance encounter with some gentlemen from Manchester, who "observed that as soon as Arkwright's patent expired so many cotton mills would be erected and so much cotton spun that hands could never be found to weave it." This was in stark contrast to the English workmen who were led by Ned Lud (circa 1779) to break up stocking frames because they feared for their jobs. Years later, during the second decade of the l9th Century, when other textile workers rioted and broke up more labor-saving machinery, these disturbances were known as "Luddite riots" and the men who took part in them were known as "Luddites." These neocheating Luddites could not reconcile the fact that labor-saving machinery itself had to be produced and would ultimately increase the demand for human labor, not lessen it.
The history of inventions in the textile industry illustrates how "as new machines radically improved output in one branch of the trade, a need was straightaway felt for fresh inventions to enable other branches to catch up with the demand for their products." By the time Cartwright was done perfecting his power loom, the whole English cotton manufacturing industry was in need of increased supplies of raw cotton. Until the early 1790s the production of cotton in the South of the United States was languishing because one slave could only clean a pound of cotton a day. Eli Whitney (1765-1825), while travelling to Georgia, perceived the need for an improved device to clean cotton. During the winter of 1792, he worked out the details and soon after built a factory to go into production. Although patented, Whitney's gin was so simple that imitations soon appeared. Competitors refused to pay royalties, and Whitney's legal efforts to combat infringement on his patent ended up costing him more than he gained. His invention also had a significant effect on the course of history.
Probably no development increased the demand for textile products more than the invention of the sewing machine in the mid-l9th Century. The sewing machine was also unique in that it was the first major consumer appliance. Elias Howe (1819-1867), a Massachusetts mechanic, designed his first machine in 1843. It was based on a lock stitch, which originally limited sewing to straight seams. It was Isaac Singer (1811-1876) of Boston who invented the first really practical, domestic sewing machine in 1851. His was the first machine to have a straight needle, foot treadle, and the ability to sew curved seams. Although Howe won a patent infringement suit against Singer, the home demand for sewing machines was so great that it rendered the judgment harmless. Singer widely marketed his machines by selling them on the installment basis.
Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) is the man whose name we associate today with one of the major processes of producing steel. William Kelly, an American, had originally conceived of a system of air-blowing the carbon out of pig iron, but went bankrupt in 1857. At the same time, Bessemer, in England, purchased Kelly's American patent, because he had been experimenting with a similar process for making steel. Bessemer had patented his own decarbonization process, utilizing a blast of air, in England in 1855. Bessemer initially encountered difficulties in commercially producing steel by his method because he was unaware of the importance of high quality iron ore to the process. Eventually he was successful and his steel works at Sheffield specialized in producing ordinance guns for the military and steel rails.
It was Bessemer's discovery of a process for making steel cheaply which led to its use in the construction industry. However, the advent of the skyscraper was the result of the efforts of another inventor. George A. Fuller (1851-1900), as a young man, was employed in his uncle's architectural office, drawing building plans. He soon became interested in the problem of load bearing capacities and how much weight each part of a building would carry. During the 1880s he went to Chicago and set up business as a building contractor, where his firm built the Tacoma Building in 1889. This was the first structure ever built in which the outer walls carried no burden and served no purpose other than to keep out the elements and provide a cosmetic facade. Eventually he and an architect, Daniel Bumham, were called to New York to design and build an office building on a small triangular plot of land in downtown Manhattan. Fuller told the land owners that he could construct a 21 story building, which was twice the height that he could achieve if they limited him to conventional materials, such as stone or brick. The building weight would rest on Bessemer steel beams, which would be riveted together in the form of cages, thus tying the whole building together. Despite great public skepticism that winds would blow the walls in or bend the steel cages, the Flatiron Building at the corner of Broadway and 23rd was one of New York's first skyscrapers in 1902. Once George Fuller and the construction firm he created paved the way, others followed and today about half of all the large apartments and office buildings in this country are built on his steel cage system.
The invention of the telegraph is usually credited to Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872). Although he did invent the Morse code, the real credit should be given to two Englishmen, William Cooke (1806-1879) and Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875). Cooke became intrigued with the telegraph in 1836, when he saw the demonstration of an early system given by a Russian diplomat. The two men teamed up and devised an instrument that contained six wires and five operating needles, rather than a wire for each letter of the alphabet, which was common in other contemporary telegraphic devices. In 1839, they installed a telegraph line along the Great Western Railway and it was used initially to report on the position of trains. Railway signalling was virtually nonexistent up until this time. The Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph holds two world's records: it was the first telegraph to be offered to the public as a commercial service and it represents the first use of electricity in a commercial enterprise in the world.
During the same era (late 1830s - early 1840s), Morse in the United States was importuning Congress for funds in order to develop his own system. After a difficult struggle (during which Morse made U.S. Congressman F. 0. J. Smith, Chairman of the Committee on Commerce in 1838, his financial partner) the money was appropriated and a telegraph line built between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The first message was sent in 1844, using Morse's code. In time, his single strand and single needle system proved its effectiveness and became widely used.
Electric lighting was in commercial use long before Thomas Edison (1847-1931) built his first successful incandescent lamp in the early 1880s. The electric light, prior to Edison, was nothing usually more than an arc, jumping between two carbon rods. The brilliant light from a pair of rods equalled, if not excelled, that provided by its nearest rival, the gas lamp. But the carbon arc lamp was only found in limited use since it required constant attention, and was noisy and smoky. The incandescent filament lamp which Edison in the United States and Joseph Swan in England collaborated on, used the same principle as today's electric light bulb. Edison and Swan had the advantage of using the first really efficient vacuum pumps to evacuate the air from glass globes. Once that had been accomplished, Edison had to search for a long-lasting conductor or filament, which would also burn brightly.
Edison opened the first commercial electric power generating plant in the United States. This was his Pearl Street plant in New York City, which began operations on September 14, 1882. The growth of the electric light industry can be seen by looking at the initial number of lamps powered by Edison's generators. When service was inaugurated, they supplied electricity to 2,323 lamps. Two years later, in 1884, there were 11,272 lamps in 500 premises, while the individual generators that Edison sold were lighting nearly 60,000 more lamps. Some quarter million lamps were in use in the United States by 1885. From such an inauspicious beginning, Edison and other inventors like George Westinghouse were soon supplying power not only to electric lights, but to electric motors and eventually to appliances in millions of homes and factories across the country.
Edison was not only a great scientist and inventor, but he was also a superb businessman. What is so difficult to visualize, over 100 years after Edison's invention of the commercial incandescent electric lamp, is that he had to create the electric power industry from scratch. With practically no precedent as his guide, Edison had to conceive the necessities, invent, design, and build everything from dynamos, station switches, regulators, fuses, ammeters, rheostats and all the other many things required to produce and distribute electricity. He even helped guide his laborers in the laying of power lines in New York City streets. It is literally a miracle that this one man made a completely workable system as early as 1882. The benefits we derive from electric lighting today largely stem from his unremitting efforts to commercialize and market his new discoveries.
By 1906, the tungsten filament lamp was introduced (and later nitrogen filled) and this lamp had three times the illumination per watt of Edison's original carbon lamp. It was feared by some nay-sayers that the central electric power stations would suffer a decrease in demand as a result of this improved product. Rather than diminishing the consumption of electric power, the new lamps and other new electrical inventions coming on the market during the early l900s (such as the vacuum cleaner, electric stove, dishwasher, and laundry machine) stimulated electricity consumption beyond the wildest dreams of those living in the late l9th Century. The electric industry was unknown little more than a 100 years ago. It was created by a few pioneers, such as Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla, who were often unrewarded for their work which certainly ranks among the greatest services ever to humanity. There is hardly a business or a home which does not use electricity. In short, electricity is nearly indispensable to modern life and it is the result of the combined efforts of late l9th Century businessmen and inventors.
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