The First Industrial Revolution: Cotton Leads the Way

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The First Industrial Revolution: Cotton Leads the Way

The Science of Observation. The scientific method of the eighteenth century was a decisive break with the past. Rather than accept the teachings of organized religion and deduce information from traditional learning, natural philosophers (who would now be called scientists) in the Age of Enlightenment based their conclusions on firsthand investigation of nature and natural phenomena. They used rigorous observational and experimental approaches to examine what had happened, even when they did not yet understand why it had occurred. As a result of this new scientific interest in the natural world, a large number of nonscholars of all social classes observed the heavens, experimented with machines, and classified plant and animal species. Their willingness to investigate, their ability to apply the new scientific method, and their emphasis on “what” rather than “why” all played a key role in the technological break throughs of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, the fundamental technological developments of the First Industrial Revolution, which began during the second half of the eighteenth century and continued well into the next, were made by craftsmen in their workshops, not by university-trained scientists. Although scientific developments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries encouraged and permitted such tinkering, there was no direct link between the theoretical advances of the Scientific Revolution and the technology that sparked the Industrial Revolution.

Cotton and Technology. During the second half of the eighteenth century critical technological developments changed the manufacturing process so significantly that the transformation became known as the “Industrial Revolution.” Most new machines or processes were invented in response to specific problems that slowed down production. In that sense, these advances were driven by economic “demand” rather than scientific “supply.” The Industrial Revolution began in the textile industry, particularly in cotton-cloth manufacturing. Because cotton is stronger and easier to work with than wool, linen, or silk, cotton textiles are more easily produced by machines, and cotton was widely available. Cotton had an enormous potential market, greater than that for any other textile.

Spinning. The first block to expanding production was a difficulty in manufacturing enough cotton thread to keep up with demand. This problem was addressed by Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) with his water-powered spinning frame (1769), by James Hargreaves (died 1778) with his hand-powered spinning jenny (patented in 1770), and Samuel Crompton (1753-1827) with his spinning mule (1779). Crompton’s machine combined both power sources in impressive fashion; a spinning mule did two hundred to three hundred times the work of a spinning wheel. This mechanization put pressure on weavers to keep up with thread production. In 1785 Edmund Cartwright

(1743-1823) responded by developing the power loom. Although for several decades the power loom did not produce cloth any faster than a weaver, one worker could run two, and later many, looms, there by increasing production greatly. In the 1780s Arkwright greatly improved earlier carding machines, which combed and straightened cotton. Another important contribution to cotton processing came in 1793, when American inventor Eli Whitney (1765-1825) developed the cotton gin to get seeds and dirt out of raw cotton.

Bleaching. Finished yarn could be bleached with chlorine using a process developed by French chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet (1748-1822) in 1784. In 1799 English chemist Charles Tennant (1768-1838) greatly improved on a Continental European discovery by combining chlorine with lime to make bleaching powder that was easier, more effective, and cheaper to use.

Growth. Although wool production remained the largest textile industry throughout the eighteenth century, the cotton industry expanded quickly. British cotton production increased approximately tenfold between 1760 and 1800 and accelerated even more rapidly in the nineteenth century. By 1830 cotton goods constituted half of all British exports.