They swore to crush the devices that had replaced them, and in the process became the enduring symbol of opposition to new technology.Īlthough no single invention started the First Industrial Revolution, the steam engine and spinning jenny sparked a wave of invention that rapidly transformed the British economy. Elsewhere, unemployed workers called themselves “luddites” in honor of a mythical King Ludd who lived in Sherwood Forest (a lá Robin Hood). James Hargreaves became so unpopular that an unemployed mob destroyed his first “jennies” and ran him out of town. Their inventions put spinners and hand weavers out of business. Hargreaves’s invention inspired tinkerers to mechanize yet other parts of the textile industry, including weaving. (“Jenny” was a slang term for machine.) Hargreaves made the contraption for his own use, but in 1770 took out a patent to sell it commercially. In 1764, he began building what he called “spinning jennies” with cranks to turn multiple spindles, all producing cotton thread simultaneously. ![]() ![]() An uneducated spinner with thirteen children to support, the Englishman conceived a better way to make thread out of raw cotton when a spinning wheel overturned and Hargreaves noticed that its spindle rotated more freely if positioned horizontally rather than vertically. James Hargreaves helped transform the textile industry around the same time. Because Watt’s engine powered other large mechanical inventions, it became the preeminent symbol and most widely applied tool of the First Industrial Revolution. In 1776, he received a patent from the British government to protect his exclusive right to sell these unique machines. For example, rather than horses pulling wooden carriages, steam engines allowed locomotives to pull iron “carriages.” Watts coined the term “horsepower” to measure exactly how much force each engine generated. Intensely curious about how steam might power all kinds of machines, Watts devised an engine that not only pumped water far more efficiently, but could also be harnessed to other mechanical devices from printing presses to passenger ships. ![]() In 1763, the university asked him to repair a crude steam-driven water pump. This sparked his curiosity about how to make instruments function better. Born in Scotland to parents of average means, he made a living repairing instruments for the University of Glasgow. James Watts invented the first efficient, multi-use steam engine. Although it had no precise start or stop date, scholars generally describe the First Industrial Revolution as spanning the decades between the 17. This First Industrial Revolution revolutionized the daily lives of common people. Two critical developments led the way: a steam engine to power large machines, and spinning devices that proved mechanical contraptions could spin and weave quicker, faster, and better than humans. For the first time in history, average working people began inventing tools of all kinds to make products by machine instead of by hand. ![]() In the middle of the eighteenth century, around the time the Thirteen American Colonies rebelled against England, an unexpected wellspring of inventiveness bubbled up in the British Isles.
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