Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution

Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution
Author: Paul G. Faler
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 1981-06-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780873955058

Lynn, Massachusetts, once the leading shoe manufacturing city of the United States, was in many ways a model of the industrial city that much of America was to become. This study of the early industrial revolution in Lynn focuses on the journeymen shoemakers—leading participants in the making of the institutions, ideas, and events that form central themes in the history of working people in America. Spanning the time period from just after the American Revolution to the Civil War, it places special emphasis on the social changes that accompany industrialization, and the impact of those changes on workers. It examines the shoe industry and shoemaking in detail: wages and conditions of work, social clubs and political parties, strikes as well as schools, and trade unions as well as temperance societies. It also explores property ownership and social mobility, the origins and nature of class consciousness and class ideology, and the relations between workers and manufacturers across the spectrum of social institutions. This rich, detailed study of the industrial revolution in a single community is one of the few books available that combines labor history and social history, revealing the fullness and breadth in the experience of the working people.

Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution

Mechanics and Manufacturers in the Early Industrial Revolution
Author: Paul Gustaf Faler
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 1981-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780873955041

Lynn, Massachusetts, once the leading shoe manufacturing city of the United States, was in many ways a model of the industrial city that much of America was to become. This study of the early industrial revolution in Lynn focuses on the journeymen shoemakers--leading participants in the making of the institutions, ideas, and events that form central themes in the history of working people in America. Spanning the time period from just after the American Revolution to the Civil War, it places special emphasis on the social changes that accompany industrialization, and the impact of those changes on workers. It examines the shoe industry and shoemaking in detail: wages and conditions of work, social clubs and political parties, strikes as well as schools, and trade unions as well as temperance societies. It also explores property ownership and social mobility, the origins and nature of class consciousness and class ideology, and the relations between workers and manufacturers across the spectrum of social institutions. This rich, detailed study of the industrial revolution in a single community is one of the few books available that combines labor history and social history, revealing the fullness and breadth in the experience of the working people.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Author: Klaus Schwab
Publisher: Crown Currency
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1524758876

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

The Industrial Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

The Industrial Revolution: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Robert C. Allen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2017-02-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191016772

The 'Industrial Revolution' was a pivotal point in British history that occurred between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries and led to far reaching transformations of society. With the advent of revolutionary manufacturing technology productivity boomed. Machines were used to spin and weave cloth, steam engines were used to provide reliable power, and industry was fed by the construction of the first railways, a great network of arteries feeding the factories. Cities grew as people shifted from agriculture to industry and commerce. Hand in hand with the growth of cities came rising levels of pollution and disease. Many people lost their jobs to the new machinery, whilst working conditions in the factories were grim and pay was low. As the middle classes prospered, social unrest ran through the working classes, and the exploitation of workers led to the growth of trade unions and protest movements. In this Very Short Introduction, Robert C. Allen analyzes the key features of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, and the spread of industrialization to other countries. He considers the factors that combined to enable industrialization at this time, including Britain's position as a global commercial empire, and discusses the changes in technology and business organization, and their impact on different social classes and groups. Introducing the 'winners' and the 'losers' of the Industrial Revolution, he looks at how the changes were reflected in evolving government policies, and what contribution these made to the economic transformation. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Frontiers of Change

Frontiers of Change
Author: Thomas Childs Cochran
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 179
Release: 1983
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780195032840

Drawing on recent studies in the history of technology, this groundbreaking work offers a new view of the Industrial Revolution in America. The author, an authority on the history of business and the economy, sees industrialization as a culturally inspired change.

The Roots of American Industrialization

The Roots of American Industrialization
Author: David R. Meyer
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2003-05-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780801871412

Farms that were on poor soil and distant from markets declined, whereas other farms successfully adjusted production as rural and urban markets expanded and as Midwestern agricultural products flowed eastward after 1840. Rural and urban demand for manufactures in the East supported diverse industrial development and prosperous rural areas and burgeoning cities supplied increasing amounts of capital for investment.

From Congregation Town to Industrial City

From Congregation Town to Industrial City
Author: Michael Shirley
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 1997-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0814780865

"A fine addition to the study of urbanization. . . . (Michael) Shirley's book will appeal not only to a regional audience in the South but also to all students of the diverse American experience".--AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW. "Compelling. . . . (an) important contribution to our understanding of the modernizing of America".--JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY. 17 illustrations.

Manufacturing Revolution

Manufacturing Revolution
Author: Lawrence A. Peskin
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2007-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421402750

"While much has been written about the industrial revolution," writes Lawrence Peskin, "we rarely read about industrial revolutionaries." This absence, he explains, reflects the preoccupation of both classical and Marxist economics with impersonal forces rather than with individuals. In Manufacturing Revolution Peskin deviates from both dominant paradigms by closely examining the words and deeds of individual Americans who made things in their own shops, who met in small groups to promote industrialization, and who, on the local level, strove for economic independence. In speeches, petitions, books, newspaper articles, club meetings, and coffee–house conversations, they fervently discussed the need for large-scale American manufacturing a half-century before the Boston Associates built their first factory. Peskin shows how these economic pioneers launched a discourse that continued for decades, linking industrialization to the cause of independence and guiding the new nation along the path of economic ambition. Based upon extensive research in both manuscript and printed sources from the period between 1760 and 1830, this book will be of interest to historians of the early republic and economic historians as well as to students of technology, business, and industry.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing
Author: David O. Whitten
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 520
Release: 1990-09-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0313368198

Overall, this first volume in the series should render business research in manufacturing a good deal easier by bringing together insightful industry histories and detailed critical bibliographies. This series has much to recommend it. Future volumes will be eagerly awaited. Reference Books Bulletin This historical and bibliographical reference work is the first volume of Greenwood Press's Handbook of American Business History, a series intended to supplement current bibliographic materials pertaining to business history. Devoted to manufacturing, this work uses the Enterprise Standard Industrial Classification (ESIC) to divide the subject into distinct segments, from which contributors have developed histories and bibliographies of the different types of manufacturing. Though authors were given sets of guidelines to follow, they were also allowed the flexibility to work in a format that best suited the material. Each contribution in this volume contains three important elements: a concise history of the manufacturing sector, a bibliographic essay, and a bibliography. Some contributions appear in three distinct parts, while others are combined into one or two segments; all build on currently available material for students and scholars doing research on business and industry. The contributors, who include business, economic, and social historians, as well as engineers and lawyers, have covered such topics as bakery products, industrial chemicals and synthetics, engines and turbines, and household appliances. Also included are an introductory essay that covers general works and a comprehensive index. This book should be a useful tool for courses in business and industry, and a valuable resource for college, university, and public libraries.

The Dawning of American Labor

The Dawning of American Labor
Author: Brian Greenberg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2017-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1119065550

A concise history of labor and work in America from the birth of the Republic to the Industrial Age and beyond From the days of Thomas Jefferson, Americans believed that they could sustain a capitalist industrial economy without the class conflict or negative socioeconomic consequences experienced in Europe. This dream came crashing down in 1877 when the Great Strike, one of the most militant labor disputes in US history, convulsed the nation’s railroads. In The Dawning of American Labor a leading scholar of American labor history draws upon first-hand accounts and the latest scholarship to offer a fascinating look at how Americans perceived and adapted to the shift from a largely agrarian economy to one dominated by manufacturing. For the generations following the Great Strike, “the Labor Problem” and the idea of class relations became a critical issue facing the nation. As Professor Greenberg makes clear in this lively, highly accessible historical exploration, the 1877 strike forever cast a shadow across one of the most deeply rooted articles of national faith—the belief in American exceptionalism. What conditions produced the faith in a classless society? What went wrong? These questions lie at the heart of The Dawning of American Labor. Provides a concise, comprehensive, and completely up-to-date synthesis of the latest scholarship on the early development of industrialization in the United States Considers how working people reacted, both in the workplace and in their communities, as the nation’s economy made its shift from an agrarian to an industrial base Includes a formal Bibliographical Essay—a handy tool for student research Works as a stand-alone text or an ideal supplement to core curricula in US History, US Labor, and 19th-Century America Accessible introductory text for students in American history classes and beyond, The Dawning of American Labor is an excellent introduction to the history of labor in the United States for students and general readers of history alike.