Invention: Railroads in the Industrial Revolution



Invention: Railroads in the Industrial Revolution

In the eighteenth century, more efficient means of moving resources and goods developed. Railroads were particularly important to the success of the Industrial Revolution.

Railroads without engines were used in European coal mines as early as the mid-1500s. Men and animal pushed wagons loaded with ore along wooden tracks. Later, they used iron tracks and steam powered engines which were introduced in the late 1700s. In Wales in 1804, Richard Trevithick developed the first successful railroad steam locomotive. In 1810, George Stephenson also began studying steam engines. In 1825, the Stockton and Darling railway near Newcastle, England, became the first common company to use steam locomotives. In 1829, George Stephenson's "Rocket" won first prize in a contest that took place at Rainhill because Stephenson was the most experienced engineer at the time and his trains were far more advanced than the competitors.

Not only did people need better transportation, but manufacture[pic]red goods, raw materials and food also needed a quick, inexpensive mode of transportation. The availability of manufactured goods and food increased because the railroad provided quick transportation. Costs of products also decreased because of railroads. Population increased because food was available in a large variety at a low cost.

The entire Industrial Revolution was altered because of these accomplishments. Factories flourished because the demand for railroad parts and railroad tracks was very high. Thousands of people were employed in these factories and the lives of those people improved drastically.

Railroad became the dominant mode of land transportation in the last half of the 19th century. Railroads flourished in England, from 1,000 miles in 1836 to more than 7,000 miles built by 1852. Railroads provided a fast, inexpensive, convenient, and efficient mode of transportation for many passengers. By the 1850s, railways connected the Atlantic seaboard and the Midwest in the United States. In 1869, the first transcontinental route was completed to the Pacific coast. This provided the first transportation for passengers across North America.

Cause and Effect Questions

1. Name two effects of the expansion of railroads.

2. Cause: Railroads allowed food to be more quickly transported.

Effect:

3. Explain how factories flourished and unemployment decreased because of the railroads.

Inventor: Henry Ford & Assembly Line

1) In 1907, Henry Ford shared his goal for the Ford Motor Company: to create “a motor car for the great multitude.” Automobiles were expensive, custom-made machines.

2) Ford offered a cheaper Model T, but it was still not attainable for the “multitude.” Ford realized he would need a more efficient way to produce the car. He realized four basic principles: interchangeable parts, continuous flow, division of labor, and reducing wasted effort.

3) Using interchangeable parts meant making the individual pieces of the car the same every time. That way any valve would fit any engine, any steering wheel would fit any chassis. Yet once the machines were adjusted, a low-skilled laborer could operate them, replacing the skilled craftsperson who formerly made the parts by hand. To improve the flow of the work, it needed to be arranged so that as one task was finished, another began, with minimum time spent in set-up. Ford was inspired by the meat-packing houses of Chicago and a grain mill conveyor belt he had seen. If he brought the work to the workers, they spent less time moving about. Then he divided the labor by breaking the assembly of the Model T into 84 distinct steps. Each worker was trained to do just one of these steps. Ford called in Frederick Taylor, the creator of "scientific management," to do time and motion studies to determine the exact speed at which the work should proceed and the exact motions workers should use to accomplish their tasks.

4) Ford put these principles in practice. In 1913, they came together in the first moving assembly line ever used for large-scale manufacturing. Ford produced cars at a record-breaking rate. That meant he could lower the price and still make a good profit by selling more cars. Ford had another notion, rather original in its time: the workers were also potential consumers! In 1914, Ford workers' wages were raised to $5 a day -- an excellent wage -- and they soon proved him right by buying their own Model Ts.

5) Ford's manufacturing principles were adopted by countless other industries. Henry Ford went beyond his 1907 goal of making cars affordable for all; he changed the habits of a nation, and shaped its very character.

Generalizations and Conclusions Questions

1. We can conclude Henry Ford was referring to when he was referring to the “multitude” in paragraph 2.

2. What can we conclude was Ford’s end goal in paragraph 2 when he wanted to a “more efficient way to produce the car”?

3. We can conclude Henry Ford wanted to pay his workers a higher wage in order that they:

Inventor: Nikola Tesla

First off, Nikola Tesla was brilliant.  And not just like Ken Jennings brilliant, either - I mean like, "holy crap my head just exploded (from all the awesome)" brilliant.  The Croatian-born engineer spoke eight languages, almost single-handedly developed technology that harnessed the power of electricity for household use, and invented things like electrical generators, FM radio, remote control, robots, spark plugs, fluorescent lights, and massive machines that shoot enormous, brain-frying lightning bolts all over the place like crazy.  He had an unyielding, steel-trap photographic memory and an insane ability to visualize even the most complex pieces of machinery – the guy did advanced calculus and physics equations in his head, memorized entire books at a time, and successfully pulled off scientific experiments that modern-day technology STILL can't replicate. 

Another sweet thing about Tesla is that he conducted the sort of crazy experiments that generally result in hordes of angry villagers breaking down the door to your lab with torches and pitchforks.  One time, while he was working on magnetic resonance, he discovered the resonant frequency of the Earth and caused an earthquake so powerful that it almost obliterated the 5th Avenue New York building that housed his Frankenstein Castle of a laboratory.  Later, he boasted that he could have built a device powerful enough to split the Earth in two.  Nobody dared him to prove it.

Despite being incredibly popular during his day, now Tesla remains largely overlooked among lists of the greatest inventors and scientists of the modern era.  Thomas Edison gets all the glory for discovering the light bulb, but it was his one-time assistant and life-long arch-nemesis, Nikola Tesla who did all the leg work.

Nikola Tesla was one of those super-genius intellectuals whose terrifyingly productive brain placed him dangerously on the precipice between "great scientific mind" and "utter madness".  He held 700 patents at the time of his death, made groundbreaking discoveries in the fields of physics, robotics, steam turbine engineering, and magnetism, and once melted one of his assistant’s hands by overloading it with X-rays - which isn't really scientific, but still pretty cool.

Supporting Details Questions

1. Some say the Industrial Revolution would not have occurred in such a revolutionary degree had it not been for Tesla’s genius. What are 2 examples of Tesla’s genius?

2. Tesla created elaborate and dangerous scientific experiments. What happened during one of his experiments (that proves he created dangerous scientific experiments)?

3. Tesla was never recognized for all his intellectual accomplishments. Give one reason for this.

Invention: Coal Mining Development

Coal was needed in vast quantities for the Industrial Revolution. For centuries, people in Britain had made do with charcoal if they needed a cheap and easy to acquire fuel. What ‘industry’ that existed before 1700, did use coal but it came from coal mines that were near to the surface and the coal was relatively easy to reach.

However, as the country started to industrialize itself, more and more coal was needed to fuel steam engines and furnaces. The development of factories by Arkwright and the improvement of the steam engine by Watt further increased demand for coal. As a result coal mines got deeper and deeper and coal mining became more and more dangerous.

Even with Watt's improved steam engine, flooding was a real problem in mine explosive gas (called fire damp) would be found the deeper the miners got. One spark from a digging miner’s pick axe or candle could be disastrous.  Poison gas was also found underground.  Pit collapses were common; the sheer weight of the ground above a worked coal seam was colossal and mines were only held up by wooden beams called props.

Life for all those who worked underground was very hard. In 1842, Parliament published a report about the state of coal mining - the Mines Report - and its contents shocked the nation. One girl - Ellison Jack, aged 11 - claimed to the Commission of Enquiry that she had to do twenty journeys a shift pushing a tub which weighed over 400 lbs. and if she showed signs of slacking, she would be whipped. Children had to work in water that came up to their thighs while underground; pregnant women worked underground as they needed the money. On unnamed woman claimed that she gave birth on one day and was expected by the mine manager to be back at work that very same day! Such was the need to work - there was no social security at this time - she did as the manager demanded. Such shocking reports lead to the Mines Act of 1842.

Cause & Effect Questions

1. What was the effect of the demand on coal when new technologies like heating furnaces were introduced in Great Britain?

2. What exactly caused further danger for miners the deeper they traveled in the coal mines?

3. Cause 1:

Cause 2:

Effect: British Parliament passes the Mines Act of 1842.

Invention: Spinning Jenny & Textile Revolution

1) Several inventions in textile machinery occurred in a relatively short time period during the industrial revolution: the flying shuttle, spinning jenny, spinning frame, and cotton gin. These inventions facilitated the handling of large quantities of harvested cotton. In 1764, a British carpenter and weaver named James Hargreaves invented an improved spinning jenny, a hand-powered multiple spinning machine that was the first machine to improve upon the spinning wheel.

2) James Hargreaves was born in Oswaldtwistle, England in 1720, he received no formal education and was never taught how to read or write. James Hargreaves worked as a carpenter and a weaver. Legend has it that Hargreaves' daughter Jenny knocked over a spinning wheel and as Hargreaves watched the spindle roll across the floor the idea for the spinning jenny came to him. However, that story is just a legend. Jenny was rumored to have been the name of Hargreaves' wife and that he named his invention after her.

3) The original spinning jenny used eight spindles instead of the one found on the spinning wheel. A single wheel on the spinning jenny controlled eight spindles which created a weave using eight threads spun from a corresponding set of rovings. Later models had up to one-hundred and twenty spindles.

4) James Hargreaves' invention did in fact decrease the need for labor. Hargreaves patented a sixteen spindle spinning jenny on July 12, 1770. The courts rejected his patent application for his first spinning jenny because he had made and sold several too long before he filed for a patent. He made a number of Spinning Jennies and started to sell them in the area. However, since each machine was capable of doing the work of eight people, other spinners were angry about the competition. In 1768, a group of spinners broke into Hargreaves' house and destroyed his machines

Main Ideas and Author’s Approach

1. What is the point the author is trying to convince you to believe in paragraph 4?

2. What is the main idea of the first paragraph?

3. What is the purpose of paragraph 3?

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