WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: How the Industrial Revolution Worked, Part One 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.120 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.880 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.079 and how the tech are you. It's time for a 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.720 classic episode, and this one is going to be the 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.079 first of three because it was a topic that was 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.600 so big I had to divide it up into three 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:35.160 separate episodes. It is how the Industrial Revolution worked. This 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:41.480 is part one, which originally published on November two thousand. Enjoy. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.080 So typically we think of the Industrial Revolution as a 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:49.960 period in which automation, mass production, urbanization, all of these 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.400 things change the way that we humans live. And it's 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.960 a time in which corporations came into being and we 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.920 started to see the delineation of work between laborers and management, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.280 and the rise of unions and all sorts of stuff. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.000 But it's even more complex than that, and the story 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:11.640 doesn't have a clear beginning, middle, and end, which is 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.840 problematic because we humans like stories that have a clear narrative. 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.640 But as you guys know, history rarely follows that pattern. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.240 So before we can even talk about the Industrial Revolution, 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.240 we need to see why it was such a big deal, 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.640 which requires that we look way, way way back. And 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.480 when I say way back, I'm talking about the Neolithic Revolution. 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:40.000 There are two big revolutions of human behavior and uh 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.800 and and various things around that that have shaped the 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:48.040 way we human beings exist here on the planet. The 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.080 Neolithic Revolution was the first one, and this took place 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.160 thousands of years ago, like somewhere between nine thousand and 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.320 seven thousand BC. That was pretty much when this was 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.120 taking place. That's when he Winds began to discover agricultural 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:07.120 techniques and we began to transition from hunter gatherer lifestyles 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.600 where you're very nomadic and you're depending upon finding the 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:14.680 food you need day to day, to an agrarian lifestyle 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:19.200 where you're actually cultivating food in both crops and livestock. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:21.800 People began to settle down, and the vast majority of 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:27.240 people were farmers. So most people, in fact, the vast 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.280 majority of people were spending their days out in fields, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.919 you know, tending to crops or livestock. Now, the term 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.240 revolution gives you a couple of implications, and they can 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.400 be a little misleading. Actually, it implies that we're talking 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.480 about a moment of abrupt change in history. But that's 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.880 not really the case with either the Neolithic or Industrial revolutions. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.160 These things took a lot of time. Now, the Neolithic 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:55.800 Revolution took a great deal of time, we're talking about 0:02:55.800 --> 0:03:00.000 a thousand years. But generally speaking, historians bracket the Industrial 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.040 real Revolution as a period in history that began in 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.640 seventeen sixty and ended around eighteen fifty in Britain. Europe 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.160 and the United States and some other areas followed suit 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.919 in timelines that kind of overlapped Britain's timeline, but Britain 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.800 got the jump on everybody else. It really got started 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.440 in Britain. Now, seventeen sixty to eighteen fifty, that is 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.920 just one decade short of a full century, and the 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:28.320 seeds for the revolution were actually planted centuries before that. 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.600 So we need to look at the sixteenth century, the 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.600 fifteen hundred's, the Late Renaissance to kind of get an 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.840 idea of the sort of things that led up to 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.440 the Industrial Revolution. And that was a time when philosophy 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.640 was transforming into science. It's when people began to learn 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.920 more about how the world works and how to make 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.440 practical use of the knowledge they gained. We had really 0:03:55.520 --> 0:04:01.080 important thinkers like Francis Bacon, John Locke, Galileo Galilei, Aruke Spinoza, 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:05.640 Renee des Cartes, and even earlier thinkers like Leonardo da Vinci, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.760 all of whom made significant contributions to human knowledge and philosophy. Now, 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.800 these were the ideas that fueled the Renaissance and led 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.320 into the Age of Enlightenment. And it's also important to 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.279 point out that the Industrial Revolution wasn't just about technology. 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.839 It was marked by changes in demographics and culture, in 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:30.360 socioeconomic conditions, agriculture, manufacturing, and shrade. There were a lot 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.360 of conditions in place that allowed this transformation to happen 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.120 in England specifically. In general, we're looking at the time 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.240 in history when people began to leave the pastoral farms 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.120 and head into cities to earn a living. Uh The 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:49.080 term industrial revolution revolution was popularized by a nineteenth century 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:54.400 English economic historian named Arnold Toynbee. He popularized the term 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.920 industrial revolution, and he originally defined it as seventeen sixty 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:02.760 to eighteen forty, but other historians would begin to expand 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:07.680 that outward, looking at a broader range of years to 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.960 define the Industrial Revolution. They did identify a few trends 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:15.080 as being fundamental for the Industrial Revolution to take place, 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.080 and one of those very important elements was that populations 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.400 were growing throughout Europe. We were starting to see more 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.160 and more people being born in Europe at the time, 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:27.840 and it also meant that there were more people available 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.640 to do work, and also that there was an increasing 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.560 need to produce more food and clothing for everybody. And 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.400 as you have probably heard in your lifetimes, necessity is 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:42.799 the mother of invention. If you need something, someone's eventually 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:44.359 going to come up with an idea of how to 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.320 meet that need, or you go without. Now this challengement 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.720 that many people worked hard on ways to overcome the 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:58.200 increase in need for clothing, food, that kind of stuff. 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.679 And in Britain there were quite a few inventive people 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.000 who designed machinery and systems to really meet those needs. 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.280 And it also didn't hurt that England had a really 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.839 healthy agricultural system with lots of farms spread throughout the country. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.360 It was really the right place in the right time 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:17.000 for change to happen. And before the Industrial Revolution, most 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:21.520 people were making whatever they needed for themselves, or they 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.839 would inherit some things from parents or other family members, 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:30.880 and only occasionally would they buy something from another person 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.960 or trade for it. It was pretty rare. There are 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:39.880 certain certain um occupations that lent themselves to working well 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.200 in this environment, but generally speaking, we're still talking mostly farmers. 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.480 There really wasn't much of a middle class to speak 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.080 of before the Industrial Revolution. There were men and women 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.240 who specialized in certain crafts like carpentry or stonework, but 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.680 most people just made do with what they had, and 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.680 that was partly because the cost of produce seeing goods 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.480 was quite high. It required a lot of labor, a 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.200 lot of hard work by hand, and it also was 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:10.680 not easy to get raw materials or to ship finished 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.480 goods from one place to another. It was just pretty 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:18.240 challenging to make something and deliberate. On top of that, 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.560 Europe was emerging from a socioeconomic system in which there 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.640 were really three main classes of people. You had the nobility, 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:29.560 including the royalty. You had the clergy, so everyone involved 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.080 with the church and pretty much everybody else. Now. The 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.880 nobility and clergy wielded power in different contexts. Sometimes those 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:44.000 contexts overlapped. Sometimes certain branches of the clergy were in 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.000 power or not in power, particularly in England, where you 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.760 had Protestants and Catholics kind of shifting the balance of 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:54.840 power throughout the several hundred years from uh the King 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.280 Henry the eighth era up to the Industrial Revolution. But 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:02.440 by seventeen fifty things had changed a lot and a 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:07.600 century earlier, around the sixteen fifties sixteen forties, really England 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.160 had gone through a civil war in which the monarchy 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:14.560 was originally abolished. Uh. Then England was a protectorate for 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.040 a little while, and then England reinstated the monarchy, but 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.480 with some big changes. So essentially what happened was you 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.720 had Parliament originally saying, you know, we don't think kings 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.360 are such a great idea, and sorry, Charles, we're gonna 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.520 get rid of you. We're gonna chuck you and your 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:36.160 head out, and we're gonna replace you with a parliament 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:41.160 that will govern the country, and we're gonna put Oliver 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.080 Cromwell as the Lord Protector of England sort of the 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:49.240 head of this parliamentary body. Then after a while, uh, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:55.920 some shifting political conditions prompted Parliament to say, you know what, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:57.680 we kind of like it when we had a king 0:08:57.800 --> 0:08:59.600 that was kind of awesome. We should we should do 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.640 that at in We'll be back with more about the 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:06.560 early years of the Industrial Revolution right after this break. 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:20.280 So England reinstated the monarchy, but in the process Parliament 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.920 also wanted to make sure the monarch didn't have as 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.959 much power, so they underwent kind of another transformation, something 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.480 similar to what had happened when King John had to 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.120 sign the Magna Carta back in the thirteenth century. The 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.880 monarch and the House of Lords saw much of their 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.320 power stripped away, and Parliament's House of Commons had a 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.440 greater share of the power. The reason I even bring 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:43.959 this up, and you might be saying, well, this is 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.319 a technology podcast. This isn't stuff you missed in history class. 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.240 Where are you talking about it? Well, the important part 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.000 is that this was the decline of nobility in England. 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:58.160 They were starting to see less and less power in 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.560 their grasp. They were no longer as a effective as 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.880 they once were. There was instead a rise of a 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.040 new class, a middle class emerging at the time, and 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:10.400 you had merchants who were making a great deal of 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.280 money and in many cases were much more powerful than 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.959 nobles who might have a noble title, but not as 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.000 much money as the merchants did, so we started to 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.600 see a shift in power, and that condition was very 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:29.080 important for the Industrial Revolution to take place too. Now, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:34.120 among the merchants were some pretty interesting inventors, people who 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.160 came up with new ways to make work more efficient. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.920 And one inventor's work that we need to talk about 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:44.040 pre dates the Industrial Revolution by a few decades, but 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:48.560 without his contributions nothing would be the same. So back 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.280 in seventeen o nine, just a few decades before the 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:58.520 official Industrial Revolution, there was an iron master named Abraham Darby, 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.200 and Darby sussed out how to smelt iron using coke 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:05.560 as a fuel. Coke in this case, by the way, 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.719 doesn't refer to a tasty soft drink. I live in Atlanta, 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.240 and here coke it means. It means Coca cola. But 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.040 that's not what I'm talking about when you're looking at 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.480 smelting iron. Instead, I'm talking about a fuel that has 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.360 a very high carbon content. And there are a few 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.240 different types of coke, but the one that concerns us 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:29.120 in the context of the Industrial Revolution was made from coal. Now, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.920 to make coke, you would put coal in an airless 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.000 furnace or an oven, and you would bake it at 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.480 really high temperatures, and during that process there would be 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.120 ash that would form and it would fuse with the 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.640 carbon inside the coal, and after you're done baking it, 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.880 you end up with this kind of porous gray fuel 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.320 solid fuel, and if you burn it, it creates no smoke, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:01.480 but it does release carbon monoxide. So why was Darby's 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.560 discovery such a big deal in the first place. Well 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.520 before he had found a way to use coke as 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.360 a fuel to smelt iron ore into pig iron, everyone 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.840 was using charcoal. Charcoal is made by burning wood, which 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.719 meant that iron works had to be located near or 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:22.120 inside forests, and it made it hard to access the 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:26.360 iron works, and it also led to deforestation. But England 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.040 had a steady supply of coal and iron ore, which 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.760 meant it was well poised to use this material in 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.640 lots of new ways. In the eighteenth century, the region 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.760 northwest of Birmingham along the Southern River became the center 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.319 for iron works in the early Industrial Revolution. Iron working 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.280 would also become very important in other parts of the 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:49.160 United Kingdom, such as Scotland. Now, in the next episode, 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.160 i'll talk more about the iron industry and how that 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.440 guided England's development. But the important thing to remember is 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.199 that iron was a vital material during the Industrial Revolution, 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.920 and dar Rby's discovery would literally fuel it once it 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:08.000 caught on. During Darby's own lifetime, however, most iron working 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.680 facilities continue to rely upon charcoal for fuel, so it's 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.720 only later that others recognize the value of adopting Darby's approach. 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.560 And that's why, even though his his discovery predates the 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.920 Industrial Revolution, it took a few decades for it to 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:27.120 really play a major role in the iron working industry. 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.280 And that's kind of why we don't don't include that 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:34.400 in the Industrial Revolution itself. But as the iron and 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.440 coal industries grew, so too did the textile industry in England. 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.520 And that's really kind of the first place we can 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:45.840 look at, the first the first factor of the Industrial Revolution. 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:50.080 We can look at and see how um advances in 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:57.400 technology dramatically changed the way industry worked in England. So 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.840 I'm going to focus on textiles or pretty much the 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.320 rest of this episode. The growth of the textile industry 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.280 was helped by a couple of really important geographic features. 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.760 One is that Britain is an island, and as an island, 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.160 it's got a lot of coastline, which means that there's 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.400 lots of opportunity for people to build large ports cities. 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.680 One of them, Liverpool served as an important port for 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.480 the textile trade. They would bring in cotton from the 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:29.760 American colonies and also from India, and they would end 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:32.920 up taking that cotton and moving it over to spinners 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.480 and weavers, and then when textiles were done, they could 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.040 ship the finished cloth off to other locations, whether that 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.560 be in England or Europe, or even back to America. 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.920 This was one of those things where UH England would 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.560 take in raw materials from the American colonies, turn it 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.720 into a finished product and then sell it back to 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:57.560 the American colonies. UH. The region of Lancashire became known 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.960 for producing cotton goods in particular. So why was Lancashire 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.440 ideal for textiles? The main reason is that the climate 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.880 in Lancashire is wet and that makes it easier to 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.640 work with cotton fibers because as cotton fibers dry out, 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.560 they become brittle, and Lancashire was several had also has 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.600 several fast flowing streams, which made it ideal for constructing 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.880 water powered cotton mills a little bit later on in 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.400 the Industrial Revolution. Now, some of the inventions that made 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.360 the textile industry possible in England require a bit of explanation, 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.240 So we're gonna do some tech stuff. How stuff works 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:36.320 classic descriptions here. So the first one we need to 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.000 talk about is an invention created by a weaver named 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.720 John k It's a device that he made in seventeen 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.440 thirty three and it's called a flying shuttle, which made 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.760 weaving wide bands of cloth much more efficient for weavers, 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.520 and it makes you wonder what the heck of flying 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.960 shuttle is. So to do that, we have to start 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.920 off with talking about looms. A loop m is essentially 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.040 just a device for weaving and a weave. If you 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:08.440 ever look very closely at woven cloth, you'll see there 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.680 are threads that are in vertical lines and threads that 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:15.240 are in horizontal lines, and they weave between one another. 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.320 So to make a weave, you would use a loom 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.320 to hold the threads of one direction. So let's say vertically. Uh, 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.000 let's say that it's just a simple loom where you've 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.840 got a frame and you have this this thread called 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:33.040 the warp that is threaded up and down on the frame, 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:37.720 so you've got odd and even numbered threads, and then 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.400 you would take a second thread to go in a 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.560 horizontal direction. This would be the weft, and you would 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:50.760 weave that back and forth under and over alternating strings. So, 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.840 starting with the odd numbers, let's say that you do uh. 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.280 String number one you go over, and string number two 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:58.280 you go under, and string number three you go over. 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:00.520 So for all the odd numbers you would go over, 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.200 all the even numbers you would go under, and one 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.640 full pass of that is called a pick. So if 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:09.680 you were doing this on a very simple loom, where 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.840 really you just have the strings there and you're doing 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:14.919 all this by hand, it takes a while because you 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:19.639 have to weave the the the weft back and forth 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.840 through all the strings. But gradually, there were some looms 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.840 that use some moving parts that made this a lot easier. 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.639 One used warp frames, where you would you would actually 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.840 put two different sets of warp thread on these warp frames. 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:40.200 One set would be all the odd uh odd threads 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:42.920 and one set would be all the even threads. So 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:48.640 imagine that it's almost like a sandwich in a way. 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.520 You've got one set of these threads. Let's say that's 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.439 the odd ones that are laying more or less flat 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.119 in respect to you, and then the other one is 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.880 actually vertic coal. Uh, these will be the even threads. 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.879 If you just passed your weft the horizontal line of 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.560 threads straight across, and then you would use pedals to 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.040 swap the positions of those two frames, and you know, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.679 they just they just passed between each other, and then 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.440 you pull the weft back across the other way. This 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:23.560 would have at the same effect as weaving the thread 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.320 up and down across those uh, those those vertical threads, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.199 but you're doing it much much faster. Um. However, if 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.840 you are working by yourself, you pretty much were limited 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.800 to doing of cloth about as wide as your arm. 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.120 Beyond that you would need a second weaver to help 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.480 you out. Until John k came up with this flying shuttle, 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.960 and uh, that ends up making a huge difference. It 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:59.120 speeds up the weaving process significantly. So, by the way, 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:01.760 the prod this of weaving is a little more complicated 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:03.639 than just that. After you do a pick, you know, 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.240 after you pass the weft through the warp, then you 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:08.760 have to use a part of the loom called the 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.679 red to batten the fabric. Now, a reed is like 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:16.359 a comb and it is on the far side of 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.720 where you're bringing the weft through the warp, and you 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.840 use it to pull the new weft hard against the 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:29.400 the previously woven cloth to pack it together to batten 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.200 it down. And you have to batten that thread after 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:37.480 each pass. And so this is pretty painstaking and obviously 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:39.680 if you're doing it by hand, it's really slow work. 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.200 And if you're all by yourself, like I said, you're 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.159 limited to that arms width of of cloth because otherwise 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.680 you would not be able to pass the shuttle that's 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:53.120 the device that actually holds the weft thread from one 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.600 side to the other. Now Kay's invention solved all that. 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.320 The flying shuttle reduced the number of weavers needed for 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:04.400 widecloth to just one. And here's how it worked. Imagine 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:08.640 you've got these two frames of vertical lines of thread, uh, 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:10.920 and all the odd lines of thread are on one frame, 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:13.400 all the even lines are on the second frame. Those 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.640 two frames can move so that the shuttle can pass 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.160 easily between the two sets. Moving the shuttle from one 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.480 side to the other completes one line of the weave. 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.560 Then you bring the frames together, pull the horizontal thread 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.040 and tightly using that red comb so it's packed against 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:30.639 its processors. Then you switch which frame is up and 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:32.719 which frame is down, and you pass it again. Just 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.360 like I said, but case shuttle had wheels on it, 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.040 and it allowed it to roll quickly in a channel 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.240 between the two sets of of threads, the two sets 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:46.560 of warp threads on the frames. You would pull a 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.520 rope and this would make the shuttles quickly roll from 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:52.639 one side to the other, like left or right or 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.600 right to left. So you pull the rope, the shuttles 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.920 zooms across left or right. You swap the position of 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.959 the frames and well, first you batten that weft uh 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.280 and swap the position of the frames, and you pull 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.280 the rope and it zips across the other side, and 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.920 you repeat this process. And it really sped things up. 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.520 And that was just the first of several inventions that 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:21.520 made it easier and less expensive to produce cloth, particularly 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:25.280 large amounts of cloth. We'll be talking about the industrial 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:27.880 revolution a bit more, but first let's take a quick 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:40.560 break for these commercials. Alright, So the flying shuttle sped 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.879 up weaving significantly. But now there was a new bottleneck 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:48.680 in the textile industry, which was making yarn. Weavers could 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.280 go through yarn faster than yarn could be spun. Yarn 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.560 would be made by people called spinners. Traditionally, they would 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:58.760 use spinning wheels, and normally you would need up to 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.080 four spinners to port one weaver just to make yarn 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.399 fast enough for the weaver to be effective. But this 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.639 flying shuttle made the weavers even more efficient, so you 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.320 needed more than four spinners just to be able to 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:16.119 produce enough yarn for the weaver to stay active, And 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.680 so the supply couldn't meet up with the weaving speeds, 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.480 and that was an issue. Meanwhile, let's let's talk about 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:27.639 spinning wheels. It's another interesting technology. Spinning wheels twist fibers 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:30.800 into yarn, and I could do an entire episode on 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:33.600 this process. I could probably get someone like Holly from 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:36.120 Stuff You Missed in History class to talk about it too, 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:38.760 But in general, here's how it works. You've got a 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:42.879 large spinning wheel. You've probably seen pictures of these, But 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.760 the large wheel provides the rotational force for a smaller 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:50.320 component called a flyer. So the flyers kind of like 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:53.760 a cylinder. Imagine a cylinder on its side. It's in 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.760 the same plane of rotation as the spinning wheel. But 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:02.040 you then connect the two with a drive band. Um 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:04.879 it looks a lot like any kind of belt you 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:08.920 would imagine for connecting gears together. So in this case, 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.000 the large wheel would be a big gear. The flyer 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.120 is a smaller gear. So as the large wheel rotates, 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.119 the band connecting it to the flyer makes the flyer 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:20.919 rotate as well. But since the flyer is smaller than 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:24.840 the big wheel, it's making more rotations per minute than 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.240 the big wheel. Uh. And most flyers actually have a 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:31.800 section of different grooves the drive band can fit into, 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.359 and each section is a different circumference, meaning you can 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:39.200 adjust the speed of rotation or the ratio of rotation 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:42.200 I should say, of the flyer. So it may be 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:45.160 that one rotation of the big wheel is the same 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:48.040 as five rotations of the flyer. But then you can 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.119 swap the band to a different groove that would be 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.720 slightly smaller, like it would be a smaller circumference around 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.200 the flyer, and then one rotation of the big wheel 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:02.440 might be seven, and rotations of the flyer and then 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:05.879 you could move to maybe an even smaller circumference groove 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:08.320 on the flyer, and one rotation of the big wheel 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.320 would be the same as eleven rotations on the flyer. 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:14.000 If you're having trouble imagining this, it's a lot like 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:19.000 bike gears or even a transmission. That gear ratio is 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:24.920 what determines the speed of rotation between two different rotating objects. 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.199 So it's pretty interesting stuff that this was something that 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:33.520 was important well before there wherever bicycles or cars um now. 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:37.359 The flyer also contains a device called a bobbin. Bobbin 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:40.639 is the thing that yarn winds around during yarn making. 0:24:40.680 --> 0:24:45.240 The bobbing itself is perched on a spindle. This would 0:24:45.240 --> 0:24:47.479 be the thing that sleeping Beauty pokes her finger on 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:51.159