WEBVTT - How the Industrial Revolution Worked, Part One 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:08.280 Get in Text with Technology with Text Stuff from Hastuffs Tacolom. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.400 Hey guys, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:19.639 Jonathan Strickland, and today I want to look at the 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.919 Industrial Revolution because this show is all about technology and 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.920 about doubt. We wouldn't have the technology we enjoy today 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.880 without the era of change that is the Industrial Revolution. Now, 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:36.199 industrial Revolution is a huge topic. It's enormous. So I'm 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.000 going to be tackling this in a series of episodes 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.320 right now. It looks like it's gonna be three. I 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.839 don't know for sure yet, but this will be the 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.680 first of them. So typically we think of the Industrial 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.880 Revolution as a period in which automation, mass production, urbanization, 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.920 all of these things change the way that we humans live. 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.080 And it's a time in which corporations came in to 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.440 being and we started to see the delineation of work 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.600 between laborers and management and the rise of unions and 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.840 all sorts of stuff. But it's even more complex than that, 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:15.319 And the story doesn't have a clear beginning, middle, and end, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.480 which is problematic because we humans like stories that have 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:22.120 a clear narrative. But as you guys know, history rarely 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.480 follows that pattern. So before we can even talk about 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.840 the Industrial Revolution, we need to see why it was 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.400 such a big deal, which requires that we look way, way, 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.839 way back. And when I say way back, i'm talking 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.840 about the Neolithic Revolution. There are two big revolutions of 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.920 human behavior and UH and and various things around that 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.600 that have shaped the way we human beings exist here 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.360 on the planet. The Neolithic Revolution was the first one, 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.320 and this took place thousands of years ago, like somewhere 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.120 between nine thousand and seven thousand BC. That was pretty 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.120 much when this was taking place. That's when humans began 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:09.839 to discover agricultural techniques and we began to transition from 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:13.840 hunter gatherer lifestyles where you're very nomadic and you're depending 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.760 upon finding the food you need day to day, to 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:22.320 an agrarian lifestyle where you're actually cultivating food in both 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.480 crops and livestock. People began to settle down and the 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:30.800 vast majority of people were farmers. So most people, in fact, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.200 the vast majority of people were spending their days out 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:39.040 in fields, you know, tending to crops or livestock. Now, 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.400 the term revolution gives you a couple of implications, and 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.359 they can be a little misleading. Actually, it implies that 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.560 we're talking about a moment of abrupt change in history, 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:52.519 but that's not really the case with either the Neolithic 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:57.040 or Industrial revolutions. These things took a lot of time. Now, 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.840 the Neolithic Revolution took a great deal of time, we're 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.920 talking about a thousand years. But generally speaking, historians bracket 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:07.480 the Industrial Revolution as a period in history that began 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:12.040 in seventeen sixty and ended around eighteen fifty in Britain. 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.360 Europe and the United States and some other areas followed 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.079 suit in timelines that kind of overlapped Britain's timeline, but 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.919 Britain got the jump on everybody else. It really got 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.800 started in Britain. Now, seventeen sixty to eighteen fifty, that 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.320 is just one decade short of a full century, and 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.880 the seeds for the revolution were actually planted centuries before that. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.160 So we need to look at the sixteenth century, the 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.120 fifteen hundred's, the late Renaissance to kind of get an 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:44.400 idea of the sort of things that led up to 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:49.160 the Industrial Revolution. And that was a time when philosophy 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:53.200 was transforming into science. It's when people began to learn 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.480 more about how the world works. And how to make 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.920 practical use of the knowledge they gained. We had were 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:04.440 the important thinkers like Francis Bacon, John Locke, Galileo Galilei, 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:08.880 Baruch Spinoza, Renee des Cartes, and even earlier thinkers like 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.600 Leonardo da Vinci, all of whom made significant contributions to 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.719 human knowledge and philosophy. Now, these were the ideas that 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.240 fueled the Renaissance and led into the Age of Enlightenment. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.080 And it's also important to point out that the Industrial 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.880 Revolution wasn't just about technology. It was marked by changes 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:33.520 in demographics and culture, in socioeconomic conditions, agriculture, manufacturing, and shrade. 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.360 There were a lot of conditions in place that allowed 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.960 this transformation to happen in England specifically. In general, we're 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.080 looking at the time in history when people began to 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.719 leave the pastoral farms and head into cities to earn 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:52.239 a living. Uh The term industrial revolution revolution was popularized 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:57.640 by a nineteenth century English economic historian named Arnold Toynbee. 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.320 He popularized the term industrial revolution, and he originally defined 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:05.440 it as seventeen sixty to eighteen forty, but other historians 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.880 would begin to expand that outward and looking at a 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.200 broader range of years to define the Industrial Revolution. They 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.760 did identify a few trends as being fundamental for the 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.279 Industrial Revolution to take place, and one of those very 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.960 important elements was that populations were growing throughout Europe. We 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.440 were starting to see more and more people being born 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.120 in Europe at the time, and that also meant that 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.119 there were more people available to do work, and also 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.600 that there was an increasing need to produce more food 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.839 and clothing for everybody. And as you have probably heard 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.320 in your lifetimes, necessity is the mother of invention. If 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.000 you need something, someone's eventually going to come up with 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.440 an idea of how to meet that need, or you 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.920 go without. Now, this challenge meant that many people worked 0:05:54.120 --> 0:06:01.960 hard on ways to overcome the increase in need for clothing, food, 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.240 that kind of stuff. And in Britain there were quite 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.000 a few inventive people who designed machinery and systems to 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.840 really meet those needs. And I also didn't hurt that 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.680 England had a really healthy agricultural system with lots of 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.880 farms spread throughout the country. It was really the right 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.560 place in the right time for change to happen. And 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.680 before the Industrial Revolution, most people were making whatever they 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.800 needed for themselves, or they would inherit some things from 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.400 parents or other family members, and only occasionally would they 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:37.160 buy something from another person or trade for it. It 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.839 was pretty rare. There are certain certain um occupations that 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:47.080 lent themselves to working well in this environment, but generally speaking, 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.839 we're still talking mostly farmers. There really wasn't much of 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.400 a middle class to speak of before the Industrial Revolution. 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.200 There were men and women who specialized in certain crafts 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.680 like carpentry or stonework, but most people just made do 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.680 with what they had, and that was partly because the 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.839 cost of producing goods was quite high. It required a 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:10.520 lot of labor, a lot of hard work by hand, 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.680 and it also was not easy to get raw materials 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.680 or to ship finished goods from one place to another. 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.560 It was just pretty challenging to make something and deliver it. 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.640 On top of that, Europe was emerging from a socio 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.360 economic system in which there were really three main classes 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.000 of people. You had the nobility, including the royalty. You 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.200 had the clergy, so everyone involved with the church and 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.160 pretty much everybody else. Now, the nobility and clergy wielded 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:44.600 power in different contexts. Uh sometimes those contexts overlapped sometimes 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:49.280 certain branches of the clergy were in power or not 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:53.720 in power, particularly in England where you had Protestants and Catholics, 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.440 kind of shifting the balance of power throughout the several 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.720 hundred years from UH the king Henry the era up 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.240 to the Industrial Revolution. But by seventeen fifty things had 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:09.200 changed a lot and a century earlier, around the sixteen 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.080 fifties sixteen forties, really England had gone through a civil 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.320 war in which the monarchy was originally abolished. Uh. Then 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.320 England was a protectorate for a little while, and then 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:24.760 England reinstated the monarchy, but with some big changes. So 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.560 essentially what happened was you had Parliament originally saying, you know, 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.920 we don't think kings are such a great idea, and sorry, Charles, 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:35.440 we're gonna get rid of you. We're gonna chuck you 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:39.800 and your head out, and we're gonna replace you with 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:45.240 a parliament that will govern the country, and we're gonna 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.440 put Oliver Cromwell as the Lord Protector of England sort 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:53.760 of the head of this parliamentary body. Then after a while, UH, 0:08:53.960 --> 0:09:00.520 some shifting political conditions prompted Parliament to say, you know what, 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:02.240 we kind of like it when we had a king 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.160 that was kind of awesome. We should we should do 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:08.120 that again. So England reinstated the monarchy, but in the 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.720 process Parliament also wanted to make sure the monarch didn't 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.800 have as much power, so they underwent kind of another transformation, 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.600 something similar to what had happened when King John had 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.959 to sign the Magna Carta back in the thirteenth century. 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.920 The monarch and the House of Lords saw much of 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:28.400 their power stripped away, and Parliament's House of Commons had 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.400 a greater share of the power. The reason I even 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.040 bring this up, and you might be saying, well, this 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.920 is a technology podcast. This isn't stuff you missed in 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:37.760 history class. Where are you talking about it? Well, the 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.480 important part is that this was the decline of nobility 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.120 in England. They were starting to see less and less 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.600 power in their grasp. They were no longer as effective 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.960 as they once were. There was instead a rise of 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.720 a new class, a middle class emerging at the time, 0:09:57.160 --> 0:09:59.480 and you had merchants who were making a great deal 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.280 of money and in many cases were much more powerful 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:05.880 than nobles who might have a noble title but not 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:09.120 as much money as the merchants did so we started 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.320 to see a shift in power, and that condition was 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:18.280 very important for the Industrial Revolution to take place too. Now, 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:23.320 among the merchants were some pretty interesting inventors, people who 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.319 came up with new ways to make work more efficient. 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:29.120 And one inventor's work that we need to talk about 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:33.200 pre dates the Industrial Revolution by a few decades, but 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:37.720 without his contributions nothing would be the same. So back 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.480 in seventeen o nine, just a few decades before the 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:47.680 official Industrial Revolution, there was an iron master named Abraham Darby, 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.360 and Darby sussed out how to smelt iron using coke 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.760 as a fuel. Coke in this case, by the way, 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.880 doesn't refer to a tasty soft drink. I live in Atlanta, 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.720 and here coke in it means Coca cola. But that's 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.959 not what I'm talking about when you're looking at smelting iron. Instead, 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.320 I'm talking about a fuel that has a very high 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.640 carbon content. And there are a few different types of coke, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.240 but the one that concerns us in the context of 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:19.200 the Industrial Revolution was made from coal. Now, to make coke, 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.400 you would put coal in an airless furnace or an oven, 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.880 and you would bake it at really high temperatures, and 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.640 during that process there would be ash that would form 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.240 and it would fuse with the carbon inside the coal, 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.720 and after you're done baking it, you end up with 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.920 this kind of porous gray fuel solid fuel, and if 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.400 you burn it, it creates no smoke, but it does 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:51.680 release carbon monoxide. So why was Darby's discovery such a 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.439 big deal in the first place. Well before he had 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.360 found a way to use coke as a fuel to 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:01.720 smelt iron ore into pig iron, everyone was using charcoal. 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.720 Charcoal is made by burning wood, which meant that iron 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.760 works had to be located near or inside forests, and 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.440 it made it hard to access the iron works, and 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.080 it also led to deforestation. But England had a steady 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.640 supply of coal and iron ore, which meant it was 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.800 well poised to use this material in lots of new ways. 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.960 In the eighteenth century, the region northwest of Birmingham along 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.800 the Southern River became the center for iron works in 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.480 the early Industrial Revolution. Iron working would also become very 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:37.000 important in other parts of the United Kingdoms, such as Scotland. Now, 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.160 in the next episode, i'll talk more about the iron 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.440 industry and how that guided England's development, But The important 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.559 thing to remember is that iron was a vital material 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:52.240 during the Industrial Revolution, and Darby's discovery would literally fuel 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.080 it once it caught on. During Darby's own lifetime, however, 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:00.280 most iron working facilities continued to rely upon charcoal for fuel, 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.360 so it's only later that others recognize the value of 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.439 adopting Darby's approach. And that's why, even though his his 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.600 discovery predates the Industrial Revolution, it took a few decades 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.040 for it to really play a major role in the 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.880 iron working industry. And that's kind of why we don't 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:23.040 don't include that in the Industrial Revolution itself. But as 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.800 the iron and coal industries grew, so too did the 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.679 textile industry in England. And that's really kind of the 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.560 first place we can look at, the first the first 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.839 factor of the Industrial Revolution. We can look at and 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:43.280 see how um advances in technology dramatically changed the way 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:48.120 industry worked in England. So I'm going to focus on 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:51.920 textiles for pretty much the rest of this episode. The 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.520 growth of the textile industry was helped by a couple 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.040 of really important geographic features. One is that Britain is 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.559 an island, and as an island, it's got a lot 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.480 of coastline, which means that there's lots of opportunity for 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:08.680 people to build large ports cities. One of them, Liverpool 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.920 served as an important port for the textile trade. They 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.280 would bring in cotton from the American colonies and also 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.280 from India, and they would end up taking that cotton 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.400 and moving it over to spinners and weavers, and then 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.000 when textiles were done, they could ship the finished cloth 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.240 off to other locations, whether that be in England or Europe, 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:33.880 or even back to America. This was one of those 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.600 things where UH England would take in raw materials from 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.840 the American colonies, turn it into a finished product and 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.160 then sell it back to the American colonies. UH. The 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:49.239 region of Lancashire became known for producing cotton goods in particular. 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.800 So why was Lancashire ideal for textiles? The main reason 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.280 is that the climate in Lancashire is wet and that 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.680 makes it easier to work with cotton fibers because as 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:02.160 cotton fibers dry out, they become brittle, and Lancashire was 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.520 several had also has several fast flowing streams, which made 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.120 it ideal for constructing water powered cotton mills a little 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.720 bit later on in the Industrial Revolution. Now, some of 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.440 the inventions that made the textile industry possible in England 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:18.840 require a bit of explanation, so we're gonna do some 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:24.720 tech stuff. How stuff works classic descriptions here. So the 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:26.840 first one we need to talk about is an invention 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.440 created by a weaver named John k It's a device 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.240 that he made in seventeen thirty three and it's called 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:37.360 a flying shuttle, which made weaving wide bands of cloth 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.800 much more efficient for weavers, and it makes you wonder 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.240 what the heck of flying shuttle is. So to do that, 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.840 we have to start off with talking about looms. A 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.760 loom is essentially just a device for weaving and a weave. 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.440 If you ever look very closely at woven cloth, you'll 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.280 see there are threads that are in vertical line lines 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.240 and threads that are in horizontal lines, and they weave 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.880 between one another. So to make a weave, you would 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.520 use a loom to hold the threads of one direction. 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.560 So let's say vertically. Uh, let's say that it's just 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.520 a simple loom where you've got a frame and you 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:20.320 have this this thread called the warp that is threaded 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.920 up and down on the frame, so you've got odd 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.760 and even numbered threads, and then you would take a 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.480 second thread to go in a horizontal direction. This would 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:36.080 be the weft, and you would weave that back and 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:41.200 forth under and over alternating strings. So, starting with the 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.800 odd numbers, let's say that you do uh. String number 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.080 one you go over, and string number two you go under, 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:48.320 and string number three you go over. So for all 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:50.240 the odd numbers you would go over, all the even 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.280 numbers you would go under, and one full pass of 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.240 that is called a pick. So if you were doing 0:16:57.280 --> 0:16:59.440 this on a very simple loom, where really you just 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.200 have the of the strings there and you're doing all 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.199 this by hand, it takes a while because you have 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:09.160 to weave the the the weft back and forth through 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.200 all the strings. But gradually there were some looms that 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.040 use some moving parts that made this a lot easier. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.760 One used warp frames, where you would you would actually 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:25.000 put two different sets of warp thread on these warp frames. 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:29.359 One set would be all the odd uh odd threads 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.120 and one set would be all the even threads. So 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.800 imagine that it's almost like a sandwich in a way. 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.680 You've got one set of these threads. Let's say that's 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.639 the odd ones that are laying more or less flat 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.320 in respect to you, and then the other one is 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.919 actually vertical. These be the even threads. If you just 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:56.480 passed your weft the horizontal line of threads straight across, 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.320 and then you would use pedals to swap the positions 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.920 of those two frames, and you know, they just they 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.320 just passed between each other, and then you pull the 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:09.400 weft back across the other way. This would have at 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:13.800 the same effect as weaving the thread up and down 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.840 across those uh, those those vertical threads, but you're doing 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:23.439 it much much faster. Um. However, if you are working 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.679 by yourself, you pretty much were limited to doing of 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.600 cloth about as wide as your arm. Beyond that you 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.879 would need a second weaver to help you out. Until 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:38.600 John k came up with this flying shuttle, and uh, 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.879 that ends up making a huge difference. It speeds up 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:49.360 the weaving process significantly. So, by the way, the process 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.439 of weaving is a little more complicated than just that. 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.720 After you do a pick, you know, after you pass 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.840 the weft through the warp, then you have to use 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.280 a part of the loom called the reed to batten 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.520 the fabric. Now, a read is like a comb and 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.479 it is on the far side of where you're bringing 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.600 the weft through the warp, and you use it to 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:15.640 pull the new weft hard against the the previously woven 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:20.560 cloth to pack it together to batten it down. And 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.960 you have to batten that thread after each pass. And 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.920 uh so this is pretty painstaking and obviously if you're 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.359 doing it by hand, it's really slow work. And if 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.879 you're all by yourself, like I said, you're limited to 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.720 that arms width of cloth because otherwise you would not 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.639 be able to pass the shuttle that's the device that 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:43.080 actually holds the weft thread from one side to the other. 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.960 Now Kay's invention solved all that. The flying shuttle reduced 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.120 the number of weavers needed for wide cloth to just one. 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.400 And here's how it worked. Imagine you've got these two 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.320 frames of vertical lines of thread, uh and all the 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:00.399 odd lines of thread are on one aime all the 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.119 even lines are on the second frame. Those two frames 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.840 can move so that the shuttle can pass easily between 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.679 the two sets. Moving the shuttle from one side to 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.359 the other completes one line of the weave. Then you 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.240 bring the frames together, pull the horizontal thread and tightly 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.000 using that reed comb so it's packed against its processors. 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:20.320 Then you switch which frame is up and which frame 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:22.560 is down, and you pass it again. Just like I said, 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:27.000 But case shuttle had wheels on it, and it allowed 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:30.280 it to roll quickly in a channel between the two 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.920 sets of of threads, the two sets of warp threads 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.679 on the frames. You would pull a rope and this 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.359 would make the shuttles quickly roll from one side to 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:42.600 the other, like left or right or right to left. 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.000 So you pull the rope, the shuttle zooms across left 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.560 or right. You swap the position of the frames, and well, 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:54.159 first you batten that weft uh and swap the position 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.840 of the frames, and you pull the rope and it 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.800 zips across the other side, and you repeat this process, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.479 and it really sped things up. And that was just 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.800 the first of several inventions that made it easier and 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:11.919 less expensive to produce cloth, particularly large amounts of cloth. 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.119 Now we're gonna talk a lot more about the Industrial 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.440 Revolution in a moment, but first let's take a quick 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:23.400 break to thank our sponsor. Alright, So the flying shuttle 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.520 sped up weaving significantly, but now there was a new 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:31.760 bottleneck in the textile industry, which was making yarn. Weavers 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.800 could go through yarn faster than yarn could be spun. 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.600 Yarn would be made by people called spinners. Traditionally, they 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.959 would use spinning wheels, and normally you would need up 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.040 to four spinners to support one weaver just to make 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.480 yarn fast enough for the weaver to be effective. But 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.640 this flying shuttle made the weavers even more efficient, so 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:55.440 you needed more than four spinners just to be able 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.360 to produce enough yarn for the weaver to stay active. 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.960 And so the supply couldn't meet up with the weaving speeds, 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.760 and that was an issue. Meanwhile, let's let's talk about 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.919 spinning wheels. It's another interesting technology. Spinning wheels twist fibers 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.119 into yarn, and I could do an entire episode on 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:16.880 this process. I could probably get someone like Holly from 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.359 Stuff You Missed in History class to talk about it too, 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.040 But in general, here's how it works. You've got a 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.199 large spinning wheel. You've probably seen pictures of these, But 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:30.080 the large wheel provides the rotational force for a smaller 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.600 component called a flyer. So the flyer's kind of like 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.080 a cylinder. Imagine a cylinder on its side. It's in 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:41.040 the same plane of rotation as the spinning wheel. But 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:45.360 you then connect the two with a drive band. Um 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:48.199 it looks a lot like any kind of belt you 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:52.200 would imagine for connecting gears together. So in this case, 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.320 the large wheel would be a big gear. The flyer 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.440 is a smaller gear. So as the large wheel rotates, 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.439 the band connecting it to the flyer makes the flyer 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:04.240 rotate as well. But since the flyer is smaller than 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:08.120 the big wheel, it's making more rotations per minute than 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:11.560 the big wheel. Uh. And most flyers actually have a 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:15.080 section of different grooves that the drive band can fit into, 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:18.639 and each section is a different circumference, meaning you can 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:22.480 adjust the speed of rotation or the ratio of rotation 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:25.520 I should say, of the flyer. So it may be 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.480 that one rotation of the big wheel is the same 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.320 as five rotations of the flyer. But then you can 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:35.439 swap the band to a different groove that would be 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:39.080 slightly smaller, like it would be a smaller circumference around 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.520 the flyer, and then one rotation of the big wheel 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.840 might be seven rotations of the flyer. And then you 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:49.600 could move to maybe an even smaller circumference groove on 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:51.800 the flyer, and one rotation of the big wheel would 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.119 be the same as eleven rotations on the flyer. If 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:57.680 you're having trouble imagining this, it's a lot like bike 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:02.399 gears or even a transmission. That gear ratio is what 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:07.840 determines the speed of rotation between two different rotating objects. 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:11.479 So it's pretty interesting stuff that this was something that 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:16.840 was important well before there wherever bicycles or cars um now. 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:20.639 The flyer also contains a device called a bobbin. Bobbin 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:23.920 is the thing that yarn winds around during yarn making. 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:28.520 The bobbing itself is perched on a spindle. This would 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:30.800 be the thing that sleeping Beauty pokes her finger on 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:34.439 and goes unconscious due to that. So you put the 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:38.080