WEBVTT - How the Industrial Revolution Worked, Part Three 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:13.280 With technology with tech Stuff from technolog Hey there, and 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:17.560 welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.919 this episode is part three, the epic finale of our 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:26.520 series on the Industrial Revolution. In parts one and two, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.560 I looked at the textile and iron industries respectively, as 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.880 well as how steam engines came about and how technology 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:38.319 helped transform those trades into enormous industries. And in this 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.559 episode will cover everything from transportation to what it was 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.280 like to be a member of the working class at 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.560 that time, and how we started to see some new 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.320 lines dividing different classes. It used to be that it 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.600 was the nobles versus the peasants, with clergy in the middle, 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.120 really clergy off to the side on their own kind 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:03.680 of ladder. But things changed in the Industrial Revolution. So 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.160 during this period in Britain's history, which as you may remember, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.920 is in the mid eighteenth to mid nineteenth century, so 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.679 the seven the mid seventeen hundreds to the mid eighteen hundreds, 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.679 transportation was getting a major overhaul. Roads had been in 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.400 really poor shape ever since the Romans had left Britain 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.880 and they were in need of repair and redesign. Shipping 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.440 by boat was really popular, and many of Britain's rivers 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:33.600 became important conduits for trade goods. Engineers would actually start 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.880 to begin to design canals to connect various rivers together 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.039 in order to speed up transportation. And then there were 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:47.520 the rail systems. So railroads pre date trains and locomotives 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.760 by a lot, because people figured out fairly early on 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.680 that it's a lot easier to push or pull a 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.040 heavy cart that's along a set of hard rails than 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:01.360 it is to move that same cart against the ground, 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.360 that it will roll more smoothly and you have to 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:07.880 use less effort to get it from point A to 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.800 point B. So at first wooden rails were used and 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.360 carts would have flanged wheels to allow them to stay 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.320 on the rails securely. Not all cards were like this, 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:20.160 not all rail systems were like this, but it was 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:25.359 generally one of the accepted standards across the world by 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.360 this point, where people knew if you built the wheels 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.320 in this way so that they essentially kind of hug 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.359 the rails, that it's not likely to tip over, and 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.840 you can move at a good clip. By a good clip, 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.240 we're talking a couple of miles per hour usually because 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.959 you're carrying so much stuff. Now, typically you'd use horses 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.239 to pull the carts along the rails. People did experiment 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.880 with other things, uh, But one of the pioneers in 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:55.200 railroads in England was Richard Reynolds. Now, Reynolds was an 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:59.440 iron master who worked at Colebrookdale, and that's the iron 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:02.520 works that was founded by Abraham Darby. You can listen 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.880 to the previous episodes on this series and you'll hear 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.360 me talk about the Darby family. Well, Reynolds became friends 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:13.120 with Abraham Darby the second, so the son of Abraham Darby. 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.280 And in seventeen sixty seven Reynolds came up with the 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:23.920 idea of replacing wooden rails with cast iron rails. He 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.120 thought that this would be a much better use of 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.400 cast iron. It would be better than the wooden ones 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.920 because the wooden rails would break down over time. They 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.680 could also just collapse depending upon how heavy the load was, 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.600 and cast iron would last longer and be able to 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.800 withstand greater weights. Now, there's no historical record of anyone 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.520 doing this before Reynolds, so he might have actually been 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.200 the person to invent this. But it's not safe to 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.280 just declare it, So it's possible someone else did. We 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.040 just don't have a record of it. So I guess 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.920 for practical purposes, we can say he invented the idea 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:06.160 before long tramways all across Britain were following his his lead, 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:10.080 and so he was using rails in order to move 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.960 giant carts of coal or iron back and forth between locations. 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:17.799 But soon these were being used all over the place 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.800 for various reasons, and so they started convert wooden railways 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:27.000 into iron railways. This is fifty years before the invention 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.400 of the locomotive, which turned railways into a major means 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.960 of transport, not only in Britain but all across the world. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.840 And we'll get to the locomotive a bit later, but 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.080 just imagine for fifty years this was a way of 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:44.000 getting heavy loads of cargo to load from location to location, 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.760 but there were no trains. It was just horse drawn carts. 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.560 In the last episode, I also talked about the punt custle, 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:58.760 the aqueduct punt consulta child mangle. Every single time I 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:00.599 try and say it's okay, the Welsh have trouble with 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:03.320 this one too. That's just one example of the innovations 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:07.600 and transportation that were introduced in the Industrial Revolution. Uh. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:09.599 It was during this time that nations like the United 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.680 Kingdom and the United States really began to build extensive canals, 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.479 roads and railways to speed up that travel. And I 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.800 mentioned Thomas Telford as the architect who designed and built 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.359 the pot consulta aqueduct. That was the one that was 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.200 a raised aqueduct made out of an iron trough that 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.000 connected two rivers together, and it spanned a valley so 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.760 that the waterway actually passed above the valley. It didn't 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:39.920 have to descend into the valley and then go back up, 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:44.440 it went straight across. He made several important contributions to 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.239 England's transportation systems, not just this aqueduct, and his designs 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.200 were adopted by engineers and other countries like the United States. 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:56.280 So it might be worth looking into who Telford was like. 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.599 Who was Thomas Telford Well. He was born in August 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:05.640 of seventeen fifty seven on the border between England and Scotland. 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.920 He's generally considered a Scottish architect. His father died when 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.680 he was just a baby, and his mother relied on 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.200 her relatives to help raise the child. Essentially, Telford was 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.040 raised by his his relatives, not by his mother, and 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.200 at age fourteen he became apprenticed to a stonemason. He 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.080 was really keen to learn everything there was to learn 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.800 about construction, and so he would actually study at night 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.760 after working a full day shift with the stonemason. After 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.080 learning his trade with the stonemason, and by the time 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.159 he was twenty five, he had worked on several important 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.480 construction projects and including some in Edinburgh, Scotland, and he 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:49.080 ended up picking up stakes to move to London. That's 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.760 where Telford met Sir William Chambers, who was a prominent 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:57.119 Scottish architect, and Chambers had begun work on Somerset House 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.040 or Somerset House if you prefer if you're being more 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:03.880 British with it, and Telford ended up joining the crew. Now, 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.000 if you're not familiar with London, Somerset House may sound 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:11.040 like it's a quaint cottage. It's not. House is a 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:16.040 not an accurate word to describe this massive building. It's 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:20.680 an enormous Neo Classical structure and it was big enough 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:22.960 so that it could house the Royal Academy of Arts, 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:27.800 the Royal Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the quarters 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.080 for the Navy Board and offices for the King's Barge Master. 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.480 This is a big, big building, massive in fact, and 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.240 it had a whole bunch of challenges that were associated 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.280 with it, not just because it was huge, but because 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:44.080 it was going to be the quarters for the King's 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.360 barge Master as well as for the Navy Board. It 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.960 had to be built up against the River Thames. There 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.560 had to be direct access to the Thames River, so 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.280 that was a big challenge. And if you're not if 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.720 you've never seen it, you should look at the pictures 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.680 of the Somerset House. The middle section of the structure 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.600 is what Telford specifically worked on. If you're looking at 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:06.960 a modern picture, you're going to see this really big 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:10.360 building that has wings on either side, but those east 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.360 and west wings were actually built later in the Victorian era. 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.440 It's that central structure that is what Telford worked on 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.080 as part of Chambers's crew. So Telford would go on 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.360 to work for a man named Sir William Pulteney, who 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.280 was the richest man in Britain at that time, or 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.600 at least one of them. Telford became the surveyor of 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.000 public Works in Shropshire, which was a position that was 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.680 created just for him. There had not been a surveyor 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.960 of public works before Telford. He would become a pioneer 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.560 in a new field that would eventually become known as 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:50.520 civil engineering. In two he designed and built the Mockford 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.640 stone Bridge across the River Severn, and that was the 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:55.840 one that was so important in the textile industry. If 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.200 you listen to the first episode in this series, I 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.600 talked about how important said was and uh in its 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.480 association with Lancashire and the iron working and coal industries. 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:12.200 Telford also began to build suspension bridges, which was a 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.839 new idea at the time, and folklore has it that 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.560 when Telford built his first suspension bridge, he had to 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.079 steady his nerves with a prayer before allowing the cables 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.920 to take on the weight of the structure, because even 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:29.000 though he had worked out the math, he still could 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.640 not be absolutely certain that this was going to work. 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.520 And suspension bridges are actually a really cool technology. It actually, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.400 I guess will benefit us to describe how those work. 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.960 With a suspension bridge, typically what you have are a 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:48.440 pair of very tall towers and UH, these towers are 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.760 attached to the bridge via cables. You know, the typical 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:56.560 bridge has columns or pylons or piers underneath it that 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.560 holded up, but a suspension bridge doesn't. It has these 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:04.160 tower is that have cables attached from the tower first 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:09.080 to each other, and also there's vertical cables that attached 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.319 the main cables between the two towers and the bridge. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:18.080 The towers actually support most of the weight. Specifically, they 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.679 support the force of compression. See compression pushes down on 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.600 the surface of the bridge. That compression is transferred to 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.320 the cables or chains that are attached the edges of 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.040 the bridge, the frame of the bridge, and that gets 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.719 transferred to the towers. Then you have supporting cables that 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.600 connect the towers to anchorage points on either side of 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.320 whatever you're building the bridge across, like a river, and 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.280 these cables support the tension forces created by the bridge. 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.800 So suspension bridges don't need any columns or pylons under them. 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.000 That frees up a lot of the space beneath the bridge. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.480 But engineers like Telford, who were aware of how the 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.320 bridges should work, we're a little antsie of out how 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.320 things actually would work. Once everything was ready to go, 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.199 and luckily for us, physics tends to obey the law, 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.320 so the designs worked out in everyone's favor, but no 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.439 one was entirely sure at the time. Now, Telford's next 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.160 project was the Aqueduct, which must not be named because 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.959 I'm tired of trying to pronounce Welsh words, which was 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.760 a phenomenal success and that came as a great surprise 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.839 to numerous critics who were absolutely convinced it would fall 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.240 apart as soon as water was flowing, and it didn't. 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.520 It stayed together and ended up increasing the speed of 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:38.439 transportation in that part of England. After the aqueduct, or 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:40.800 well Wales, I should say England and Wales because it 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.280 was connecting the two. But after that Aqueduct, Telford became 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:48.200 the head engineer of the Caledonian Canal in Scotland. That's 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.960 a really big canal. It's sixty miles long and the 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.600 construction was a huge boon for Scotland at the time 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:00.160 because many people in Scotland had become homeless, and the 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:06.280 reason they became homeless is pretty dastardly. It was in 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.280 the wake of what has become known as the Highland Clearances, 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:15.160 which is a very polite way of describing what actually happened. 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:20.760 So this was a period when aristocratic people, so clan leaders, nobles, 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.240 decided it would make a great deal of sense to 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:27.480 evict Scottish families from their ancestral homes in order to 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:31.680 convert that land into sheep grazing territory, so converting it 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.280 from farms into gray's land. And Highlanders were forced to 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.400 leave their homes, and some of them had been in 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.080 those homes for centuries. The families had, I mean only 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.680 a few Highlanders are immortal. As the documentary series Highlander 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.200 teaches us, it's a really dark time in Scottish history 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:52.280 and it really dealt severe damage to Gaelic culture as 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.079 a result. What what seems to have happened the way 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:56.880 it tends to be described is that a lot of 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:01.079 clan leaders, for various reasons political reasons that were handed 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:06.160 down from the crown, from royals, had decided that rather 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.040 than be considered a clan leader, which came with a 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:13.160 bunch of responsibilities, including if someone in your clan acted up, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.679 you were held responsible as leader, they started to call 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.240 themselves landlords instead, and that was a slippery slope that 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:25.080 led to these evictions. So Telford's canal took three decades 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.080 to construct, and it meant that he had to rely 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.320 heavily on a lot of labor from this part of Scotland, 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:33.800 so it gave a lot of people work when they 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:38.040 went home to harvest crops. He ended up hiring Irish workers, 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:43.120 which caused some real problems in the area. People locals 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.880 were upset at that, but Telford was already running over 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:51.320 budget and behind time, and unfortunately for everybody, by the 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:55.800 time the canal was finished, it was actually not terribly useful, 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.680 and that's because it just took two long to make 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.480 and technology had changed while the canal was being built. 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.280 It was built well and it's considered to be a 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.080 marvel of engineering, but ship building had changed so dramatically 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.440 by the time the canal was finished. Steamships had become 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:18.720 the new standard, and steamships needed more space than what 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.360 the canal could provide. The canal was actually too small 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.440 to accommodate steamships and so it wasn't as used used 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.120 as heavily as it had been planned. Now Telford would 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.240 go on to create super waterways. It's kind of like 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:37.840 super highways there were these interconnections that uh that put 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.560 various canals finally in contact with each other, so that 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.840 made shipping much more efficient. And in eighteen twenty he 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.240 became the very first president of the Institution of Civil 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:54.240 Engineers in Britain, so essentially kind of invented the discipline 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.240 of civil engineering, or at least was instrumental in the 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:01.560 invention of that discipline. Tell made another major contribution to 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.720 England's transportation system as well. One of his most important 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:09.320 improvements involved raising the foundation of a road in the 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.760 center of the road to aid in draining water. So 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.680 he he was very good at building roads. He used 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.440 these large flat stones as the foundation and by raising 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.680 that center, water would drain off it much more effectively. 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.160 It wouldn't pool and destroy the road over time, and 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.600 his work was so successful that it became the standard 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:33.640 road design in England and beyond. One of Telford's contemporaries 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:38.360 and rivals was a guy named Isambard Kingdom Brunel. And 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.680 if that name sounds at all familiar, well you might 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.760 remember him when we did our episode on subways. He 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.040 was very important in that episode. He was the son 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.320 of a French engineer the French engineer had actually fled 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.760 to England during the French Revolution, so Brunell grew up 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:58.440 in England, although he also studied in France post Revolution. 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.080 Brunell worked on many important projects throughout his career, but 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.320 he's probably best remembered for his tunnels and his underground systems. 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.880 He designed underground passages that even passed beneath bodies of 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.040 water like the River Thames, and he also designed several 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:17.960 rail railways and steamships in his time. Uh Speaking of steamships, 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.240 the idea had been kicking around since the days of 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:24.920 Leonardo da Vinci, but until the eighteenth century, no one 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.280 had managed to actually make a practical steamship. People had tried. 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.280 There were several challenges that were facing engineers at the time. 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.640 A big one was to create a mechanism that would 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:41.160 translate the reciprocal motion of a piston into a rotary 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:44.280 motion that could turn a wheel. So pistons move up 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.720 and down or left and right in a cylinder, whereas 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:49.760 wheels turn in a circle. So you have to figure 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.120 out a way to translate one style of motion into another, 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.240 and it took a while before that happened. In other words, 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.960 how do you get that simple up, down or left 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.320 right motion to become a circle? Well, Thomas Newcomin came 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.760 up with that. That was the invention that he said 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.720 he was most proud of, even beyond his improvements to 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:10.679 the basic steam engine. Uh, it was essentially kind of 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.399 a ratchet that allowed for this translation of motion. It 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:17.240 was the first big step to solving that particular problem. Now, 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:19.200 the other big challenge was to create a steam engine 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.040 capable of providing enough power to actually move a boat 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.760 through the water. Now, as I mentioned in the last episode, 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.119 early steam engines relied on using condensation to create a 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.840 vacuum and pull a piston downward. They did not use 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:36.080 steam to create pressure and push the piston upward because 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.640 the materials they were using couldn't withstand that intense pressure 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.360 that steam would create, and they were considered too dangerous. 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.320 It was just a recipe for disaster. You would have 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.440 a boiler explode and that could be deadly. Now, patents 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.240 for steamboats state all the way back to sixteen eighteen 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.760 when David Ramsey was awarded a patent for his design. Now, 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.200 there's no evidence that Ramsey ever managed to actually build 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:02.200 anything approaching a steam powered boat, and other inventors followed suit. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.080 There was one named John Allen who patented a steamboat 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:09.199 design in seventeen nine, and another one was proposed by 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.919 Englishman Jonathan Holes in seventeen thirty six. Holes His approach 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.080 was to use a Newcoming engine, although again he never 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:20.960 built such a boat as far as we can tell. 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.520 For an actual working boat, you have to actually look 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:32.200 fifty years later, so three that's when Clode Francois Dorote 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:36.359 Joefrey Dabam, who, as you can imagine from that name, 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.199 was a French nobleman, built a boat powered by a 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:44.360 Newcoming two cylinder engine, and he demonstrated on a river 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.280 in France and showed that such a boat could actually 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.919 sail against the river's current under its own power. It 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:55.800 didn't require manpower or animal power to turn some sort 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.600 of device in order to go against the current. It's 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.919 really kind of challenging to explain how monumental this was 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.560 in the transportation industry at the time. But people realize 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.640 the promise of steam power would be to make everything easier, 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.240 including the shipment of cargo and people. So Joe Frey's 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.879 invention actually broke apart in the river it was not. 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:20.800 It was not designed to last very long. It shook 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.280 itself apart. Essentially, the boat began to split, the engine 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.439 began to fall apart. He was able to pilot the 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:32.120 boat back to the river bank before it completely disintegrated 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.959 on him, and got to shore safely. He would just 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.320 a few years later flee France himself, because that was 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.440 just as the French Revolution was getting into the swing 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:46.680 of things. Now, James Watt, who we talked about in 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:51.440 the last episode, invented the condenser, which made it much 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.239 more efficient. It being steam engines made steam engines much 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.239 more efficient. You no longer had to heat up and 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.199 cool down the cylinder that the piston in it. You 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.840 could keep it the same temperature, and you allowed the 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.160 condenser to pull steam in and condense into water. And 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.080 water started getting a trans Atlantic accident on there for 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.640 some reason, turn into water and uh create that vacuum 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.440 pressure that would pull a piston downward. And also because 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.160 around this time when people began to experiment with double 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.680 stroke engines, that's when you use steam to provide both 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.399 the push on the upstroke of a piston and the 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.760 pull on the downstroke of the piston, and makes an 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.240 engine much more efficient because it's doing work in both 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.000 ways rather than just pulling and then allowing gravity to 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.679 reset the piston. Watson's invention would become the foundation for 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:47.160 working steamboats in the future. Now, I've talked a lot 0:20:47.200 --> 0:20:51.440 about Britain in these episodes, because Britain is the birthplace 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:55.360 of the Industrial Revolution, There's no question about that. Uh. 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.920 A lot of innovations happened in Britain first and then 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:00.320 eventually made their way to other parts of the world. However, 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.439 when we start talking about steamboats, we actually have to 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.840 shift our focus over to America. American engineers were facing 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:12.200 a pretty big challenge that the Brits weren't facing. Specifically, 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:17.439 they were not allowed to use British technology. Britain had 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:22.800 passed laws making it illegal to share trade secrets or 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.560 sell certain things like steam engines. So, in other words, 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.479 all that information got caught up and stuck and stayed 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.919 in Britain. Now, the reason for this was that Britain 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:37.720 was really trying to maintain trade superiority for as long 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.679 as it possibly could, and part of that was just 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.080 keeping all this this information secret so that only Britain 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.119 could take advantage of it, so American engineers were forced 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.720 to design their own steam engines. Now they had a 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.000 general idea of how the British ones were working, so 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.080 it's not like they were going completely from scratch, but 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:58.840 it still was a big challenge, and one trio that 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:01.359 gave it a shot can sisted of an inventor named 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:06.159 John Stevens, his wealthy brother in law Robert Livingstone, and 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:10.880 a machinist named Nicholas J. Roosevelt. Their efforts were somewhat 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:14.240 hampered by Livingston, who felt that since he was providing 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.119 all the cash, he should have a major input into 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:21.800 how the boat was actually constructed, despite the fact that 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:26.919 he didn't have the expertise of the other two. But 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.879 the other two had very little bargaining power because Livingstone 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:34.240 was the guy footing the bill. So despite protestations from 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:39.480 Roosevelt and from Stevens, Livingstone's design was what stuck, and 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.600 the resulting boat barely moved in still water. In fact, 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.440 on the first test it didn't go anywhere. The second test, 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:51.960 it moved very slowly in stillwater, something like three miles 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:55.040 per hour, so it could not really fight against the current, 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:58.000 and it also shook itself apart after a short while. 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:02.200 By the way, don't think that Robert Livingstone was a dummy. 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.680 He was a smart guy. In fact, he was instrumental 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:09.320 in in American history. He's the guy who essentially brokered 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.640 the Louisiana purchase deal between France and America. So very 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.760 important historically, just not necessarily the guy you want on 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.840 your team when you're designing a steam engine. However, Livingston 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:24.240 met another man who also shared an interest in steam power, 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:27.440 and that man was Robert Fulton. He was an American 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:29.840 who originally wanted to make his living as an artist. 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:33.600 He painted a portrait of Benjamin Franklin and felt that 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:36.240 he was on his way to becoming a great artist, 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:39.760 but his career path was cut short after he had 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.680 a disappointing meeting with another American artist who was living 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:46.000 in London. Fulton actually took his all of his money, 0:23:46.840 --> 0:23:50.399 traveled to London. He had a letter of invitation, our 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:54.280 introduction for this American artist. Met with the American artist, 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.760 who is kind but essentially said no, I don't want 0:23:57.800 --> 0:23:59.639 you as a student. You don't have what it takes. 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:04.639 But fortunately Fulton met Livingstone and they began to talk 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.439 and they realized they shared a lot of common interests, 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:11.320 including engineering and specifically in steam engines. Fulton had become 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:17.400 really obsessed with ships in general and steam engines in particular, 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:21.600 and Fulton saw in Livingstone a potential source of funding 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:25.359 for his work, pretty much the same way that Stevens 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:30.080 had seen Livingston earlier. So Fulton and Livingstone entered into 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:33.159 a partnership in which they would split the profits of 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:37.200 their work fifty fifty. That was a sore spot for Livingstone, 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:41.440