28-08-2017, 04:33 PM
The representative of Rethinking Textiles, Dr. Barbara Hahn, will present approaches to the history of technology to restructure the causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution. It will demonstrate how machines do not develop in isolation, but operate within systems and as part of wider production and consumption methods. The methods that machines embody and engender are as important as the devices themselves for their operation. In this paper we analyze the technological systems for the production of cloth that existed prior to industrialization, in order to capture the role of these systems in the structure of industrial production as it developed.
International trade relations, guilds and the putting system are the specific technological systems studied here. Regional specialization and the import / export relations of specific fibers (wool, flax, silk and cotton) played a role both in the localization and in the process of industrialization. The guilds provided models for the organization of tasks and manpower within factories, even when factory output diminished or demolished the traditional purposes of the guild. Traders who put production to domestic workers also shared in the development of a task order and division of labor that facilitated the mechanization of production.
The primary sources for this presentation will include Samuel Oldknow's papers demonstrating the change in factory start-up; Parliamentary legislation on trade, and the records of the White Cloth Hall in Yorkshire.
International trade relations, guilds and the putting system are the specific technological systems studied here. Regional specialization and the import / export relations of specific fibers (wool, flax, silk and cotton) played a role both in the localization and in the process of industrialization. The guilds provided models for the organization of tasks and manpower within factories, even when factory output diminished or demolished the traditional purposes of the guild. Traders who put production to domestic workers also shared in the development of a task order and division of labor that facilitated the mechanization of production.
The primary sources for this presentation will include Samuel Oldknow's papers demonstrating the change in factory start-up; Parliamentary legislation on trade, and the records of the White Cloth Hall in Yorkshire.