The Bessemer steel making process
The Bessemer steel making process (1850s) accelerated the Industrial Revolution by at least an order of magnitude. The benefits of inexpensive and plentiful steel is difficult to over-state.
A typical, mature 1880 farmstead had a steel or cast-iron stove for heat and cooking. It's 1750 counterpart had an open fireplace.
The farmer in 1880 plowed with a steel plow and harvested with scythes made of steel or harvesters with steel internal parts rather than the smaller sickles made of wrought iron.
Barbed wire was coming into common use by 1880. Barbed wire was made of steel. In 1750 your options were to plant a hedge, use ox to yank stumps out of the field and then stack them, split rails like Abe Lincoln or to tether each grazing animal.
A typical, mature farmstead had buildings made with boards cut with steel saws and were held together with steel nails. It's 1750 counterpart was made with notched logs and its size was limited by the size of the logs the builders could move and lift.
A typical, mature 1880 farmstead in the east might less than 10 miles from a railroad that ran on steel tracks. Its 1750 counterpart relied on floating rafts and rutted, muddy, rocky two-tracks for transportation.
In 1880, steam engines (made with steel) were used for a multitude of tasks. In 1750 there might have been a few tiny, crude and inefficient steam engines in hobby workshops. By 1880, triple-expansion, high-pressure steam engines were being designed for ships and mobile, steam-powered threshers were ubiquitous in heavily settled farm country.
---In the comments, it was pointed out that large, stationary engines like the Newcomen Atmospheric Engine were in commercial production and approximately 100 of them were operational by 1735---
And while smelting iron ore was beyond the means of a typical farmer, heating it, forging it, case-hardening the surface, quenching it, filing or grinding it WERE within the scope of what he could do.
Biology
By 1880 Joseph Lister's theories in germs was widely known even if it wasn't universally practiced. In 1750 disease was believed to be spread by the night air.
By 1880, people were catching onto the fact that washing your hands with soap-and-water stopped the spread of diseases. Bathing regularly also reduced the skin infections that often resulted from bug bites.
By 1880, the fundamentals of waste-water treatment were being practiced in some places.
In 1880, farmers practiced "scientific breeding", i.e. "Breed the best to the best and cull the rest."
Land-grant colleges started in the mid 1850s and the scientific method was being applied to agriculture on a large scale.
Chloroform and ether were used for "pain free" surgery by 1880.
The understanding of vitamins was still rudimentary. Scurvy was understood but the other vitamin and trace mineral deficiencies were not.
Other
Robert's Rules of Order were first published in 1876.
Coal was being mined and burned on a large scale.
Large scale manufacturing of paper made from wood-pulp started in the 1840s and contributed to the explosion in printed material. That may have increased the levels of functional literacy in the population.
Telegraphs made it possible to communicate with people on the other side of the continent in a matter of hours rather than months.
Two bonus links:
Soap kills germs A paper from 1965
Soap kills Covid virus A paper from 2021
ERJ, a tangential comparison. Prior to the mid-16th Century, all steel for Japanese swords (tamahagane) was generated by a process in which iron sands (satetsu) were placed into a clay furnace (tatara), which was use to smelt the sand. Charcoal was used to add carbon. The materials were turned under heat for up to 3 days, allowed to cool, and then the tub was broken and the steel sifted out.
ReplyDeleteIn the mid 16th Century, Japanese sword makers started purchasing steel from the Portuguese. It was a significant revolution in the sword making process: the product was much more uniform and it sped up the production process. It was significant enough that it is marked as an era change in Japanese sword making (from the Koto era to the Shinto era, technically starting A.D. 1596).
(On a side note, there is still a traditional tatara forge operated in Japan once a year.)
In 1750 steam engines were building sized units that were pumping water from mines. Hobby units? Well there were many people trying to improve steam engines, but they were planning on making lots of money for their efforts so I don't think you can say it was their hobby. James Watt simply was the first to achieve and successfully sell his work that provided the increases in efficiency that allowed steam engines to be made smaller and more powerful.
ReplyDeleteTechnology generally grows from previous technology. That a farmer could work iron was the basis of the scientific development of steel and economics drove the advancement of Bessemer steel.
ReplyDeleteSalvage technology in 3rd world is rebuilding things for current needs.
The Saxons lived beside Roman technology yet when Rome collapsed didn't adopt the underfloor hypoclast system but lived in wattle and daub huts with open fires and a hole in the roof to let out smoke
Not like they didn't see a better system but didn't have the technology knowledge to use it.
Saxons servants operated the hypoclast and Roman advanced water and septic systems but didn't adopt them
I suspect our collapse will fall quite far as cellphone users have no technology knowledge about even scavenger rebuilding.
A modern home with broken windows isn't useful
Michael the anonymous
This was the basis of my comment to a previous post suggesting collapse would more likely drop us back to 1750 than 1880; most of the population have no idea how steam power works. Small pockets of more advanced tech.might remain but most would be living, assuming they survived, at a pre industrial revolution state.
DeleteDiffer
ERJ, this post made me think of the Straits of Mackinac area. If anyone would like to see some of the differences in person, Colonial Michilimackinac (in Mackinaw City) is set in the mid to late 1700s while Ft Mackinac (on Mackinac Island) and many of its associated historic sites are set in the late 1800s. I think Historic Mill Creek (on the mainland towards Cheboygan) is set in between the two.
ReplyDeleteIf you go, talk with the blacksmiths because they’ll explain some of the differences between the eras and how that can be seen at the different blacksmith sites.
Mill Creek is the only one that routinely shows wood board cutting techniques, but Colonial Michilimackinac sometimes has special events with board cutting demonstrations.
One warning- look into the ferry boat situation before planning an Island trip. I don’t know how things have settled out but the old ferry companies were bought out and in the transition to the new set up, fewer boats were running overall. Last year that meant much longer wait times for a boat. Hopefully things are better this year.
Thank you for this article describing what an improvement it was to have steel components added to the farm.
ReplyDeleteMom was born in 1937 (RIP) and she described her early childhood growing up in a home with no piped water. There was a community faucet, but each household had to haul water from it to their respective homes. No large water trailers allowed - this was to be carried by hand and/or horse drawn wagon. You learned to be VERY frugal on how much water was used, as having to walk to the faucet and getting back consumed at least half an hour of your time.
We don't know how good we have it now.
On fences, I spent about twelve years working farms in the Catskills of N.Y. Most of the fences started as stone walls. Field size was defined about how many stones needed stacking. Often ended up 3 to 5 acres. The few main roads had wet areas paved with logs or planks. There were farms there before the revolution and one I worked on started in 1813. Later steam powered stone crushers were employed by towns to pave roads from walls and in doing so helped farmers enlarge fields for tractor tillage. When I was there in the late 70’ and into the 80’s many fences were one strand of barbed wire over a stone wall. I understand that many smaller farms have either been subdivided or turned to hobby farms because they could not compete with large farms that could use larger equipment etc and didn’t have to pick rocks after each tillage. Many hill areas were cleared and farmed on a subsistence scale but were abandoned when cars came into the picture be cause the hills were to steep for cars. There are miles of stone walls in State wood lands of the Catskills because of this!
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