HTC3 - Reading Response
Week 01
Student: Clara Calista
Instructor: Felix Raspall
Text 1: Mechanization Takes Command – Anonymous History, Siegfried Giedion, 1955
In this part of the text, Giedion focuses on the interconnecting relationship between the political, economic, and sociological trend of our time-particularly between 18th to 20th century (the time of industrial revolution). He questions how they came about, along with the historical events that causes them to exist and develop. He begins with explaining that every object in our daily lives has a crucial impact on our behavior. However, our attitude is the leading cause of invention of those objects; creating a loop of action and reaction processes that drives the development of human history (in this case, mechanization in technological advancement). It seems that Giedion focuses more on the impact from mechanization on basic human needs, such as furniture fabrication and household system, in addition to procreation of plants and animals.
Text 2: Technics and Civilization, Lewis Mumford and Langdon Winner, 2010
In the reading,
…show more content…
He sees industrial revolution as “a crossing of bifurcation where previous autocatalytic dynamics came to form a self-sustaining autocatalytic loop”. Thus it is not really a revolution as other systems have existed even before the 18th century. He also questions whether mass-producing is really the best outcome of this ‘revolution’, as there are several complications that rose as the result. De Landa focuses mainly on the technological advances in coal energy utilization and metallization that took place in UK which makes it the lead in this industrialization process, and how US finally took it over as the future evolution of
The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was arguably the most important turning point in history. It transformed the manufacture of goods from craftsmanship to commercialism, exponentially increasing output and decreasing production cost leading to prosperity and an unprecedented supply of goods for the markets of the world. Industrialization and mass production was the fuel which ignited the flame of capitalism which was already established creating bringing sweeping changes in wealth and its distribution. Within a few generations the very fabric of society was virtually remade as millions left the farms and villages of the countryside for jobs in the cities. This monumental change did not immediately sweep
The Industrial Revolution began in England in the late 1700’s. The Industrial Revolution was a time of new inventions, products, and methods of work. The results of the Industrial Revolution led to many short and long-term positive and negative effects. These results have been assessed from many viewpoints such as the factory workers, the factory owners, the government, and other people who observed the conditions in industrial cities.
The Industrial Revolution began in Britain during the late 1700s. It took place during the 18th and 19th centuries. Document 3 displays the look of the environment at the beginning of this shift in society. It is filled with smoky chimneys. Machines and factories led to great productions, such as new systems of transportation, more efficient communication, banking systems, a variety of manufactured goods, and an overall improvement of living. Britain was the perfect place for the Industrial Revolution to begin due to its coal and iron. Factories became a necessity because of the increase in demand for British goods (Staff, 2009). Before the Industrial Revolution, transportation consisted of wagons, led by horses. “In the early 1800s, American Robert Fulton built the first commercially successful steamboat” (Staff, 2009). Along
The Industrial Revolution was a time period of rapid growth in society. Referring to the 1700’s century in England where the output of machine made goods greatly increased. Prior to the changes made during the Industrial Revolution, workers often manufactured products in their homes using handtools and basic machinery. However, industrialization marked a shift of labor from small farms in rural areas to large factories in cities and was a time of new products, inventions and methods of work.The results of the Industrial Revolution led to many positive outcomes because new cultivation methods spread rapidly around the world. The Industrial Revolution made a significant political, economical, and social change throughout Europe. The Industrial
The Industrial Revolution was a huge turning point in history. The place where the Industrial Revolution began was in Great Britain because they had many natural resources and a strong economy. By the 1850’s many country villages had grown into industrial towns and cities, and their inhabitants bought food and clothing in stores that offered a large variety of machine-made goods. While some might argue that Industrialization had primarily negative consequences for society because of poor working conditions, it was actually a positive thing for society. Industrialization’s positive effects were transportation became more efficient, more jobs were available, and more inventions were created.
Industrialization changed the lives of the people of this nation. By the late nineteenth century, with advances in technology, communication, and transportation, a new type of industrialization was formed, a global one.
industrialization was a big step for the world. “The first had come on a wave of new inventions in iron making, in textiles, in the centrally powered factory, and in new ways of organizing business and work. In the latter 19th century, a second wave of technical and organizational advances carried industrial society to new levels” (Document 3). As industrialization grows, people are inventing more and more items, which changed civilization. Examples are the telephone and the railroad, which have been recreated
During the 18 century, in Britain occurred the most important phenomenon that changed the history, Industrial Revolution. It was a major turning point in their history but in the world’s history as well because the impact of the inventions changed the economical, social and political field forever. The standard of living increased therefore the population had increased.
The last chapter compares medieval science and its relationship with medieval technology. In this section Gimpel is concerned about pointing out that Renaissance humanists, including Leonardo had many of their ideas from earlier writers, who have gotten bad reviews from the past. This last chapter is also particularly controversial because Gimpel goes in deeper and argues that the medieval industrial revolution was followed by a setback in the progress of technology known as the "Era of decay". It’s unclear how much fairness there may have been in the certain use of statistical analysis. This book has many graphs which show prices, wages, and were reliable sources for Gimpel's ideas. Another reason these ideas are controversial is because Gimpel's main idea is that the modern United States is going through the same cycle that medieval France had been through and he states that the U.S is now in their own process of decay. This is based on a theory of history and is supported by two fundamental properties of society "technological evolution" and
In conclusion The Industrial Revolution had it’s good times and bad but overall it shaped our world as we know it today. People do not even realise the trials and tribulations it took to get technology where it is today. The revolution was the start of the end in a way that it started major pollution and climate issues. Even though it is a known fact that the machinery created pollutes the earth, it shows how advanced our knowledge is on
The Industrial Revolution was the main contributor of the development of factories and modern day machinery. The Industrial Revolution created hundreds of new jobs, influenced many new inventions, and created many new ways of creating and transporting goods. Many jobs including spinners, miners, factory workers, and farmers were beginning to rise in population, due to the new technology being created in the 18th and 19th centuries. The start of new inventions coming into view was beginning in Britain, with many agricultural tools creating new ways to plow and yield crops. Later on, it caused new forms of transportation to be developed, for example, railroads and canals. This essay will explain exactly how these causes began, and how they
However, an excerpt from Landes’s book, The Unbound Peometheus, Western Europe had already been rich before the industrial revolution happened. “This wealth was a product of centuries of slow accumulation, based in turn on investment, the appropriation of extra-European resources and labor and substantial technological progress” (Landes 14). Some of the countries in Europe’s industrial revolution was a central priority due to the transformation it received. During the 18th century, different branches of industry influenced Britain in organizing their abundance and variety of these innovations under the three principles. These three principles included “the substitution of machines for human skill and effort; the substitution of inanimate for inanimate sources of power; the use of new and far more abundant raw materials” (Landes 41). These improvements, declared under the three principles, helped shape the industrial revolution in Britain.
The remarkable element of changes in industrial revolution was the sharp increase in output of the newly technologically advanced industries. In 1701, the importation of raw cotton for spinning weight 1 million, however, a drastic increase by 1781 was 5million. Likewise textile technology by 1784 it was over 11million pound, nonetheless a massive increase by 1799 to 43million. (Hammond and Hammond 1937, p 162).
There is no doubt that the Industrial Revolution plays a central role in the modern British history. The structure of British society has forever changed by the impact and consequences of Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution is often stated as the increase of the number of factories, the exercise of steam power in a wide range of area and the mass-production produced by new technology in the course of 1750 to 1850 (Lane, 1978: 72). Engles (1986: 37) argued that the Industrial Revolution’s mainly development were the invention of the steam engine and the cotton industry. As the improvement of technology, the steam engine could produce more power with less
This revolution would not be known as being “Industrial” without the aid of revolutionary machines permitting the creation of mass products at far less cost. As stated by author Michael