19th century

The 19th Century: Century of the Machine (Millennium) 9 of 10

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The 19th Century: Century of the Machine _________________________________________________________________ England: Heroes of Steam Until the 19th century, power meant wind, water and muscles. Then, in Britain, a new force was prized from nature: the power of steam, harnessed by the steam engine. Engineers and inventors became heroes and the buildings housing the machinery were temples for the new age. The early engines, some the size of a three-story house, were used to pump surplus water from mines and drinking water from rivers. Every steam engineer's ambition was to achieve locomotion. The first to succeed was Richard Trevithick. In 1804, he won a bet that his machine could carry 10 tons of iron along nine miles of a Welsh tramway. But his engines proved too heavy for regular rail use. _________________________________________________________________ England: Evolutionary Idea Franz Joseph Haydn's oratorio, "The Creation," published in 1800, told the biblical story of Genesis: God made the world in six days and crowned his creation with man. In the 19th century, this popular belief was challenged by a radical secular idea. It was developed in an English village in the course of a quest for a new understanding of nature. Scientists already knew the world was very old. They believed that animals had evolved from primitive forms. What they did not know was how. Charles Darwin was the first to solve the problem with his theory of evolution. _________________________________________________________________ North America: Empire of the West When the American West was opened up by mechanization and the railroad, the first white settlers found the prairie too tough to tame. Already home to other cultures, it was considered a space to be crossed, not occupied. The Plains sustained tribes of Native Americans who lived with herds of buffalo and dreamed of empires. One people, the Sioux, had a vision of dominion over mountains, deserts and forests. They ranged over the land on horseback and imagined it united. With guns bought from Europeans, they pursued their own territorial ambitions. But there was one rival they couldn't match: the invading white man. With his industrialized machines, this new enemy made war on indigenous cultures and used belief in "manifest destiny" to justify conquering the whole of the continent. _________________________________________________________________ China: Defeated by Addiction China began the 19th century still confident of her superiority over the rest of the world. Her population numbered 400 million. Her empire controlled the world's biggest economy. China enjoyed a favorable balance of trade with the West, receiving great quantities of money to pay for silks, porcelain and, above all, tea. By 1800, the British consumed 10,000 tons of tea each year. All foreign trade was channeled through designated warehouses in what was then the world's largest city, Canton. So much money poured into China that a Chinese trader became the richest man in the world: Wu Ping-chien, known as Howqua, one of the few officially allowed to trade with foreigners. _________________________________________________________________ Europe: Industrial Revolution In 19th century Britain, workers' lives were transformed. Weaving was no longer done at home, but in factories on machines operated by hand and foot. Work was controlled by a new invention -- punch cards -- as automated production patterns were repeated over and over again. Then came steam. Conditions were transformed by relentless noise and danger. Workers had become merely the extensions of machines. Every extraordinary inventiveness contrasted with oppressive working conditions. Dust and fumes choked factories and poisoned workers. Spreading across the Western world, factories transformed the landscape, smothering crowded cities with smoke and grime. From the exploitation of factory workers emerged the struggle for trade unions, which helped gain political representation and new rights for working men, women and children. _________________________________________________________________