is due to the efforts of the scientists that our lives have changed and man has been able to find
answers to a lot of his curiosities. Highlighting this fact, present a speech on Inventors and
Inventions
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omeListTechnology
Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution
HomeListTechnology
Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution
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Brian Duignan
Brian Duignan is a senior editor at Encyclopædia Britannica. His subject areas include philosophy, law, social science, politics, political theory, and religion.
A Factory Interior, watercolor, pen and gray ink, graphite, and white goache on wove paper by unknown artist, c. 1871-91; in the Yale Center for British Art. Industrial Revolution England
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1986.29.390)
The Industrial Revolution (1750–1900) forever changed the way people in Europe and the United States lived and worked. These inventors and their creations were at the forefront of a new society.
Spinning and weaving
The creation of the following ingenious machines made possible the mass production of high-quality cotton and woolen thread and yarn and helped transform Great Britain into the world’s leading manufacturer of textiles in the second half of the 18th century.
The spinning jenny. About 1764 James Hargreaves, a poor uneducated spinner and weaver living in Lancashire, England, conceived a new kind of spinning machine that would draw thread from eight spindles simultaneously instead of just one, as in the traditional spinning wheel. The idea reportedly occurred to him after his daughter Jenny accidentally knocked over the family’s spinning wheel; the spindle continued to turn even as the machine lay on the floor, suggesting to Hargreaves that a single wheel could turn several spindles at once. He obtained a patent for the spinning jenny in 1770.
The water frame. So called because it was powered by a waterwheel, the water frame, patented in 1769 by Richard Arkwright, was the first fully automatic and continuously operating spinning machine. It produced stronger and greater quantities of thread than the spinning jenny did. Because of its size and power source, the water frame could not be housed in the homes of spinners, as earlier machines had been. Instead, it required a location in a large building near a fast-running stream. Arkwright and his partners built several such factories in the mountainous areas of Britain. Spinners, including child laborers, thereafter worked in ever-larger factories rather than in their homes.
The spinning mule. About 1779 Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule, which he designed by combining features of the spinning jenny and the water frame. His machine was capable of producing fine as well as coarse yarn and made it possible for a single operator to work more than 1,000 spindles simultaneously. Unfortunately, Crompton, being poor, lacked the money to patent his idea. He was cheated out of his invention by a group of manufacturers who paid him much less than they had promised for the design. The spinning mule was eventually used in hundreds of factories throughout the British textile industry.