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machines would start to produce more and more goods. There were riots, some
inventors were driven out of the country, others died penniless. But the men who
built the new factories saw that these machines could offer them enormous profits.
They installed them, bought steam-engines to power them, and the workers had to
come willy-nilly to ask for jobs in the factories if they wanted to make a living.
Wages were low, conditions in the 'dark satanic mills' usually deplorable, working
hours long – up to fourteen hours per day – and many children went into factories to
toil with their parents so that the family would have enough to eat.
When James Watt retired from the firm of Boulton & Watt at the age of 64 in
1800, steam-engines were already puffing and hissing all over Europe, and even in
America. For the first time in human history, the immense storehouse of the earth's
mineral wealth had been unlocked to provide its inhabitants with mechanical power.
The consequences were far-reaching. Not only because the steam-engine was a
British invention but also because Britain was particularly rich in coal, this country
was the first to undergo an industrial revolution which changed the whole way of life
completely within the time of two or three generations. As agricultural Britain
became industrial Britain, the power of the landowning class began to weaken and
the middle classes – the producers and distributors of goods – rose in importance and
wealth. In her quickly growing Empire, England found many sources of new
materials for her factories – and cheap labour to reap a rich harvest; until the 1830's,
tobacco, sugar, and cotton were almost exclusively produced by coloured slaves.
As the use of steam power became general it was found necessary to set a
standard for determining the capacity of engines. People were still familiar with the
horse as a source of power, and so it was natural to compare the power of a steam-
engine with that of a horse. Boulton & Watt standardized one horsepower at 33,000
foot-pounds per minute, or 550 foot-pounds per second – i. e. the power necessary to
lift 550 lb. one foot per second (or 1 lb. 550 ft per second). Later, when electricity
became important for the transmission of energy, James Watt's name was honoured
by the acceptance of the watt as unit of electrical power. The relationship between
horsepower and watt is that 746 watts are 1 h. p., and 1 kW (1,000 W) = l -36h.p.
Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, was also responsible for the first
application of mass production methods. The United States Army needed muskets be-
cause there was some danger that there might be a war with France. Eli Whitney
accepted in 1798 a contract for the delivery of 10,000 muskets within fifteen months.
They could never have been made by the traditional methods, with one gunsmith
making the complete musket from start to finish. So Whitney had the idea of dividing
up the work into a great number of small jobs, as a result of which all the component
parts of the musket would be made so accurate as to be interchangeable. It was a
completely new system.
He brought his first batch of ten muskets to the United States Treasury officials
in Philadelphia, but he did not show them the complete weapons – he brought parcels
with the component parts, and asked them to pick the parts from each batch at
random. From these components he assembled the muskets before their eyes. It was
the first demonstration of the system of interchangeable parts, made by semi-skilled
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