Advancements essays

Advancements essays Some of the advancements made in technology during the 1790s started off when the industry could not be stimulated overnight, because it required technology and the willingness of businessmen to invest time and capital for the long term. In 1788, the Pennsylvania Society for the encouragement of Manufactures and the useful arts introduced spinning jennies to their textile factory in Philadelphia. The jennies threatened to displace home spinners by producing cheaper yarn and thread. Another brand new technology that appeared was in 1790, Samuel Slater brought a new phase in American cloth production by building a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, using water power to run the sinning machines. No satisfactory power loom existed, so Slaters mill performed only the first two steps of cloth production (preparing the cloth fibers for spinning, and spinning the thread.) He then used the putting-out system of distributing the thread to families, who produced the cloth at home. One more person who made an impact on the advancement of technology in the 1790s was Oliver Evans. He apprenticed as a wagon maker and became intrigued with machines. Evans heard that the Scottish inventor James Watt improved the steam engine a few years earlier. Evans began building his own model but for lack of money, thirty years passed before he actually installed a high pressure steam engine in his gypsum fertilizer factory in Philadelphia. This was the first such application of steam power to an industrial setting. Evans also developed the idea of automating mills. He devised water powered machinery for large grist mills that allowed one worker instead of three to supervise all the steps of producing flour. ...