Making the Modern World
Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences,
University of Wisconsin - GreenBay
Overcoming limitations
Limitations of Space
(Space = Time if you have to move slowly)
- Railroad (Bulk Transport)
- Personal Transportation
- Air
Limitations of Time
- Food Preservation
- Telecommunications
- Lighting
- Growth of Leisure
Overcoming Space
Canals
- 1800's Canals in England
- 1825 Erie Canal: Access to Great Lakes and West
- 1856 Soo Canal: Iron to feed U.S. steel industry
The age of canals was short and canals don't look very impressive on the map, but they were a critical link in transportation history
Railroads
- 1800 Prototypes
- 1829 Manchester-Liverpool, England
- 1835 1000 Miles in US
- 1840 3000 Miles in US
- 1860 30,000 Miles in US
- 1869 Transcontinental
Effects of the Railroad
- Opening of Markets
- Rise of Consumer Goods
- Exploitation of Colonies
-but- - Third World (especially India) Rail Systems
Technology and Lifestyle
Effects of Overcoming Space
- Manufacturer - Access to Raw Materials
- Seller - Access to Markets
- Consumer - Access to Goods
Effects of Overcoming Time
(Only matters if it's yours)
- More Leisure
- More Effective Use of Leisure
- More Experiences
The Impact of Lighting
Europe - Early 1800's
- Coal + Heat = Coke. Coking, originally developed on a large scale for steel making, gives off:
- Coking gases lead to piped Gas Lamps. Demand for gas soon leads to a gas industry in its own right.
Lighting in America
- 1830 Whale Oil: Except in cities, America too dispersed for piped gas. Need for portable high-quality fuel answered by whale oil.
- 1860 Kerosene Lamp: Kerosene developed as a substitute for increasingly scarce whale oil.
- 1876 Electric Light
- 1920 Bulb-blowing Machinery. Brought light bulbs down in cost from dollars to pennies. One of the oldest unchanged mass-production devices.
Social Impact of Lighting
- Community life
- Safer to go out at night
- Places to go: theaters, social gatherings, etc.
- More Effective Use of Leisure Time
- Easier to Read
- Adult Education for Working Classes
- Demand for more Leisure Time
World War II
The First High-Tech War
- Radar
- Computers
- Missiles
- Jet Aircraft
- Nuclear Weapons
Societal Changes
- Military-Industrial Complex
- Cold-War
Lifestyle Changes
- Growth of Suburbs
- Professionalization
- GI Bill
- Growth of Universities
- Overtraining?
- Rise of Materialism
- Erosion of Family?
Much of Today's "High Tech" is an improvement on older "Low Tech"In many ways, the "Low Tech" advance was the real revolution
- Freeway vs. Railroad
- Light Bulb vs. Gas Lamp
- Internal Combustion or
- Electric Motor vs. Steam
Return to Outline Index
Return to Professor Dutch's Home Page
Created 27 May 1997, Last Update 4 Jun 1997