Woodjig.com
[HOME] [TIPS] [FAQ] [ABOUT] [ORDERS] [MASCUT 1.0][MASCUT Jr.]
[MINNIE] [MORE][LINKS][ARTICLES][SITE MAP] [NEW BOOKS]

"About Ingenious Machines and Methods"
Save over 30%
Regular $29.95......now $19.95

^By  

Read the very first, original edition:
 "Ingenious Machines and Methods"
On CD, or download.

The factory  technology trail.  Who held it, what was it, 
and where was the trail of technology started.  Writing this book has 
been an inside look at the remarkable history of tools, men, laws,
trade, knowledge and education systems, government and more. 
It is like a "grand tour" of the process and methods of industry.

Excerpts from Chapter 3.

Throughout history countries have had to tax their citizens for the money to pay for armies, and the French went bankrupt numerous times causing wars and mayhem to the Royal Families. In the sixteenth century, France had over a dozen recorded famines! (Encyclopedia of World History, P.N. Stearns). The English, the Spanish and the Dutch have gone into debt many times, sending the armies to the front line, to hold back hungry invaders intent on collecting their payments in silverware, jewelry, and diamonds, artwork, and plunder. (Napoleon never needed to manufacture anything because they were so bankrupt they  would plunder and take anything that he wanted in Europe and Northern Africa.  Eventually Napoleon had to give much of it back, and then was sent into exile). 

Some of the other threats to the Cities in Europe were the Huns, the Vandals, Vikings, Goths, Visigoths and even Pirates. Manufacturing and trade have been said by a few scholars, to be the only solution for nations to survive peacefully. All through history, leaders have lost their lives or their stature by failing to realize this fact. The history of many Russian Czars, English Kings, French and Spanish Kings, have all experienced their downfall as a result of their inability to provide a living for its people, or an army to defend them. As a matter of fact, wars were often the result of helpless leaders, whereas the military took control of better and more precise forms of production. In some ways, wars gave nations a way to test, and improve certain technology, as was the case of the American Revolution.

In my research, I have found it very peculiar that some of the great writers of industrial facts and  non-fiction were medical Doctors. Even the Medici's, who ruled Florence supporting the art's had many Doctors in their lineage. Medici is even the Latin word for Doctor. My theory is that many doctors felt obligated to write about industry, basically because industry was healthy for the economy, and work is good for our general health.  The Doctors maybe knew that capital, and industry was the only healthy way that a community could survive, especially when plagues and famine were so common throughout history. They knew that work was a main ingredient in a healthy society, and that health was necessary in a profitable industry, and military. Doctors were probably the first ones to get it. They were many times, the first to embrace science and technology all through history. One of the Doctors in mind was J. Leander Bishop an American M.D. who wrote an extensive account "American Manufacturing in the United States from 1608-1890." He covered the ship building industry, sawmills, printing, iron making, cloth, mining, leather and shoe making, and much more. For example, Bishop gave full accounts of who owned the American sawmills, and how many there were and their locations. Many waterwheel sawmills were sprouting up across New England. Around 1630 and 1640 there were numerous sawmills built in the colonies. Bishop recorded in his book many of the industrial events of the time.

Excerpts from Chapter 3.

It soon became wiser to build machines than to build consumables, so machine makers began showing up onto the scene.  Machines can be made to make things.  Their popularity became very significant to engineers.  Engineers soon put more value into machines than into products that did not duplicate.  Engineers also began to look at machines for their incredible abilities to work without a break.   They could be arranged to duplicate parts consistently, and abundantly, and in the case of engines, very accurately.  

The manufacture of mechanical devices was achieved by an assortment of other new scientific and mechanical achievements, but the most significant was in acknowledging the ability of a machine.  Tradition and convention always dictated that things had to be made the old decreed, accepted, and time honored, hand made method. The eye method was respected, and it was the only way of determining a craftsman's skill.  Precision was a goal to be disciplined into an apprentice, and machines would hinder this achievement, and dilute the pursuit of excellence and competition amongst guilds and ancient industrial communities.   Mastership, and precision handwork was a thing of great pride and a bellwether for which the community could strive for.  When the machine came along, it was a threat to the future of not only jobs, but of the integrity of the trades, and craftsmanship. This was a paradigm that threatened the lifestyles of centuries of handmade, eye made products.  The myth about handmade being better, and machines making things cheaper, only applies to the individual label.  Most products cannot possibly be made with the quality of a precision machine, but the myth still pervades in society today that it can.  Society still often believes that hand made is superior, but who can possibly compete with a room full of machines.  It is like the proverbial  Don Quixote "fighting windmills".  

Around the mid-1700's in the United States, the Colonies broke away from British rule, furthering industrial competition. The completion of the American Revolution was very near to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It is partly coincidental, and partly the consequences of having a new, independent, self-reliant group of colonies, that mass production was thrusted upon the scene.  As we will cover, some of the ideas, technology, and principles were of British and European origin, but America was now becoming ripe for entering into the theater of world trade. After all, America was almost completely saturated with a new abundance of natural resources, trees, and minerals. England and much of Europe were already depleted of much of its forests, coal, and much of its fertile soil, from two thousand years of habitation. England was becoming dependent upon American Forests to supply the lumber for its growing Naval fleet among other things. It was taking many of the natural resources that could have been going to the newly founded Colonies, and extending it's rules, taxes, and laws upon a new nation that was to refuse to be governed from across the Atlantic Ocean. In this research of the subject, I have found that many forces took part in such an awesome transformation in making mechanical devices. Some of it was clearly political, some of it was religious, geographical, and almost all of it was economic. Also, around the time, improvements in transportation, and communication were also involved, such as books, schools, and newspapers. But the fusion of events around the late 1700's was the true beginning of the love affair with everything mechanical. 

Later on in the late 1800's it resulted in the consumer's Mount Everest, and a battle of mechanization, and consistencies, of which much of the modern world had become. Societies have always had the ability to create spectacular machines and architectural works. Now, the fusion of mental with physical abilities was finally reaching critical mass.

Read more HERE

Free E-booklet about Industry Greats.... ...HERE