transfer of technology, diffusion
of inventions.
Continuing obstacles to
US economic growth - population still
relatively small compared to Britain, less concentrated - hard to get labor
supply, hard to maintain consumer demand.
1790, 9 out of 10 lived
on farms;
travel slow, transportation
costs high.
Advantages - decent base
for agriculture; water power; significant natural resources (wood, coal, iron).
What would be future of
America’s economy? What
would the technology of a new America look like?
Thomas Jefferson - US
minister to France after Revolution, visits England, sees big textile factories.
Jefferson wanted to
establish peaceful pastoral ideal, preserving America's "rural
virtue".
"Those who labor in
the earth are the chosen people of God.
While we have land to labor then, let us never wish to see our citizens
occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff... let our workshops remain in
Europe. The loss by the
transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness
and permanence of government. It
is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor."
But later, called such
ideas "theory only and a theory which the servants of America are not at
liberty to follow. Our people have
a decided taste for navigation and commerce."
Jefferson president
American Philosophical Society.
As president, built more
than one hundred new gunboats for US navy.
1802, Corps of Engineers,
West Point Military Academy.
Jefferson improved
designs for plow; Monticello full of inventions.
Alexander Hamilton, 1791
Report on the Subject of Manufactures. "To procure all such
machines as are known in any part of Europe can only require a proper provision
& due pains."
Philly merchant Tench
Coxe;
Society for Establishing
Useful Manufactures;
Philly's 1788 Independence
Day parade - float; "May the union government protect the manufactures of
America."
Textile manufacture;
British inventors & industry
shield of secrecy – patent rights, defense against foreign competition.
mercantilism.
Parliament laws prohibiting
export of textile or metalworking machines;
1780s law forbidding skilled
workers from emigrating; Americans attempting to lure them faced five hundred
pound fines and one year jail.
American incentives for
skilled immigrants;
Machines smuggled out.
1802-1820, Abraham Rees,
The Cyclopaedia by Abraham Rees, articles described power loom, spinning
jenny.
21-year old textile
worker Samuel Slater.
1789, came to US,
ad by Rhode Island
merchants who wanted mechanic to run spinning production.
first to make water
frame profitable in US.
1790, Pawtucket, RI
started cotton spinning mill using British-style water frame.
Slater network of
textile mills – adapted to American conditions,
1812, 76 cotton mills
within 30-mile radius of Providence, RI, operating over 50,000 spindles.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe -
born England 1764.
moved to Virginia 1796;
1803 appointed Surveyor
of US Public Buildings - designed US Capitol & White House,
country’s first
comprehensive water supply system for Philly. Philly population 25,000 in 1776; over 70,000 by 1799.
Fear of disease from
contaminated water; fear of fire.
Plan - two steam engines
pump water out of river up to elevated reservoir, distribute it through
underground wooden pipes.
Before that, only three
steam engines in all US.
Latrobe: steam engines "as
tame and innocent as a clock."
Philly early center of
American mechanical engineering.
Latrobe - Chesapeake
& Delaware Canal.
first steam-powered
rolling mill in US.
Not all Brit TY adopted
in AM - Newcomen steam engine.
1840s, most US industry water
power.
Tens of thousands of
small watermills.
American improvements –
innovations in British power loom design.
Technology transfer two
way street – British adopt US nail-making machines;
Constitution - gives
Congress power "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by
securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to
their respective writing and discoveries".
1790 patent system, laws
provide 14-year monopoly for inventors. Patent board - sec'y of state, war, attorney
general.
Jefferson: "subjects
require a great deal of time to understand and do justice by them."
Patent office fell into
chaos, controversy.
Patents granted –
1790-3,
1791-33,
1800-41,
1802-65,
1803-97
1808-158,
1809-203,
1825-304,
1829-447,
1830-544,
1833-586,
1834-630,
1835-752,
Pre-1880s patent models;
Patent Office fires
1836, 1877.