The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention. — Alfred North Whitehead

Man is a Tool-using Animal (Handthierendes Thier). Weak in himself, and of small stature, he stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half-square foot, insecurely enough; has to straddle out his legs, lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals [hundredweights] are a crushing load for him; the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft, like a waste rag. Nevertheless he can use Tools, can devise Tools: with these the granite mountain melts into light dust before him; he kneads glowing iron, as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools: without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all. — Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Book I, Chapter 5.

General

  • Ages of Technology
  • Science and Technology Timeline
  • Technology and Leisure in Britain after 1850
  • A Review of Joseph Bizup's Manufacturing Culture: Vindications of Early Victorian Industry
  • Carlyle and the Institution as Technology
  • Sublimity, Urbanization, and Technology
  • Engineering Wonders of the Victorian Age
  • Firefighting and Fire Prevention
  • A Day at the City Sawmills — From Raw Material to Finished Products (1853)
  • “Iron and Steel Making in South Wales” (1884)
  • “China-Making at Stoke-on-Trent” (1884)
  • The Industrial Revolution

  • The Industrial Revolution
  • The Industrial Revolution: A Chronology
  • The Steam Engine
  • Steam Power, Horse Power, Man Power
  • The Great Inventors, Creators of the Industrial Revolution
  • Science, Technology, and the Industrial Revolution: Selected Readings
  • Factories, Mining, and Other Heavy Industry

  • Sawmills — from raw material to finished products (1853)
  • “Iron and Steel Making in South Wales” (1884)
  • The Slate Quarries of North Wales
  • Dinorwic Quarry in Llanberis, North Wales, and the Quarrymen's Lives
  • A Slate Wall and Slate Quarrying in Cornwall
  • “China-Making at Stoke-on-Trent” (1884)
  • Textile Manufacturing
  • Review of Dale H. Porter's The Thames Embankment: Environment, Technology, and Society in Victorian London
  • Civil Engineering in the Victorian Age
  • The Clerk of the Works
  • Cotton versus Silk: Sigfried Gideon on Social Class and Mechanization
  • Water-Powered Drop Forge, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
  • Lymington Iron Works, on the Tyne
  • Victorian Locks and Locksmiths
  • Technology in the Home

  • Sitemap
  • Rushlight: How the Rural Poor Lit Their Homes
  • William Murdoch and Coal-Gas Lighting
  • The Technologies of Victorian Dressmaking and Tailoring
  • Transportation

  • Sitemap
  • Railways

  • Victorian Railways (homepage)
  • British Railways and American Railroads
  • The First Locomotives
  • The Personalities of Victorian Railways
  • The Social Effects of Victorian Railways
  • The Railroad Station — a New Building Type
  • The Death of William Huskisson
  • Carlyle and Punch on Victorian Railways
  • The Tay Bridge Disaster
  • Bridges, Piers, and Canals

  • Canals in the U.K.(homepage)
  • Victorian and Earlier Bridges and Aqueducts
  • Seaside Piers
  • London Canal Museum (UK)
  • The Railway & Canal Historical Society (UK)
  • Ships and Shipping

  • Ships, Boats, and Naval Architecture and Engineering (Overview/Sitemap)
  • Thames Paddle-Wheel Ferries
  • Clipper Ships at South-West India Dock
  • Printing, Publishing, Letter Writing, and Early Telecommunication

  • Joseph Gillott's Pen-Nibs, Sheet Steel, and the Writing Revolution
  • Print Technology and Print Culture in the Victorian Age (homepage/sitemap)
  • The Telegraph and Other Forms of Telecommunication
  • The Revolution in Victorian Letter Writing
  • The Victorian Book Industry: Political, Economic, and Technological Factors in the Rise of a Mass Audience
  • Shorthand and Shorthand Systems
  • Printing Techology and Publishing: A Selective Chronology
  • The Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Illustration: Woodblock Engraving, Steel Engraving, and Other Processes
  • Victorian Trade Bindings — Technology and Design
  • High-Speed Printing
  • Advertising and Distribution at Mid-Century
  • Virtual Communities and Communications Networks: Postal Service, Telegraph, and Internet
  • Guglielmo Marconi and the Beginning of Wireless Telegraphy
  • Technology, Commerce, and Culture

  • Nineteenth-Century Photography: A Timeline
  • Adam Smith, Division of Labor, and Assembly-Line Technology
  • Ada Lovelace: Pioneering Computer Programmer?
  • Malthus's Failure to Anticipate the Growth of Technology
  • Military Engineers
  • Architecture

  • Dilemmas Created by Technological Advances
  • The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851
  • Literature

  • Victorian Technology, Literature, and Culture
  • Miscellaneous

  • Book reviews
  • Victorian Biotech: Dr. George Merryweather's 1851 "Tempest Prognosticator"



  • Last modified 5 February 2024