ABSTRACT

The regional and cyclical patterns of industrial advance and decline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries continued into the latter part of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth century. These brought with them new technologies which had far-reaching ramifications for the division of labour, including the sexual division of labour, and for community structures. But towards the end of the eighteenth century a rapid process of technological change in selected key industries cemented a new regional and industrial dominance. The paths taken by this new and unprecedented technological advance were as diverse as their industrial settings. The rapid development of a technology of handtools and small-scale machinery, and the rapid proliferation of new hand techniques and skills, were just as notable as the more commonly recognized ‘new technology’ of mechanized steam-powered processes. Why these technologies arose as they did in their various industries is a question historians have long sought to answer. But looking at the question as they generally do, from hindsight, they have tended to assume the inevitability of only one path of technological change. The possibility of alternative paths which were, for some reason, blocked off in some industries, but allowed to develop in others, has rarely been explored. The way in which technology was developed within various organizational structures and was devised to fit them-artisan or factory, home or workshop, centralized or decentralized decision-making-is rarely considered, for these structures are usually deemed to have been determined by the technology.