Industrialization

Harnessing nature for industry

Colonial waterpower

Conflicts over flour mills & sawmills

◦ Dams to store water for dry summer

◦ Flooded hay meadows, blocked fish

◦ Laws favored mill owners

Growing miscellany of mills by 1812

◦ Chocolate, drugs, dyes, nails, paper, screws, snuff, wire, textiles

Waterpower Transformed

War of 1812 and the tariff, 1812–1840

Boston Mfg. Co., 1813, Waltham

◦ All phases of cotton textile under 1 roof

The Boston Associates

Feeds capital to mills

◦ Lowell, Mass. becomes the model

Control the Merrimack River

More water, more reliable than Charles River

River under corporate control

◦ Buy stream rights, dams, canals, locks

◦ Separation of land & water rights

◦ Water rights sold & traded

◦ Commodification of water

Using science to control nature

Engineers maximize use of water

Dams close when mills close

River flow under corporate control

Water Pollution

Growth of industrial cities

◦ Workers & service personnel

◦ Rivers carry off human & industrial waste

Death of the river

◦ Oxygen needed to eliminate organic waste

◦ Acids, alkalis kill bacteria that use oxygen

◦ Water foul, typhoid epidemics common

No pollution control laws

Sanitation and Garbage

Horsepower

◦ 15–30 lbs.  of waste per horse per day

Sanitation and Garbage

Human waste

◦ Dumped in streets or streams

◦ Night soil collection

Chicago

Cities

◦ Products & producers of environmental change

Chicago: “instant city”

◦ 1860: 30,000 ® 1910: 2,000,000

Location, location, location

◦ Lake

◦ Canals

◦ Railroad

◦ Proximity to frontier

Stockyards

Cattle from demise of buffalo

Flour mills

Wheat from disappearance of buffalo & Indians

Lumber

From deforestation of Wisconsin

Chicago

Chicago: product of industry & invention

◦ Railroads: wheat & cattle

◦ Assembly line: invented in stockyards

◦ Refrigeration: transformed eating habits

Chicago

Chicago: product of consumerism

◦ McCormick Reapers

◦ Montgomery Ward and Sears

◦ Urban middleman