Major Assignment 2

Major Assignment 2

Contextual Analysis Essay

This assignment is somewhat of a follow up to Small Assignment 3. For this project, we were to make a contextual analysis essay on the object we picked. I chose the steam engine in the last assignment so that is what my contextual analysis is about.

Steam Was the Future

Christian O’Reilly

 

How did steam help create the world we live in? The steam engine created a way to power much bigger machines, and help begin the Industrial Revolution, both in Britain and in America. The steam engine helped create the America we know now, expanding the known land, creating bustling cities, and drastically improved the economy. The steam engine created a mutual relationship between steam, coal, iron, and steel, which had a positive effect on the production of coal, iron, and steel in America during the Industrial Revolution, making the production better than before the application of the steam engine and making American lives easier. The reason for this is the steam engine helped make gathering coal and iron easier, which was vital for the entirety of the industrial revolution. To prove this, I will first talk about how coal played a role in this relationship and how coal helped communities thrive. Then, I will talk about how the production of iron was improved upon during the Industrial Revolution and how it and steel played key parts in the entire period. Finally, I will address an argument regarding American lives and whether they improved them.

 

The first point of this essay is how the mining and production of coal plays a part in the relationship and how coal mining helped create communities. Coal mining was extremely small before the introduction of the steam engine because mines were very shallow, and extremely dangerous. When the steam engine was introduced, the need for coal skyrocketed, and so deeper mines were required. According to Robert Wilde of the website ThoughtCo., “During the period of the industrial revolution, as demand for coal soared thanks to iron and steam, as the technology to produce coal improved and the ability to move it increased, coal experienced a massive escalation. From 1700 to 1750 production increased by 50% and nearly another 100% by 1800. During the later years of the first revolution, as steam power really took a firm grip, this rate of increase soared to 500% by 1850” (ThoughtCo.).  Surprisingly enough, this industry took the longest to incorporate the engines. Thankfully, Thomas Newcomen, who lived in Britain, invented an engine which could assist with mining. John Watt, however, made it so the steam engine was profitable, improving Newcomen’s design so steam wasn’t wasted. According to Milton Kerker in his journal article Science and the Steam Engine, due to the improvement on Newcomen’s design, “steam came of age and powered the industrial revolution. Its full exploitation was brought about by the utilization of the expansive working of steam and the development of the high pressure engine” (7). Like many things in Britain, the engine, along with locomotives, were brought to America, where they both kickstarted the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. Coal and the steam engine also helped many communities flourish. According to Eisenbahnerin on OurTransportHeritage, coal deposits in the mountains near Arnold’s Settlement, Maryland helped start a mining operation in the town and put it on the map, stating “The discovery of coal and iron deposits in the surrounding mountains … attracted men determined to make their fortune in the fledgling industrial revolution which was taking place in the young United States. The Maryland & New York Iron and Coal Company was chartered in 1838 and shortly thereafter, construction of mines, tram roads, a blast furnace, rolling mill and housing for workers commenced in what is now Mount Savage” (Eisenbahnerin). There’s also the case of Scrantons in Pennsylvania to talk about. According to Burton W. Folsom of the Foundation of Economic Education, the Scrantons arrived in 1839 and made a deal in 1846 to produce 200,000 rails for the New York and Lake Erie Railroad. The deal was successful, and the Scrantons profited heavily because of it as it let them use the new railroad to carry Scranton coal to sellers (Folsom). The community which thrived because of what they did is a testament to how vital coal was.

 

The second point is iron was poorly made before the Industrial Revolution and how vital both iron and steel were at the time. Before the Industrial Revolution, iron was a very small business, and the production of it was very flawed. According to Robert Wilde in another article, Britain, who used similar techniques as America to smelt iron at the time, didn’t make all of its iron, stating “There was plenty of demand but not much was produced as wrought iron, which had many of the impurities hammered out, took a long time to make, and was available in cheaper imports from Scandinavia” (ThoughtCo.). Instead, they used an old technique which made what was referred to as “pig iron.” It was quicker than the process of creating wrought iron, but it left many impurities in the material, making it brittle. During the Industrial Revolution, a great demand for iron formed as, according to the staff writers of the website Reference, “The Industrial Revolution saw substantial economic growth in many sectors of the economy, primarily in transportation, mining and construction. Exponential economic growth required fuel in the form of raw materials, which primarily came in the form of iron and later steel” (Reference). Iron was necessary to produce one of the most vital components of the Industrial Revolution, the steam engine. According to R. L. Hills in his book Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, he states “In its many forms, the steam engine became the major source of power in the nineteenth century, both in manufacturing industry and in transport whether on land or at sea” (vii). Iron was also needed for building things, whether it was steam engines or buildings. According to Margot and Carol Gayle in the book Cast-Iron Architecture in America, they state “Cast-iron architecture grew out of the industrial revolution’s expanded use of iron, particularly in Great Britain, but acquired a strong association with American building because the era coincided with the rapid growth of the cities and towns of this country” (8), showing that iron wasn’t just for production. Later in the Industrial Revolution, steel was a major resource, as it was much stronger than iron was, but it didn’t remove the value of iron, as steel was an alloy made by combining iron with other metals. The thing was, steel was hard to made and was expensive, at least until Sir Henry Bessemer created the Bessemer process. According to Professor Joseph Spoerl in his research paper A Brief History of Iron and Steel Production, the process made mass-production of steel possible, but it didn’t remove the phosphorus from the pig iron used in the process, making the product just as brittle as the pig iron (Spoerl 3). It didn’t take long for Karl Siemans to replace the Bessemer process with his open-hearth process. Joseph Spoerl states “The open hearth process also allows for the production of larger batches of steel than the Bessemer process and the recycling of scrap metal.  Because of these advantages, by 1900 the open hearth process had largely replaced the Bessemer process” (Spoerl 4). The mass production of steel made building the cities, the locomotives many steam engines were used for, and the rails the machines rode possible. At the same time, it also kept the value of producing iron as it was needed to produce steel. We can take a look at the success of the Scrantons if we want to see more of the relationship in action. In celebration of their success of the railroad deal, they also incorporated iron works to make what was known as the Lackwanna Company. Folsom states “When the iron works and the railroad succeeded, the Scrantons then promoted the growth of their new city. Their correspondence shows that they clearly viewed industrial and urban growth as symbiotic. Their investment in real estate and housing multiplied in value after the success of their iron works and the arrival of a railroad. … The Scrantons [sic] had laid out streets, sold lots, and built mansions for themselves and company houses for their workers” (Folsom). The iron worked in tandem with the coal business they had made, they marketed iron for the railway they helped make and the locomotives, and the railways also were used for the locomotives and could be carried to other locations, promoting trade.

 

The steam engine, despite all it changed and improved, failed to improve the lives of the lower working class. The conditions they had to work in were inhumane and unhealthy. This gave rise to worker unions, labor movements, and allowed many socialists movements and ideologies to spread, like Marxism. These types of conditions probably helped caused the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in the same era. We can look at the coal mining industry for some examples. The steam engine helped with the mining, but, according to IndustrialRevolutionResearch.com, “It was a dangerous (and difficult) job to mine coal. If a tunnel was not sufficiently re-enforced, the miners were prone to cave-ins; thus trapping them inside. Depending on the geographic location (and if there were errors), the mines could flood. It was also possible for gases igniting and causing an explosion. On top of this, many workers faced respiratory diseases such as ‘black lung’” (Industrial Revolution Research). The worst part is the workers were easily disposable and to be fired might as well mean that a worker was homeless. According to Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie Collier Hillstrom in the book The Industrial Revolution in America, workers had to basically bow down to the mill owners they worked for, stating “if a worker was fired from one mill, he or she was effectively blacklisted from the other bills in the area no other mill owners would hire him or her” (100), showing how powerless workers were in regards to the owners of the mills, all because of the economic power the steam engine gave them. It could be argued that the steam engine destroyed many futures, but that isn’t the case. The middle and upper class were improved by the steam engine. The iron works they made created many jobs for people in the community, and many people became rich due to the assistance of the Scrantons. In fact, the relationship may be a major reason why the area isn’t a ghost town today. The Scrantons, in a sense, created the very relationship that this essay is about. If it wasn’t for them, the area might have just been stripped the land of coal and deserted it (Folsom).

 

The steam engine was a very complex machine at the time, but the economic relationship it crafted was relatively simple in comparison. Coal helps fuel the engine, which can help produce iron, steel, and more coal. Iron and steel were used to help build the cities and machines, including more steam engines. This simple relationship helped run the Industrial Revolution and is a foundation of Modern America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited:

 

Eisenbahnerin. “The First Iron Railroad Rail in America.” OurTransportHeritage, 30 Apr. 2017,

http://ourtransportheritage.com/index.php/2017/04/30/53/.

Folsom, Burton W. “The Scranton Story: Burton W. Folsom.” FEE Freeman Article, Foundation for

Economic Education, 1 Aug. 1988, https://fee.org/articles/the-scranton-story/.

Gayle, Carol. Cast-Iron Architecture in America: The Significance of James Bogardus. W.W.

Norton, 1998.

Hills, Richard L. Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine. Cambridge Univ.

Press, 2000.

Hillstrom, Kevin, and Laurie Collier Hillstrom. Industrial Revolution in America. ABC-CLIO, 2006.

“Industrial Revolution Research.” Industrial Revolution – Coal and Coal Mines, https://industrialrevolutionresearch.com/industrial_revolution_coal.php.

Kerker, Milton. “Science and the Steam Engine.” Technology and Culture, vol. 2, no. 4, 1961, p.

381., https://doi.org/10.2307/3100893.

Spoerl, Joseph. “A Brief History of Iron and Steel Production.” Academia.edu, 1 Feb. 2017,

https://www.academia.edu/31060927/A_Brief_History_of_Iron_and_Steel_Production.

“Why Was Iron so Important during the Industrial Revolution?” Reference, IAC Publishing, 4 Apr.

2020, https://www.reference.com/history/iron-important-during-industrial-revolution-bfaf9fe3c82cd7c2.

Wilde, Robert. “How the Demand for Coal Impacted the Industrial Revolution.” ThoughtCo,

ThoughtCo, 1 July 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/coal-in-the-industrial-revolution-1221634.

Wilde, Robert. “What Don’t You Know about Iron in the Industrial Revolution?” ThoughtCo,

ThoughtCo, 26 July 2019, https://www.thoughtco.com/iron-in-the-industrial-revolution-1221637.