The Story of Industrial Civilization: Materials & Manufacturing

Progress writer Jason Crawford is writing a book about the modern world and how it was invented. In a series of salons, we will explore this content together, chapter by chapter, and get an inside look at the author’s creative process.

Behind the world of our daily lives, there is a hidden world, one that keeps our world running. It is an industrial world, one of factories, engines, chemicals, and infrastructure, that most people rarely notice or appreciate. But every piece of it is a solution to a problem: a way to satisfy human needs in the face of nature’s constraints.

Session 2, Materials & Manufacturing:

This session is about how the world is made—literally! We’ll discuss two main themes. The first is improved materials, such as steel, cement, and plastic. The second theme is improved tools and processes that increased both quality and productivity, culminating in the factory system and mass manufacturing. One particularly important aspect of quality was a revolution in precision, created by new machine tools.

Crawford will open the salon by talking about his research and writing on the topic so far, followed by discussion and Q&A.

Image credit: Flickr / Goodwin Steel Castings

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