Less than two centuries ago, the world was a very different looking place. Towns, if they were connected at all, were connected by waterways or dirt roads carved out through the use of buggies. The big cities of the world were still large, but you would not see a large number of new Bowmanville real estate, being too far from the city and moving from an Oshawa home to a Ajax home was about as easy as moving cross country is today.
The face of the Earth has changed entirely. Highways criss-cross the countries of the world, connecting every city, town, and village. These highways are the most obvious sign of the phenomenon that kicked off in the latter half of the 19th century, the industrial age.
Not only did the industrial age change the way the world looked, it also changed the ability of humans to produce, to build, and to travel. The industrial age has also been called the age of machines, because it was during this era that mankind made the transfer from work aids powered by humans or animals to work aids powered by manmade sources.
This transfer of work meant that people could work and build more efficiently, and on a larger scale than ever before. Today, we live in the age of super machines; gigantic behemoths ply the waters, dig the earth, and produce our food. In some cases, these machines even have the ability to drive themselves, having been partnered up with that other great age, the Age of Computers. If you want to see how much industry has quickened our lives, just look at how fast a row of houses for sale in Mississauga, Ontario, go up.
Of course, the development of industry, and particularly the explosive growth of the use of machines and other power sources over the last seven decades, had led to a lot of controversy in many different fields. For the most part, the mechanics we use to drive industry have adapted to these controversies and the result has been more efficient means of production from many different angles.
However, this site is not focused on the different problems that may arise through the use of machinery. The history of industry is necessarily driven by change, and as we take a look at the development of our different types of industrial machines we will inevitably see both how change came about voluntarily and how it was forced.
Our main objective in this session is to present articles with an informative base, tracking the developments of various types of industry and industrially-used machines, from invention to the present. It is a great spot for those who enjoy bits of historical information related to machines and their use, and who are curious as to just what brought about the creation of so many of the different pieces of equipment today. It is also interested to see how industry has forced new inventions. We now have online collaboration software for businesses too large to converse face to face, Chinese language services to open up new markets to Western companies and even boiler water treatment chemicals to try to keep our way of life sustainable.
Looking at the history of industry reveals some of the amazing ways in which humans have been able to overcome their own limitations, as far as size and strength, using the one quality that we possess beyond other creatures on the planet: our ability to think towards the future. Most of us would agree that machines figure very much into the future of mankind; taking a peek into the past can assist in putting this progress into an interesting framework.
|