‘Making drain tiles a “home manufacture”’: Agricultural Consumers and the Social Construction of Clayworking Technology in the 1840s
‘Making drain tiles a “home manufacture”’: Agricultural Consumers and the Social Construction of Clayworking Technology in the 1840s
复制标题
“让排水瓦成为‘家庭制造’”：1840年代的农业消费者和黏土技术的社会建构
DOI：
10.1017/s0956793302000237
复制
发表时间：
2002
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Kathleen Watt
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kathleen Watt
在世纪，新发明的粘土加工机械为英国制砖工业的生产问题提供了潜在的解决方案。当时有三种不同的机械制砖工艺，但由于设计上的缺陷和对砖征收的消费税的限制，普通砖厂在几十年内都没有采用这种工艺。这给机器发明者带来了一个严重的困境。由于没有机会在制砖的情况下测试机器，他们无法纠正缺陷，也无法生产出明显优于手工制砖方法的上级工具。只要制砖工人拒绝机械化，机械的技术发展实际上就停止了。19世纪40年代出现了一个突破，当时出现了一个利润丰厚的新市场，可以在农村地区制造大量排水管和瓷砖。在英格兰皇家农业协会的会议上进行的展览和实施试验是粘土加工机械技术持续发展的决定性因素。农业消费者通过与机器制造商的辩论、评估和谈判，最终决定了一种机械粘土加工工艺的成功与否，并确定了制砖行业未来技术变革的方向。
During the nineteenth century newly invented clayworking machinery offered potential solutions to production problems in the British brickmaking industry. Three different mechanical brickmaking processes were available, but a combination of design imperfections and restrictions imposed by the excise duties on bricks discouraged their adoption in ordinary brickyards for many decades. This posed a serious dilemma for machine inventors. Without an opportunity to test machinery in brickmaking situations, they were unable to correct defects and produce implements that were clearly superior to hand brickmaking methods. For as long as brickmakers rejected mechanisation, the technical development of machinery was effectively halted. A breakthrough occurred in the 1840s when a lucrative new market emerged for machines capable of manufacturing large quantities of drainage pipes and tiles in rural locations. The exhibitions and implement trials at meetings of the Royal Agricultural Society of England were a decisive factor in the continuing technical development of clayworking machinery. Agricultural consumers, through debate, evaluation and negotiation with machine makers, ultimately determined the success of one mechanical clayworking process over others, and established the direction of future technological change in the brickmaking industry.