Industrial Englightenment in the West Midlands: Matthew Boulton, James Watt and the Soho Manufactory 1760- 1820

18世纪下半叶应用于英国的一项旨在检验工业启蒙运动思想有效性的项目。这项调查采取的形式是对伯明翰和黑人乡村城镇1760至1820年间的文化史进行个案研究。它主要基于马修·博尔顿和詹姆斯·瓦特与他们的家人、朋友、熟人和合作者的私人通信。博尔顿和瓦特公司的商业档案也被使用，大量已公布的访客账户也被使用。在17世纪70年代，博尔顿位于伯明翰郊外SOHO的金属制品制造厂被认为是西方世界最大的单一工厂。游客来自欧洲和美洲各地，参观车间，欣赏高效利用劳动力和机器批量生产纽扣、扣子和电镀商品。综上所述，这些资源提供了一个独特的机会来探索启蒙运动--在英语层面--如何赋予马修·博尔顿和詹姆斯·瓦特等人权力，将18世纪迅速积累的科学知识应用于工业过程。这项研究建立在我们对牛顿科学文化用途的理解的最新进展的基础上，并将这些进步置于中上层对时尚敏感的装饰品消费的更广泛背景下。虽然这项研究只能证明西米德兰兹郡工业启蒙运动的存在，但人们希望这里所采用的方法将促使历史学家重新审视英国和欧洲大陆的其他城市化和工业化地区。正如这项研究将证明的那样，马修·博尔顿和他的合作伙伴詹姆斯·瓦特的商业、工业和科学活动绝不限于西米德兰兹郡。因此，该项目指出了根据工业启蒙议程进行的研究在未来几年可能会以比较的方向进行的方式。

A project to test the validity of the idea of an Industrial Enlightenment as applied to Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century. The investigation takes the form of a case study of the cultural history of Birmingham and the Black Country towns between 1760 and 1820. It is based principally on the private correspondence of Matthew Boulton and James Watt with their families, friends, acquaintances and collaborators. The business archives of the firm Boulton & Watt are also used, as are a large number of published visitor accounts. In the 1770s Boulton's show case metal ware manufactory at Soho just outside Birmingham was regarded as the biggest single-site factory in the western world. Travelers came from all over Europe and the Americas to tour the workshops and to admire the efficient use of labour and machinery to mass produce buttons, buckles and plated goods. Taken together, these sources offer a unique opportunity to explore how the Enlightenment- in its English dimension -empowered men like Matthew Boulton and James Watt to harness the scientific knowledge that was accumulating so rapidly in the eighteenth century to industrial processes.This research builds upon recent advances in our understanding of the cultural uses of Newtonian science, and it places those advances within the wider context of middle and upper-class consumption of fashion-sensitive ornamental goods. Whilst the research can only testify to the existence of an Industrial Enlightenment of the West Midlands, it is hoped that the approach adopted here will prompt historians to take a fresh look at other urbanising and industrialising regions, both in Britain and on the continent of Europe. The commercial, industrial and scientific activities of Matthew Bolton and his partner James Watt were by no means restricted to the West Midlands as this study will demonstrate. The project therefore points to ways in which research pursued according to an Industrial Enlightenment agenda might be taken in a comparative direction in the years to come.