Cotton

Abstract

The innocuous-looking, even delicate cotton boll has had a huge impact on history. Whether the Glorious Revolution of 1688 provided the legal and cultural genesis of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain is still debated, but technologically the steam engines of Thomas Savery (1650–1715) and Thomas Newcomen (1650–1715), patented in 1698 and developed about 1712, respectively, and later improved in a new design of 1781 by James Watt (1736–1819) were fundamental to the industrial revolution as machines initially to pump water from mines and later to power factories and mills. Improvements in metallurgy and mining were also very important, as was the production of wool and linen, but the mechanization of cotton production was the greatest showcase of the First Industrial Revolution providing gains of factors of 40–50 in output per person.