The Industrial Revolution

The Great Exhibition of 1

at the Crystal
Palace

Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace,

Exhibition hall for the Great
Exhibition, 1851
Industrial Revolution design

Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, 1851 Industrial Revolution design

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde
Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851; it was designed by
Joseph Paxton. The building was 1,851 feet long, with an interior height of 108 feet.

Joseph Paxton

An international competition for

a building to house the Great
Exhibition scheduled for 1851,
produced 245 designs, of which
only two were remotely suitable,
and all would take too long to
build and would be too
permanent. Joseph Paxton was
visiting London and he
happened to mention an idea he
had for the hall; he was
encouraged to produce some
plans, provided they could be
ready in nine days. His design
was chosen for the exhibition
space.

Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, 1851 Industrial Revolution design

The novelty of the Crystal Palace was its revolutionary modular, prefabricated design,
and use of glass. It is one of the best examples of Industrial Design in making use of
manufactured materials, assembly line processes and prefabrication.

Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, 1851 Industrial Revolution design

The Crystal Palace was 1,848 feet long, 408 feet wide and 108 feet high
it required 4,500 tons of iron,
60,000 cubic feet of timber and
needed over 293,000 panes of glass
Yet it took 2,000 men just 8 months to build, and cost just 79 800, est. in 2010 at $3 million.

Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, 1851

Industrial Revolution design

This building, with its skeleton of cast-iron

columns supporting a network of girders,
was based on a 24ft module of parts prefabricated in Birmingham England.

It not only was innovative technologically,

but also used many other industrial skills
and inventions of the time. The removal of
the glass tax only a few years previously
had contributed to the development of plate
glass by the Birmingham glass company,
Chance Bros. The Crystal Palace used
300,000 sheets in the largest size that had
ever been made (4ft 1in x 10ins/1.3m x
25.3m).
Steam engines on site drove the machinery
to cut the wooden glazing bars as well as
the 24 miles (40km) of Paxton's patent
guttering used to hold the glass in position
on his simple but effective ridge and furrow
roof.

The invention of the telegraph allowed rapid

communication between the site and the
manufacturers in the Midlands.

Paxton used hollow pillars to double up as drain pipes and designed a special rafter that also acted
as an internal and external gutter. All of these elements were pre-fabricated and, like modular
buildings, could be produced in vast numbers and assembled into buildings of varied design.

Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, 1851

Industrial Revolution design

Joseph Paxton had been

the head gardener at
Chatsworth in Derbyshire.
There he had
experimented with glass
and iron in the creation of
large greenhouses, and
had seen something of
their strength and
durability, knowledge that
he applied to the plans for
the Great Exhibition
building. Planners had
been looking for strength,
durability, simplicity of
construction and speed
and this they got from
Paxton's ideas.

 In 1837 Paxton had secured a

cutting of a new waterlily found in
Guyana, and designed a heated
pool that enabled him to breed the
lily successfully: within three
months its leaves were almost
twelve feet wide.

However, the waterlily was too big

for any normal conservatory.
Inspired by the huge leaves of the
waterlily - 'a natural feat of
engineering' - and tested by
floating his daughter Annie on one
leaf, he found the structure for his
conservatory. The secret was in
the rigidity provided by the
radiating ribs connecting with
flexible cross-ribs. Constant
experimentation over a number of
years led him to devise his
glasshouse design that inspired
the Crystal Palace.

Over 13,000 exhibits were displayed and viewed by over 6,200,000 visitors to the
exhibition. The millions of visitors that journeyed to the Great Exhibition of 1851 marveled
at the industrial revolution and its products. Among the 13,000 exhibits from all around
the world were the Jacquard loom, an envelope machine, tools, kitchen appliances,
steel-making displays and a reaping machine from the United States.

On 1 May 1851 the Exhibition was opened by Queen Victoria. As visitors travelled from all parts of the country
to the Exhibition in London they would have been struck by the size, magnificence and structural perfection of
the building that met their eyes. With the sun reflected in its massive glass surface they would have
undoubtedly have agreed with the magazine Punch that it was 'a Crystal Palace'.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

The Victorian Design era of the United Kingdom

was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June
1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901.
The reign was a long period of prosperity for the
British people, as profits gained from the overseas
British Empire, as well as from industrial
improvements at home, allowed an educated middle
class to develop.

Interior design of the Victorian era are noted for orderliness and ornamentation. A house
from this period was idealistically neatly divided in rooms, with public and private space
carefully separated. The Parlor was the most important room in a home and was the
showcase for the homeowners; where guests were entertained. A bare room was considered
to be in poor taste, so every surface was filled with objects that reflected the owner's interests
and aspirations. The dining room was the second-most important room in the house.

The Victorian era with its

emphasis on Industrial
manufacturing (the Industrial
Revolution) was a time in
which the improvement of
communication links was
fostered. Stage coaches,
canals, steam ships and most
notably the railways all allowed
goods, raw materials and
people to be moved about,
rapidly facilitating trade and
industry. Trains became
another important factor
ordering society, with "railway
time" being the standard by
which clocks were set.
Another important innovation in
communications was the first
postage stamp, which
standardized postage to a flat
price regardless of weight. of
distance sent.

Victorian telegraph displayed at the

Communication Products of Great Britain
booth at the Great Exhibition, 1851

The electric telegraph, invented in

the United Kingdom by Cooke and
Wheatstone and perfected in the
United States by Samuel B. Morse
was the transformational
communications technology of the
Victorian age. Note the large
decorative box with victorian
curves that houses this machine.

The Industrial Revolution was a

period from the 18th to the 19th century
where major changes in agriculture,
manufacturing, mining, and transport had a
profound effect on the socioeconomic and
cultural conditions starting in the United
Kingdom, then subsequently spreading
throughout Europe, North America, and
eventually the world. It started with the
mechanization of the textile industries, the
development of iron-making techniques
and the increased use of refined coal.
Trade expansion was enabled by the
introduction of canals, improved roads and
railways. The introduction of steam power
fuelled primarily by coal, wider utilization of
water led to the refinement of the steampowered engine. The first Industrial
Revolution, which began in the 18th
century, merged into the Second Industrial
Revolution around 1850 with the Great
Exhibition held in the Crystal Palace,
when technological and economic progress
gained momentum with the development of
steam-powered ships and railways.

Steam-powered engine,
Great Exhibition, 1851

Cyrus McCormick's reaping machine of

1831 (patented 1851) was the first widely
adopted reaping machine; it was shown at
the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London
where it was awarded a gold medal.
It is an example of Industrial Revolution
Design.

Drawn by horses, the machine cut the corn

and left it lying in swathes in the harvest
field.
Cyrus McCormick, reaper, 1851
Industrial Revolution Design

After the close of the Great

Exhibition, the McCormick
reaper sold well, partially as a
result of savvy and innovative
business practices.

The McCormick products came onto

the market just as the development
of railroads offered wide distribution
to distant markets.
McCormick developed marketing
and sales techniques, developing a
wide network of salesmen trained to
demonstrate operation of the
machines in the field.
In 1902, they became known as
International Harvester

Industrial Revolution Design

Michael Thonet opened his first cabinetry

workshop in a rural Austrian town in 1819,
where he experimented with the process of
using steam to bend wood for furniture. Shortly
after he founded his company "Gebruder
Thonet," or Thonet Brothers (1853). In 1856, he
obtained the first patent for the bentwood
process. Although his patent expired in 1869,
by 1900, Thonet owned fifty-two assembly line
production factories for bentwood furniture
across Europe. Numerous replicas of his most
famous chair, the Viennese cafe chair known as
model no. 14, abound today. A New York office
opened in the United States in 1873 and was
later sold into subsidiaries, whereas in Europe
the Thonet family remained involved in the
factories.

Industrial Revolution Design

Thonet
Brothers,
chair #14,
1851
Industrial
Revolution
Design

The Thonet Brothers:

The roots of this celebrated furniture manufacturing

company lay in Michael Thonet's (1796-1881) cabinetmaking business established in
1819 in Boppard am Rhein. From about 1830 he began experimenting with the
possibilities of harnessing the steaming processes used in boat building for the
fabrication of bentwood furniture, moving to Vienna in 1842 where he was granted a
patent for his ideas. In 1849 he established a factory that expanded rapidly over the
following years with the mass production of bentwood furniture and, in 1853, he made
his three sons partners in the firm.1851 was an important year for Thonet. Not only did
he gain a significant order for the celebrated Daum Caf, for which he designed the No.
4 chair, but he also exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London where he was
awarded a bronze medal.

Thonet Brothers, manufacturing plant,

ca. 1850s Industrial Revolution Design

Thonet Brothers
manufacturing plant:
assembly line for the
bentwood chairs.
Note that workers are
barefoot, wear aprons and
are gloveless.

unit #14 composed of 6 parts

Thonet Brothers, chair #14, Industrial Revolution Design

displayed at Great Exhibition and awarded bronze medal

The Crystal Palace, which had housed the Great Exhibition, was dismantled and reinstalled in Sydenham in 1854. It remained there until 30 November 1936 when a devastating fire took its toll on
the building. Within hours the Palace was destroyed: the glow was visible from eight miles away. But, even though 89 fire engines and over 400 firemen arrived they were unable to extinguish it.

In1889, in Paris, there was another very

large international worlds fair, called the
Exposition Universelle (Universal
Exposition).
*It was organized to celebrate the
centennial of the French Revolution
*It was open 6 May to 31 October, 1889
*The number of visitors: 32,250,297
*Exhibitors: over 61,722, of which 55%
were French
*total area of the exposition: almost 1
kilometer square

The entrance to the Universal

Exposition of 1889 was the
Eiffel Tower.
*composed of iron in a towering
lattice pattern
*an excellent example of
Industrial Revolution design
*1,063 tall
( about the same height as an
81-storey building)
*with three levels for visitors,
with restaurants on the first and
second; the third level
observatory's upper platform is
906 above the ground
Photo from 1889 showing the Universal
Exposition site with the Eiffel Tower

The design for the tower originated with Maurice Koechlin and mile Nouguier, two senior
engineers who worked for the Compagnie des tablissements Eiffel. (Gustave Eiffel was the
principal of this company.)
In May 1884, Koechlin, working at home, made an outline drawing of their scheme, described
by him as:
"a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming
together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals".

Photos from 1887-1889 showing the progress of the construction of the Eiffel Tower

Work on the foundations started on 28 January 1887. Those for the east and south
legs were straightforward, each leg resting on four 2 m (6.6 ft) concrete slabs, one
for each of the principal girders of each leg but the other two, being closer to the
river Seine were more complicated. Construction was completed by the end of
February, 1889.

Photos from 1887-1889 showing the progress

of the construction of the Eiffel Tower

The very visible work on-site

was complemented by the
enormous amount of exacting
preparatory work that was
entailed: the drawing office
produced 1,700 general
drawings and 3,629 detailed
drawings of the 18,038 different
parts needed. The task of
drawing the components was
complicated by the complex
angles involved in the design
and the degree of precision
required: the position of rivet
holes was specified to within
0.1 mm (0.04 in) and angles
worked out to one second of
arc.
The finished components, some already riveted together into sub-assemblies, arrived on
horse-drawn carts from the factory in the nearby Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret and
were first bolted together, the bolts being replaced by rivets as construction progressed. No
drilling or shaping was done on site: if any part did not fit it was sent back to the factory for
alteration. In all there were 18,038 pieces joined by two and a half million rivets.

Gustave Eiffel:
"not only the art of the modern engineer, but also the
century of Industry and Science in which we are living,
and for which the way was prepared by the great
scientific movement of the eighteenth century and by the
Revolution of 1789, to which this monument will be built
as an expression of France's gratitude."

After dark the Eiffel tower was lit

by hundreds of gas lamps and a
beacon sending out three beams
of red, white and blue light. Two
searchlights were mounted on a
circular rail, and were used to
illuminate various features of the
Exposition. The opening and
closing of the Exposition were
announced every day by a
cannon fired from the top.

Photo from 1889 showing the Universal Exposition site with the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the mostvisited paid monument in the world
*The tower received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010

In the American exhibit of the

Paris Universal Exposition,
Buffalo Bill (William Cody) put
on his Wild West Show which
played for packed audiences.
He had recruited American
sharpshooter Annie Oakley to
join his group.

The Industrial Revolution shifts to the United States

(1820-1870):

Industrialization in America involved three important developments.

*First, transportation was expanded.
*Second, electricity was effectively harnessed.
*Third, improvements were made to industrial processes such as improving the refining
process and accelerating production.
The government helped protect American manufacturers by passing a protective tariff.

The Industrial Revolution shifts to the United

States (1820-1870):

Eli Whitney, cotton gin

In 1794, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin which

made the separation of cotton seeds from fiber much
faster. The South increased its cotton supply sending
raw cotton north to be used in the manufacture of
cloth. Francis C. Lowell increased the efficiency in the
manufacture of cloth by bringing spinning and
weaving processes together into one factory. This led
to the development of the textile industry throughout
New England. In 1846, Elias Howe created the
sewing machine which revolutionized the
manufacture of clothing. All of a sudden, clothing
began to be made in factories as opposed to at
home.
Interchangeable Parts
Eli Whitney came up with the idea to use
interchangeable parts in 1798 to make muskets. If
standard parts were made by machine, then they
could be assembled at the end much more quickly
than before. This became an important part of
American industry and the Second Industrial
Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution shifts to the United

States (1820-1870):
From Agriculture to Cities
As industries and factories arose, people moved from
farms to cities. This led to other issues including
overcrowding and disease. However, advances were
made in agriculture too including better machines and
cultivators. For example, Cyrus McCormick created
the reaper which allowed quicker and cheaper
harvesting of grain. John Deere created the first steel
plow in 1837 helping speed up farming across the
Midwest.
Communication and the Industrial Revolution
With the increased size of the United States, better
communication networks became ultra important.
In 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse created the telegraph
and by 1860, this network ranged throughout the
eastern coast to the Mississippi.
.

The Industrial Revolution shifts to the United

States (1820-1870):
Transportation
The Cumberland Road, the first national road, was
begun in 1811. This eventually became part of the
Interstate 40. Further, river transportation was made
efficient through the creation of the first steamboat,
the Clermont, by Robert Fulton. This was made
possible by James Watts invention of the first
reliable steam engine.
The creation of the Erie Canal created a route from
the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes thereby
helping stimulate the economy of New York and
making New York City a great trading center.
Railroads were of supreme importance to the
increase in trade throughout the United States. In
fact, by the start of the Civil War, railroads linked the
most important Mid West cities with the Atlantic
coast. Railroads further opened the west and
connected raw materials to factories and markets. A
transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 at
Promontory, Utah.

The Industrial Revolution shifts to the

United States (1820-1870):

With the great advances of the Industrial

Revolution, inventors continued to work
throughout the rest of the 19th and early 20th
century on ways to make life easier while
increasing productivity.
The foundations set throughout the mid-1800's
set the stage for inventions such as
the light bulb (Thomas Edison), telephone
(Alexander Bell), and the automobile (Karl
Benz).
Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone

Further, Ford's creation of the assembly line

which made manufacturing more efficient just
helped form America into a modern
industrialized nation. The impact of these and
other inventions of the time cannot be
underestimated.