12. The use of steam power in manufacturing and mass production
Textiles led the way in industrial production as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace, but it was harnessing steam power that was the basis of mechanization, and everything else that was to follow. The manufacture of textiles in fairness preceded steam power, and early textile mills were powered by waterwheels, but waterwheels had limitations. It was the adaption of early steam engines to rotary motion, and the development of belts and pulleys, that made it possible at last for steam engines to drive machines.
Advances in the efficiency of steam engines also had much to do with the development of alternative fuels, in particular, coke, which made possible much larger blast furnaces and a much higher power to fuel ratio. The basis of it all, however, was the development of machine tools which in turn released a dam-burst of creativity in the production of industrial machinery, after which just about anything could be mass produced. T
he harnessing of steam without a doubt was the most important innovation of the nineteenth century.
