Social Effects
The increase in production due to the flying shuttle exceeded the capacity of the spinning industry of the day, and prompted development of powered spinning machines, beginning with the spinning jenny and the waterframe, and culminating in the spinning mule, which could produce strong, fine thread in the quantities needed. These innovations transformed the textile industry in Great Britain. All were attacked as threats to the livelihood of spinners and weavers, and Kay's patent was largely ignored. It is often incorrectly written that Kay was attacked and fled to France, but in fact he simply moved there to attempt to rent out his looms, a business model that had failed him in England. The flying shuttle itself produced a new source of injuries; if deflected from its path, it could be shot clear of the machine, potentially striking workers. Turn of the century injury reports abound with instances in which eyes were lost or other injuries sustained, and in several instances (for example, an extended exchange in 1901) the British House of Commons was moved to take up the issue of installing guards and other contrivances to reduce these injuries.
Read more about this topic: Flying Shuttle
Famous quotes containing the words social and/or effects:
“We were that generation called “silent,” but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period’s official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man’s fate.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)
“One of the effects of a safe and civilised life is an immense oversensitiveness which makes all the primary emotions somewhat disgusting. Generosity is as painful as meanness, gratitude as hateful as ingratitude.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)