Episodes

The first of two episodes devoted to the cultural changes underway in the 18th and 19th Centuries, thanks (at least in part) to the Industrial Revolution. In Part 1, we’ll be talking about how romance became a more important part of marriage and how sexual mores changed with economic growth, urbanization, and labor reform. In Part 2, we shift our focus to the art and literature of the time and how the movement known as “Romanticism” sought to fill the spiritual and emotional voids that increasing material well-being could not.

With the rise of capitalism, industrialization, and liberal economic policies, the relative power of the old, landed aristocracy was waning. And to fill their place was a nouveaux riche bourgeoisie.

In this short bonus episode, Dave talks about four major pandemics of world history (besides COVID-19), and how they relate to industrialization.

This month we get to know the first wave of socialist thinkers – the Utopian socialists – including Robert Owen, Étienne Cabet, Jean Claude Leonard de Sismondi, Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and more. We also get to see how Radical associations in Britain – like the trade unions, co-ops, and Chartists – paved the way for a socialist movement.

This month I talk with Steve Prentice, a specialist in organizational psychology whose focus is the junction where people and technology interact. I wanted to ask him about about the lives of workers in the 21st Century and beyond – how new technologies will impact our lives, what the job market will look like, and more.

Historians have generally had two very different takes on the Industrial Revolution. One take is that it left workers with a lot of grime, exploitation, and suffering. The other take is that it led to workers realizing greater material well-being, greater opportunity, and greater empowerment.

Today we dig deeper into the lives of workers in the First Industrial Revolution – to tell the whole story. We’ll discuss pay and working conditions, the state of the social safety net, the roles of women and children in the mills and mines, the leisure opportunities available to workers, and the conditions of their homes and neighborhoods in the growing industrial cities.

In this first bonus episode of 2020, I interview patent law professor Adam Mossoff, who explains why intellectual property rights are so important for fostering invention and innovation.

From 1830 to 1848, a surge of liberalism swept through the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. It not only brought new political and economic reforms, it established the norms that still influence our politics and economic systems today.

At the tail-end of the First Industrial Revolution, a flurry of new goods and tools were invented by professional and hobbyist inventors alike, hoping to get rich in this new era of opportunity. Among the most significant of these breakthroughs were three tools I'm going to tell you about in this episode.

All about the 1843 Christmas ghost story by Charles Dickens, which totally transformed the way the world observes the holiday.

Advancements made in papermaking, printing, and lithography during the First Industrial Revolution led to many other developments. Among them: They set the foundation for modern advertising. This week we discuss some of the many characters from France, Great Britain, and the United States who gave rise to this new industry.

In 1839, inventors in England and France simultaneously introduced the world to photography, putting “a new force in the hands of man.” We’ll learn about the scientists who made it possible, the initial experiments, and the impact it has had from the 19th Century to today.

Without advancements in artificial light, much of the economic development and material improvement of the Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have been possible. So, in the days before electric lighting was possible, the people of the time needed to come up with alternatives. And innovators from Germany, France, the UK, and the modern-day US and Canada figured out other ways to illuminate the world around them.

This week, we discuss the development and impact of the electric telegraph – a new means of communicating through metal wires at the end of the First Industrial Revolution.

This week we explore the lives and careers of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Cornelius Vanderbilt – two of industrial history’s most prolific individuals. One was from the UK, one was from the US. One cared little about profits, the other cared for nothing but profits. But both men had a major impact on the Transport Revolution, spreading railroads across their respective countries and steamships across the world.

At the start of the 19th Century, the U.S. economy was very similar to the cash-crop export economies of the soon-to-be-independent countries of Latin America. But a half century later, the U.S. was the second largest economy in the world, with industrial productivity on par with – or even greater than – Great Britain. How did it happen?

This week, we’re stepping away from Europe and the United States to look at the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the rest of the world. Among other places, we’ll be visiting Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, India, China, and Australia.

For National Manufacturing Day, Dave interviews Festo Didactic CEO Thomas Lichtenberger to learn about manufacturing in the 4th Industrial Revolution. Festo Didactic is a global leader in technical education, equipment, and training. They work with colleges, universities, and trade apprenticeship programs to prepare the workforce for "Industry 4.0."

This week we discuss how railroads rapidly spread across Great Britain, the United States, and Continental Europe between 1830 and 1848. In particular, we’ll focus on the unique ways railroads developed in each country, the civil engineers who built them, and the economic and social impacts of Railway Mania.

Dave sits down with historian Ty Smith, the Director of the California State Railroad Museum, to talk about the impact of the railroads on the United States (and especially the Golden State).