Artisans, Entrepreneurs and Machines

These essays deal with the transfer of early textile technology from Britain to the USA. Several investigate obstacles to this westward transatlantic flow, for example, attempts of the British government to halt the emigration of skilled artisans and the export of machinery, the diverging cultural values increasingly separating British and American entrepreneurs and the welter of technical traditions in the UK's textile districts. A second group of essays treat channels or vehicles of transfer. Prominent topics here are the efforts of Americans to recruit skilled British workers, the roles of immigrant machine makers and the efforts of American visitors to Britain to engage in industrial espionage. The last group of essays studies the ways in which American industrialists and engineers modified the imported textile technology. The text is prefaced by an introduction arguing that the model of technology transfer found in the early industrial period has a wider and present-day applicability.