Professor Scott's Tech Talk

Hi R8A,

Below are my notes from Professor Scott's talk about the history of technology today. We'll talk about this more in class this week.

Technological Advances in Canada in the 19^th century (1800s)

-1815-1850 – HUGE population growth in Canada (many Irish – potato famine)

-1815 – about 50 years before Confederation

-end of Napoleonic Wars

-most people lived on farms, very few

big cities

-people worked in the home: textiles,

making food products, farm implements

-resource extractions: lumber, fishing,

mineral resources (mines)

-merchants: shippers, handlers, sellers

-we had grist mills for grinding grain

-power: from water, animal & human

strength

-transportation: walk, ride horse, take

boat

-communication: word of mouth, books,

a few newspapers, Shakespeare’s plays

-use of steam power: steam ships, machinery, railways

-the telegraph, telegraph lines – first way to communicate with people in other parts of country

-used morse code (dots, dashes)

-transportation – canals, railways, roads

-canals – shipping goods

-Canal in Ottawa – Rideau Canal

-Colonel John By – built Rideau Canal

-technological marvel

-ships

-first full steam ship “The

Accommodation” built by John

Molson in Canada (1809)

-also started Molson’s Brewery

-36 hours to get from Montreal to

Quebec City

-John Bennett – engineer to design and

build “The Accommodation”

-archives have records of steam ship

voyages (including contracts)

-1833 – 20 days, first transatlantic

crossing of Canadian steam ship

-carried pork

-sailing ship had taken 6 weeks

-factories: -by 1850s – breweries, distilleries, iron works, stove works

-first formal scientific institution – 1842- McGill, geological survey – make maps, find mineral deposits

-first cotton mill – 1844 in Quebec

-agricultural machinery – Massey-Harris

-Canadians were the first to invent many things

-1850-1885: Railway Age

-CPR completed – driving of the last

spike in 1885 – nationwide

transportation

-$$$$$$ investors, government

loans/subsidies (millions of acres of

land in Western Canada)

-needed steel tracks (steel factories)

-needed coal miners (coal powered)

-width of tracks = width of 2 horses

behinds (pulling chariot 2000 years ago)

-John A MacDonald – took bribes from

Canadian Pacific Railway – RAILWAY

SCANDAL!!

-CONCLUSIONS:

-every time a new technology is introduced, new technologies are needed to support it, and some technologies become outdated

-century of building created all new jobs

-you could get around much faster

-prices of goods dropped – everything was cheaper to transport

-everyone became a little more wealthy, there were needs for new skills and knowledge

-mass communication – telegraph, phonograph, telephone, radio, photography, printing press?

-established ideas in science/technology vs. new ideas in science/technology

Questions:

-think about the effects of technology on urbanization (living in cities)?

-what happened to health care?

-what happened to education?