The British Enlightenment and the Spirit of the Industrial Revolution: The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (1754--1815) (2007)
Kent, Max Louis (Author)
University of California, Los Angeles
Berend, Ivan
Edition Details: Advisor: Berend, Ivan
Physical Details: 288 pp.
Language: English
My dissertation examines the early decades of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in the context of the British scientific culture and the Industrial Revolution. It is a case study of the British technological community. The Society of Arts was the premier premium society in the mid-eighteenth century; it quickly became a model for burgeoning provincial societies. The Society played a considerable role in encouraging colonial trades and promulgating technological innovation to agriculture and manufacturing through premiums. The content of premiums and publications of the Society of Arts reveals the challenges and opportunities faced by the pre- industrial British society in the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Unlike itinerant scientific lecturers who usually operated in a relatively isolated environment, the Society of Arts promoted the public discourse through its institutional operandi modus of cooperation: it provided a social network for inventor-entrepreneurs who needed access to technical experts, investors and politicians. During its heyday in the mid-eighteenth century, the Society of Arts as a national institutional forum functioned as a national clearinghouse in London that disseminated new inventions and innovations: it helped to reduce the access cost to new technology. However, its institutional emphasis on public interests rather than private ones contributed to its relative failure to play a more central role in the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century. Regarding the patent system as an outdated feudal monopoly, the Society of Arts championed the idea of rewarding inventors with premiums and introducing new technology into the market as rapidly as possible. However, the patent system was strongly favored and defended by most ambitious and successful inventor-entrepreneurs who sought after profit in the market. This case study of the Society of Arts attempts to understand the cooperation and conflicts between the main actors and institutions of the British Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 69/01 (2008). Pub. no. AAT 3295759.
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