Textiles: Humanity’s early tech boom | Virginia Postrel | Big Think
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- Опубліковано 24 кві 2021
- Textiles: Humanity’s early tech boom
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Virginia Postrel, author of The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, describes how the pursuit of textiles has led to a vast variety of innovations throughout history. Notably, the launch of the Industrial Revolution started with the machines that mechanized the spinning of thread.
The term luddite, which has now come to mean “people who have [an] ideological opposition to technology,” started with textiles. The original Luddites of the 19th century were weavers who rioted when they began losing their jobs to power looms.
Postrel states that human beings throughout the world and across history independently discovered different processes for creating cloth. She goes on to say that “weaving is something that is deeply mathematical… It seems to be this kind of human activity that’s thinking in ones and zeros that’s anticipating our modern computer age.”
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VIRGINIA POSTREL:
Virginia Postrel is an author and speaker whose work spans a broad range of topics, from social science to fashion, concentrating on the intersection of culture, commerce, and technology. Postrel has also been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Forbes and its companion technology magazine, Forbes ASAP. Her latest book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, examines the development of technology, industry, and commerce through the history of textiles, from prehistoric times to the near future.
Check out Virginia Postrel's latest book "The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World" at amzn.to/2RZwJu5
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TRANSCRIPT:
VIRGINIA POSTREL: I think we take for granted just how much human intelligence there is in every piece of cloth. From the moment you're born, you're surrounded by cloth. Clothes, medical bandages, tents and backpacks, tape-The pursuit of textiles has led to all kinds of innovation. The machines that launched the Industrial Revolution were machines that mechanized the spinning of thread. And no matter how far back you go, human beings seem to have used cloth, not just for purely functional reasons. Human beings want identity, they want status, they want beauty. It's this long heritage of human beings using their brains and their hands to create a better life.
If I say I wrote a book on textiles, chances are you think I wrote a book on clothes. Whereas, in fact, it's really about my interest in history and technology. Let's start with human languages. Technology, textile, and text all come from the same Indo-European root, and it's associated with the goddess, Athena. There was this very tight connection in ancient Greece between the notion of weaving and the notion of what we would call technology. Following comment threads or taking a shuttle, which is a device that moves thread across the loom. We use this word heirloom to mean something valuable that's passed down in families, but it actually started as heir loom, that is, the valuable thing that was passed down in the family was a loom because you can weave on it not only to make cloth for your family, but potentially, to sell.
The 1750s in England, there were about 4 million people in the workforce, and about one and a half million of them were women spinning. They spin, spin, spin, spin, and there's never enough thread. Take a bandana, which is really small, 22 inches squared. It takes a mile and a half of thread. So you can imagine making a sail or suit of clothes. It took forever. The Industrial Revolution changed that. Suddenly, you break that bottleneck. That has enormous ramifications. It's not just that suddenly people can have more and better and cheaper clothes. That's true. It's also a lot things that are used in business. Sails, sacks for carrying flour, straps for tying things. And so, there's a big demand for weavers. And then the Luddites are in the early 19th century, between 25 and 50 years later. Luddite today has come to mean people who have a kind of ideological opposition to technology, but the original Luddites were weavers. They were losing their jobs to power looms, and they're upset. It's not about technology versus the simple life. It's about I can't feed my kids. And so they go in and they smash the new looms, they riot. The irony of the story of the Luddites is that the reason that their weaving jobs were so good was that an earlier technological innovation and disruption had succeeded. They had great jobs because they had this...
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Have you ever considered the history of everyday objects?
Like capital and material history?
Amazing
Just got her book and am excited to do a deep dive
I realize it is kinda randomly asking but do anyone know of a good place to watch newly released series online?
@Manuel Eliseo i would suggest FlixZone. Just google for it :)
@Amir Randy Yea, have been watching on Flixzone for since march myself :D
When i went to italy i just took a trip to Venezia just to see a store of fabrics, a name that appeared in time regained books from proust, i cant remember know the name, a book that i fall i love with, and was a great experience that city has a tradition in fabrics well and venezia mixed with that beatiful book that marcel proust wrote is like a straight combination.
so interesting! i wish there was a little more of indigenous history here and not just centered around european history. pre-incan civilizations used weaving to count their people like a census and would keep 10 years of food inventory thru these patterns made in cloth. the garments made were just as luxurious and colorful with intricate patterns and dyed materials!
Missed two majors "textile" notes... saboteurs and that the entire basis of modern computing was based on the punch cards of the looms.
A wealth of history & knowledge in 6 minutes! If history had been taught this way in school, I'd have really learned something. tavi.
Beautiful, Wonderful video. It shows the human creativity and resourcefulness.
Anybody ever wonder what the world would have looked like with out the hemp ban meaning we could have biodegradable hemp plastic that doesn't emmit co2 during the decaying process?
It would be the same.
As a resident of Cottonopolis I know most of this stuff.
to survive we need a lot, however to prosper we need machines and art.
In Panajachel, one of the textile hubs in Guatemala, today, I happened to hear the following conversation between two locals, one a teacher who had just bought himself a nice looking jacket at a Paca, that's a used clothing store. The other was a shoe repairman, sitting on the sidewalk, repairing shoes. The teacher had come to sit between the shoe repairman and myself to try on the jacket. I was sitting rearranging my local market purchases in my backpack so they would not end up as mash when I got home. The teacher said he had gotten the jacket for Q5, that's US$0.66. The other man said: Ten years ago, it cost the [Mayan Indians = hoi polloi)] Q1000 (US$150+-) to dress decently. Now, everybody can for Q5. Thanks to this amazing invention.
To think I was going to skip this video...
Extremely interesting! I may want to learn more about weaving!
In Peru these practices are so sacred and the need to preserve them is strong, there are escuelas of manualidades where people learn weaving, pottery, carving, and all sorts of things with your hands. It tends to be used as labor for exportation and tourism which is sad but at least the culture is staying alive
I am a new weaver and I LOVE YOUR BOOK! It was so helpful and interesting. Thanks for the education.
Wow. So cool. Never looked at textiles like that.
This lady is a gamer. Check out that headset lol
Love your work ❤️
@@user-cx8gl2lq6n fake
Nothing about role of india, which was historically major silk and textile exporter, to Europe.
Technology, Textile and Text. U just blew my fucking mind.
Wonders of humans ❤️❤️❤️❤️
🙏🏼❤️👍
Interesting
Textiles are the first technology of any civilization and it will be the first thing we have to get going in space. That culture may use human hair, hair of long-hair cats, and plants like hemp (since they’re so hardy and productive). And lots of recycling!
Interesting. I guess I've always just taken textiles for granted. I imagine it would be pretty amazing for someone way back when, to see someone draped in one of the earliest pieces of fabric. Something that is not animal skin. You would have to touch it and you would definitely want some for yourself.
They used to collect pee in a city nearby where I live to not have to buy ammonia, to clean the textile
A man called James Hargreaves invented the "spinning jenny" and began the industrial revolution.
👍
Channel dedicated to drawing.....
"Drawing is my passion, not a gift"
This makes me feel useless as a modern person knowing that people back then just knew how to make their own clothes.
I think it’s important to mention the larger abundance of fiber that supplied the industrial revolution was the labor of slaves. We need to right the wrongs of humanity
The industrial revolution was the nail in the coffin for fashion and fine clothing. Innovation has declined ever since, and the knowledge base among average people.
On the contrary, fashion started blooming because of it.
@@martijnkeisers5900 you should study the actual textiles, instead of consuming propaganda. The Dakha muslin vanished due to early industrialization by Colonialition. Beautiful silks were replaced by nasty, toxic rayon that causes skin cancer. Crochet still can't be done by machines, and most lace is horrible, molded polyester that feels like the petroleum product it is. Good grief! Haven't you ever seen needle lace? If you want to express a valid opinion, look into the matter first. Beautiful clothes have been replaced by jeans and t-shirts, and Burmuda shorts. Give me a break!
@@valerieprice1745 Hi! Thanks for responding!
I understand what ur saying but there is a difference between fashion and craftsmanship. The materials u describe were extremely expensive and only accessible for the elite. Fashion only changed slowly over decades and garments were constantly repaired and adjusted. From the moment equipment arrived to make textiles easier and faster and sowing machines were invented it became an industry on its own. Fashion is all about creativity, experiment, zeitgeist and ofcourse also craftsmanship. All the fabrics and techniques that came with the industrial revolution contributed to so many fashions afterwards and because of that became one of the biggest industries in the world.
And i am sure ur closet is filled, not with brocade and handwoven silk but machine stitched rayon, polyester, stretch and nylon fabric blends.
Fashion IS, and always was a reflection of society whether you agree or disagree it moves on anyway.
Didnt Marx already wrote this book?
Those must have been some lazy women. I spin miles with drop spindles. I haven't bothered with a spinning wheel. No need for it.
She reminds me of Hilary g Clinton
You verginia soud like yiu have problem in everyday bowl functions..