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This post is regarding the exponential value the railroad industry played in the development of the American economy and most importantly, American business practices and ideologies:

The Rise of Big Businesses starts off by describing the emergence of ‘managerial revolution’ after 1841 which resulted from a train clash incident earlier in Massachusetts. This led to the development of “big businesses” which has remained prevalent today.

The railroad industry in 1850s grew each year by 5000 miles. This organized structure of growth was unfathomable to achieve before. Clearly, such feat couldn’t have been possible without some help from other industries. In the mid 19th century, telegraph played a critical role in the railroad industry. Both did benefit symbiotically. The telegraph was crucial in serving managers schedule train schedules and other events. This growing need led to the incremental placement of telephone poles and wires to meet the need for constant communication. Railroads aside, “telegraph quickly spread beyond railroad executives, as businessmen across the United States used it to control their own far-flung business empires and to communicate with businessmen in other firms” (Blackford, 155).  This led to major strides in the telecommunications industry with the advent of the telephone in 1876 whose impact in the modern era can’t be translated into words. Like the railroad industry, the telephone industry gained some valuable companies like the Bell Company, founded by Gardiner Greene Hubbard which had 8.3 million telephones in use 44 years after its inception!

The railroad industry also faced a lot of managerial problems due to the unprecedented growth and expansion of the industry.  Some metrics involve employment, regions served, and capital investments. Moreover,  their operations were far more intricate than other businesses. The author compares the railroads with canal traffic. Canal traffic, unlike railroad traffic is much slower; each boat is individually owned where the unification of multiple boats in not necessary. Moreover, unlike canals, railroad businesses have to account for the vast number of passengers and their trust to keep using the service. Some other problems include the very blueprint of the schematic that ran the structure. Financing railroad with compelling demands from states and counties was a huge problem to solve for managers in the said industry.

All of these problems indicated that businessmen needed a better solution to organize railroads effectively. Some practices include instituting bureaucratic management practices. This led to structuring an organization into a hierarchy and clearly defining rules and practices of the industry.  Moreover, they also employed new accounting methods to analyze the work of their companies. There were three such accounting methods being practices:

1.  Instead of a black and white profit and loss system, businesses moved to a system of operating ratio where where they would relate their earnings to the volume of their businesses per interval of time.
2. An approach known as Systematic capital accounting was developed where railroad managers would take into account for deprecation of their products when charging the repair and replacement of parts.
3. Cost accounting approach was developed where two types of costs were to be created, namely, fixed cost and variable costs. Typically, fixed costs were higher than variable costs. This approach was used in pinpointing in their companies operations “and as an aid in setting profitable railroad rates” (Blackford, 160).

The railroad industry contributed a lot to the development of other industries such as the telecommunications industry or the steel industry. With an ever growing size, it provided economic development for the nation through jobs and formation of other entrepreneurial innovations. It also created new opportunities for businessmen to expand their existing businesses to new heights.  In conclusion, the railroad industry played the role of invisible hand in making startups and other huge industries grow and prove the prospects of an organized business structure. It also proves that the role of business and the lives of people are very much related as the steam engines played a heavy social and political role in the late 19th century through movies and culture. So, all in all, does technology impact society and culture or does society and the need for ease create and impact technology?

 

Comment your answers below!

 

Word Count : 680

Source:

Blackford, “The Emergence of Big Business” 

“We crave for new sensations but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences.” – Nikola Tesla

From the minute you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, you are actively involved in using technologies that ease your busy schedule of work. A lot of the technologies that you commonly use are being taken for granted. Technologies such as public healthcare, sanitation, literature (alphabets), currency, roads, irrigation, architecture, warfare , Pozzolana ,  cranes, pulleys, and pottery are major and long lasting technological contributions of the Greco-Romans (Note: Not all of these technologies were invented by the greco-romans, but instead improved and developed by them). In fact, the very notion of rationality and scientific being can be traced back to ancient Greece.

Greeks, unlike the Romans were very crafty and inventive. This can be evident through the invention of complex machines like the Antikythera, which is still being debunked to this very day [1]. Romans, on the other hand, were very innovative and took advantages of their surroundings and environment.  Roads, for example, can be seen as an ordinary structure. But at the time of its construction, it represented adaptability, strength, and power. Consequently, Roman roads spread out as much as 56000 miles. Moreover, certain Roman technologies served duo-purposes. Roads not only served as a means of commute but also as a means to trade and transfer of military personnel. Similarly, Aqueducts represented both, an artwork and a process to transfer water using Earth’s gravity.

 

(Show above are some of the Roman Technological contributions)

Out of all these key important technologies, Roman technology can be viewed as more practical than Greek technology. This is because the Greeks weren’t too interested in practicality and utility of things; they were more interested towards art and creativity. Despite this, a lot of Roman Technology was inherited from the Greeks. “… most of its (Roman) technology was inherited from the Stone, Bronze, and early Iron Ages” (Geis, 1).

One such example of inherited technology that Romans extensively used and innovate was agricultural tools. The Aratrum, a plow, was first used in the sandy soils of the Mediterranean region. The Romans innovated on this technology to make it more efficient and durable. Hence, “an iron coulter, a vertical blade fixed in front of the plowshare, and, second, a wooden moldboard behind it to turn the soil ” was built on top of the pre-existing technology to optimize work and decrease effort while plowing.

The Romans inherited iron metallurgy from the Greeks and introduced new processes such as tempering to harden the metal without risking it from breaking.  Moreover, they also inherited the classical tool chest and added their own flare to it by introducing carpenters’ plane (shown below) to the world. Many historians consider this to be a Roman invention than a Roman innovation.

Despite all their contributions to the modern world, Romans ‘failed’ to fully exploited their technologies to further untap its potential. Thus, Romans were ” technologically handicapped by two momentous failures in the exploitation of power” (Geis). The first one is the failure to exploit the Waterwheel. This invention would have served as a technological monopoly for Romans had they exploited it to its limits. Through the Waterwheel and its conversion from kinetic energy into mechanical energy would have increased human efficiency in many ways and decreased time it took to complete mundane tasks. An example can be seen through grinding of flowers. Although, the Romans did build the water wheel which could grind flowers, they failed to mass produce it and gain capital from it. This technology would have ultimately helped the empire gain more control through optimized engineering practices.

Another untapped technology, according to Geis, was horse harness. This technology in particular was not developed enough since the bronze age. Thus, the failure to exploit this technology meant the lack of large scale domestication of horses for military and commercial uses. Had this technology been improved by either the Greeks or Romans, travel times would have decreased and human labor and efficiency would have increased. It is due to the failure of exploitation of such technologies that left the Romans ‘technologically handicapped.’

Besides the two technological failures mentioned above, Romans ‘failed’ in other two realms that played an influential role in technology: theoretical science and economics. Unlike the Greeks, who placed a high importance on knowledge and science, Romans preferred on the practicality of things at the expense of accumulation of new knowledge. Consequently, their little interest with philosophy and science led to the upper classes not being well informed. Moreover, Romans never bothered to  translate the work of  Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, and other Greek thinkers into Latin.  This clearly shows the lack of interest and motivation towards gaining new knowledge.

Other realm of science closely linked with technology which Romans failed to untap was economics. This is due to slave trade and the lack of incentive to find optimizable solutions to economic problem due to the sheet abundance of slaves in the empire. Despite having their own coinage system, not much thought was put into saving money and being more efficient with trades. This resulted in the Romans being indirectly technologically handicapped.

All in all, the Greeks and Romans have contributed a lot to the modern times. Without their contributions, life today would be hard to imagine. They have played pivotal roles in the development of mankind. This proves that settled agriculture leads to influential technological inventions. However, not all technologies are exploited to its limits. This holds true to certain Roman technologies such as the Water Wheel and Horse harness which lacked development. Though its successes outweigh its failures, these key technologies, including theoretical science and economics, have not been developed fully which have made the Romans ‘technologically handicapped’ at times.