The 1850s as Turning Point: The Birth of Globalization? - New Technologies and Systems

11 important questions on The 1850s as Turning Point: The Birth of Globalization? - New Technologies and Systems

What was the most obvious break between the protoglobal patterns of the previous period and the global thrusts by 1850?

Transportation and communication formed the most obvious break by 1850.

How was transportation improved around 1850?

Capacities for speed and volume in transportation followed from the application of industrialization's steam engine to both land and sea, with trains and steamships, respectively.

How was communication revolutionized?

Communication was revolutionized through the telegraph, particularly when undersea cables moved the telegraph from a regional to a global device.
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What consequence did the changes of communication and transportation have?

They supported a new level of connection, most obviously in trade but also in immigration, in the dissemination of news, and in other areas.

When was a regular trans-Atlantic service with steamships established?

In 1838, from Liverpool to New York. In 1840s was the first steam shipping company, the Cunard lines, organized to handle regular trips between Europe and North America.

Of which changes did the globally competitive steamship depend on by 1850?

- Use of steel instead of wood provided a firmer basis for the engines themselves, largely eliminating leakage.
- Even more important was the replacement of paddle-wheels by screw propellers from the 1840s onward. This eliminated the problems posed by rough seas as far as continued motor function was concerned, and also allowed the development of larger and more powerful engines.

What is the Triple Expansion Engines? What change did the invention impose?

- By the 1870s, more efficient engines, called Triple Expansion Engines, were introduced for ships, allowing steam to be used three times before being turned back by the condenser into fresh water for the boilers; and designs for the boilers themselves improved, allowing higher steam pressures.
- This meant that ships could travel far longer distances before refueling, effectively elevating steam shipping over sails for any activity requiring speed and/or higher volume. By 1900 steamship routes crisscrossed all the major oceans, linking all the inhabited continents with unprecedentedly dense contacts.

What role did trains play in this surge of globalization?

Trains, pulled by steam engines, played a role.
Transcontinental lines began to be completed by the 1860s, allowing movement from Atlantic to Pacific in both the United States and Canada, and a bit later linking the Pacific coast of Russia to the Baltic sea.

What interior regions began to open growing global trade and contact because of trade and steamships?

- Steamships allowed riverboats to move upstream in places like Africa and China, which facilitated European military penetration but also encouraged trade.
- Many rail lines were built to do little more than link internal production regions to coast ports so as to facilitate exports.

What result did coastal connections have?

- Coastal connections stimulated greater production of export products like coffee or vegetable oils, and also minerals.
- The result stimulated the production of foods and raw materials, which tended to depress prices through growing competition and increased global economic inequalities vis-a vis the industrial nations.

What did the invention of the telegraph lead to?

- The telegraph led within 30 years to trans-ocean linkages among all the continents except Antarctica.
- Information could now range more widely and rapidly than ever before; what used to take months was now a matter of seconds.
- All kinds of news began to flow via the telegraph.

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