The 'Mechanically Literate Entrepreneur' Reconsidered: Subscription Libraries and the Industrial Revolution

“懂机械的企业家”重新思考：订阅图书馆和工业革命

• 批准号: 2752961
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Liverpool
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2752961
• 关键词: Mechanically; Literate; Entrepreneur; Reconsidered; Subscription

Utilising a library history approach to economic and social phenomena, this project addresses a central debate in the historiography of the industrial revolution in Britain: whether innovation occurred as a result of regulatory action by the state (Ashworth) or through individuals' creative response to new ideas associated with the Enlightenment (Mokyr). It probes Jacob's assertion that industrialisation was led by the 'mechanically literate entrepreneur' who was well versed in the latest scientific knowledge (2007, p.207), assessing the extent to which voluntary membership libraries fostered scientific culture through the provision of books and informed conversation. It also asks how far libraries helped readers across the social scale negotiate for themselves the varying impacts of rapid industrialisation on living conditions, gender and politics. The project has a further focus on the industrial experience in Liverpool. While Haggerty uses visual analytics to assess the role of cultural institutions (including the Liverpool Library, an earlier subscription library founded in 1758) in facilitating mercantile networks, the city's industries and industrialists have been very little researched. The project aims to establish the identity, social networks and intellectual interests of Liverpool's manufacturers while extending earlier work on the city's scientific culture which focused primarily on philosophical and scientific societies (Kitteringham). The project utilises source material held in the Athenaeum (Liverpool), such as minute books, membership records, accounts, catalogues and a unique collection of contemporary pamphlets. This material will be used to recover the extent to which the Athenaeum served to promote industrial innovation, both through the provision of books on natural philosophy, mathematics, mechanics and chemistry, and through the business networking that membership helped to facilitate. Detailed consideration of the Athenaeum's books and members will be extended both socially (by considering working-class venues for reading and intellectual exchange in Liverpool alongside the elite perspective offered by the Athenaeum) and geographically (by comparing Liverpool's sea-based economy to mill towns such as Manchester, Halifax and Bolton, and/or to early manufacturing hubs in the newly independent United States).The project expands on data and digital methods developed by the AHRC-funded Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online (E-CLO; www.c18librariesonline.org), including a focus on membership records, pamphlets and books and marginalia.

利用图书馆的历史方法来实现经济和社会现象，该项目解决了英国工业革命史学的核心辩论：国家（Ashworth）（Ashworth）的监管行动是由于国家（Ashworth）还是通过个人对新的新作品的创造性回应而进行的。与启蒙运动相关的想法（Mokyr）。它调查了雅各布的断言，即工业化是由“机械识字企业家”领导的，他精通最新的科学知识（2007年，第207页），评估了自愿成员资格图书馆在多大程度上通过书籍提供的科学文化，并告知书籍并通知书籍。对话。它还询问图书馆帮助整个社会规模的读者自己进行了多大的谈判，对生活条件，性别和政治的快速工业化的影响有所不同。该项目进一步关注利物浦的工业经验。尽管Haggerty使用视觉分析来评估文化机构（包括利物浦图书馆，1758年成立的较早订阅库）在促进商业网络中的作用，但该市的工业和工业家的研究很少。该项目旨在建立利物浦制造商的身份，社交网络和智力利益，同时扩大了较早的研究，主要集中于哲学和科学社会（Kitteringham）。该项目利用了雅典娜（Liverpool）（利物浦）中持有的原始资料，例如分钟书，会员记录，帐户，目录和独特的当代小册子。该材料将通过提供自然哲学，数学，力学和化学的书籍，以及通过成员资格有助于促进的商业网络来恢复雅典娜为促进工业创新的程度。对雅典娜的书籍和成员的详细考虑将在社会上扩展（通过考虑利物浦的阅读和知识交流的工人阶级场所以及雅典娜提供的精英视角）和地理位置（通过比较利物浦的海上经济与这样的磨坊城镇的比较作为曼彻斯特，哈利法克斯和博尔顿和/或新独立的美国的早期制造中心。 org），包括关注会员记录，小册子和书籍以及Marginalia。