Progressive Enlightenment―The Origins of the Gaslight Industry, 1780-1820

In Progressive Enlightenment, Leslie Tomory examines the originsof the gaslight industry, from invention to consolidation as a large integrated urban network.Tomory argues that gas was the first integrated large-scale technological network, a designationusually given to the railways. He shows how the first gas network was constructed and stabilizedthrough the introduction of new management structures, the use of technical controls, and theapplication of means to constrain the behavior of the users of gas lighting. Tomory begins bydescribing the contributions of pneumatic chemistry and industrial distillation to the developmentof gas lighting, then explores the bifurcation between the Continental and British traditions indistillation technology. He examines the establishment and consolidation of the new industry by theBirmingham firm Boulton & Watt, and describes the deployment of the network strategy by theentrepreneur Frederick Winsor. Tomory argues that the gas industry represented a new wave oftechnological innovation in industry because of its dependence on formal scientific research, itsneed for large amounts of capital, and its reliance on business organization beyond small firms andpartnerships--all of which signaled a departure from the artisanal nature and limited deployment ofinventions earlier in the Industrial Revolution. Gas lighting was the first important realization ofthe Enlightenment dream of science in the service of industry.

Leslie Tomory, an aerospace engineer, a historian, and a consultant in the nonprofit sector, is currently a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University.