The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China

Chao, Kang; Chao, Jessica C. Y.

doi:10.2307/j.ctt1tfjctn

Cited by 41 publications

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“…The British cotton industry appears to have had a similar flexibility with a different series of social experiments related to worker skill: parish apprentices, employment of women and children, "following up" as a method of training, and the emergence of mule spinning as a semi-craft occupation. This social experimentation contrasts with the situation in China where women were not permitted to work outside the home, ordinary cotton goods were produced almost exclusively within the household and this limited the adoption of new technology [Chao, 1977, Chapter 3, Goldstone, 1996.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The Skills of the Unskilled in the American Industrial Revolution

Bessen¹

2000

SSRN Journal

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Were ordinary factory workers unskilled and was technology "de-skilling" during the Industrial Revolution? I measure foregone output to estimate the human capital investments in mule spinners and power loom tenders in ante-bellum Lowell. These investments rivaled those of craft apprentices. Although factory workers were unskilled in a sense, the implementation of this technology depended on the development of a labor force with substantial human capital. From 1834-55, firms made increasing investments in skill, allowing workers to tend more machines, thus raising labor productivity. This growing investment was motivated partly by changing factor prices and more by a changing labor supply. Calculations show that firm policy and social conditions, including literacy, influenced the investment in factory skills. When skills are considered, technological change at Lowell appears as a broad social process, dependent as much on innovation in institutions as on invention of machines.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

The Skills of the Unskilled in the American Industrial Revolution

Bessen¹

2000

SSRN Journal

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“…34) Yan Zhongping (1963): 15-17. 35) Chao (1977): 21. Wiens (1974): 518 notes that people paid tax in cotton when the rice harvest failed, such as in the years 1424, and 1446. helped them to pay the high cost of rent which was itself a consequence of the increased tax quota.…”

Section: The Role Of Government In the Institutionalization Of Cottonmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…21) Chu Hua: 1. 22) Chao (1977): 11-12. 23) Marco Polo: 232. By the time Marco Polo resided in China, the Song state had shifted southwards and, with the capital at Hangzhou, the authorities focused on local products for taxation.…”

Section: The Role Of Government In the Institutionalization Of Cottonmentioning

confidence: 98%

Cotton Textile Manufacture and Marketing in Late Imperial China and the ‘Great Divergence’

Zurndorfer¹

2011

J Econ Soc Hist Orient

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By 1800 cotton cloth was China's most important domestic trade commodity after grain. This paper reviews the history of cotton textile production in the Jiangnan region (or Lower Yangzi River area) where it thrived from 1300 to 1830, and discusses the factors contributing to its commercialization. It reveals the impact of the Ming and Qing governments in its institutionalization, and how the social organization of the industry was framed around the household economy and women's labor. This essay also documents the problems that cotton production and marketing encountered by the end of the eighteenth century, and demonstrates how the recent debates about the 'great divergence' and the nature of the Chinese political economy resonate in the history of China's cotton textile enterprise. Finally, it shows how in the first decades of the nineteenth century, empire-wide demographic and environmental constraints brought economic stasis to Jiangnan's cotton industry.

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“…Clocks, cannon, the magnetic compass and printing by movable type are perhaps the best-known cases in point, but they are by no means the only ones. Other examples are the multi-spindle spinning machine, which was known in China as early as the fourteenth century but in contrast with Europe was not adopted in cotton spinning 11 , or the vertical tworoller sugar cane crusher, powered by animals, which entered China in the seventeenth century at about the same time as European plantation colonies in the Americas, but did not evolve into the even more productive animal-driven or water-driven three-roller type 12 .…”

Section: Comparing Technology In China and Europementioning

confidence: 99%

Religion and technological development in China and Europe between about 700 and 1800

Davids

2016

artefact

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RésuméLe développement technique a de plus en plus divergé entre Chine et Europe après 1500. Cet article soutient qu'on ne peut pas seulement expliquer cette divergence par des variables économiques comme les prix du combustible et de la main-d'oeuvre. Sont également intervenues des variations dans les contextes religieux en Chine et en Europe. Mais, contrairement aux considérations de nombreux historiens et théo-logiens, le facteur-clé ne peut pas être trouvé dans les différences de croyances et de valeurs dans les traditions religieuses. Plus pertinentes ont été les différences dans l'influence des institutions religieuses et dans le rôle des communications et des mouvements de personnes imputables aux traditions religieuses. Ces aspects de la religion ont contribué à des disparités dans la formation des hommes, la circulation des connaissances et l'innovation technique entre Chine et Europe qui se sont manifestées après 1500. Mots-clés : circulation des connaissances, formation, innovation technique, institutions religieuses, traditions religieuses. Abstract

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The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China

Cited by 41 publications

References 0 publications

The Skills of the Unskilled in the American Industrial Revolution

The Skills of the Unskilled in the American Industrial Revolution

Cotton Textile Manufacture and Marketing in Late Imperial China and the ‘Great Divergence’

Religion and technological development in China and Europe between about 700 and 1800

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