James Watt: The Development of Steam Engines and How They Created Our Industrial Society (Scientists Who Have Changed the World S.) - Hardcover

Part of a series covering the lives of 12 leading scientists, all of whom have made a major contribution to the world around them. The books provide reading on famous lives for children at a formative age. This book looks at the life of James Watt, the Scottish instrument maker whose invention helped to change the world. He invented a new improved steam engine. Watt's steam engine was faster, cheaper and more powerful than any earlier model. His steam engine was to harness power in a way never achieved before, and one that would mark the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Before the "Steam Age", energy was provided by humans actually pushing and pulling, horses, wind or water - all of which have one main problem, they are controlled by nature, unpredictable, unreliable and not very strong. The new steam engine could be used to pump the mines clear of water, to speed up the production in the cotton mills, the flour mills, the steel factories. It changed the face of the world industrially and socially - papers were printed faster, trains were invented for land and steamships for water. Industry moved from a home-based craft trade to factory-based mass production. James Watts' steam engine changed the shape of the 19th century.