Industrial Revolution | Stephanie Huesler

Tag Archives: Industrial Revolution

September 19, 2026 · 10:00 AM

History of Everyday Objects Undusted: Glue

I’ll bet that you have a few glues in your house right now – whether that’s white “school” glue (= PVA, or polyvinyl alcohol), glue sticks, or wood glue. It’s basically ubiquitous in first-world homes, but it has a long history.

In prehistoric times, plant resins and tars were used to “glue” stone tools to wooden handles, sometimes secured additionally with sinew or strips of bark. By the time of the ancient Egyptians, they were using animal-based glues extracted from the collagen found in bones, fish, and hides; these were used, e.g., in the construction of chariots and furniture, as well as for repairing small household items much like we do today.

The Romans and Greeks further refined glue once they’d discovered the adhesive properties of casein, a protein found in milk. This improved glue was used to paint and gild objects, be used in the construction of buildings, and to make papyrus scrolls; these scrolls were made by slicing thin strips from the inner pith of papyrus reeds, gluing them together, and pressing them into crisscross patterns. I think the fact that thousands of Roman constructions still stand today attests to their skills and the materials they chose or developed to accomplish such longevity.

Their glue was so well made that the formula remained largely unchanged up through the Middle Ages; it was widely used in bookbinding, carpentry, and in luxury items such as musical instruments. Attempts were made to improve glue formulas using things like egg whites and even blood, but these had a limited shelf life, as you can imagine.

The Industrial Revolution raised the need for reliable and durable glue compounds to meet the demands of machinery and rapid production. During this time, glue was made mainly with slaughterhouse waste, by boiling it down to collect the collagen, which, as it boiled down, became gelatine. When this cooled, it was dried into hard sheets, cakes or granules that could be shipped, then reconstituted with water into glue.

*AI Image; as always, it gives you a good idea of what it might have been like, but also, always take it with a hefty pinch of salt!*

In 1824, the Scottish chemist and inventor Charles Macintosh developed the eponymous Mackintosh raincoat (the variant in his family name’s spelling is a standard spelling when applied to the raincoat) by dissolving natural rubber in coal naphtha (which is benzene, a natural element derived from the refining of petroleum – it’s the sweet smell that gives gasoline its characteristic aroma) to create a waterproof adhesive, which was then sandwiched between two layers of cloth to make an impermeable coat (in a country that has over 500 words for water or snow, and winds that rip umbrellas into tulips faster than you can blink, raincoats are a matter of survival!). The path from the first raincoat to what we know today as a Mackintosh is a roundabout one, with many improvements made over time, but the history of its development shows how far we’ve come.

One of the glues I mentioned, PVA, was invented in 1912 by German chemist Fritz Klatte; he was looking for a way to use acetylene, a colourless gas that is unstable in its pure form and thus needs to be handled in a solution. PVA glue is used to make standard white glues (“school” glue), strong wood glues, and the dissolvable films around some dishwasher detergent pods; it helps to coat and strengthen paper products during the manufacturing process, and it’s even used in biomedical products such as eye drops, wound dressings, and contact lenses. It is controversial, as PVA is one of the most common plastics and, as such, does not break down organically in the environment. Hopefully we are on the cusp of another leap forward in the development of stable, environmentally-friendly glues.

In my craft room, I have no less than twenty different glues that immediately come to mind. They all have different properties, drying times, adhesive qualities, and durability. Some, I may need only as a placeholder before something is sewn, or as a less-adhesive inner glue to be strengthened by a different glue around the edge of a project. Some can be diluted in water, while others would clump. From glue sticks to hot glue, from diamond glaze to mat medium, they all have their uses.

We’ve come a long way since tar and the slaughterhouse – thank goodness!

What kinds of glues do you have in or around your home right now? Let us know in the comments!

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Filed under Articles, History Undusted, How It's Made, Series

Tagged as Ancient adhesives, Ancient Egyptians, Bookbinding, carpentry, Charles Macintosh, Collagen, Fritz Klatte, gelatine, Glue, Greeks, History Undusted, Industrial Revolution, Mackintosh Raincoat, Papyrus Scrolls, PVA, Roman construction, Romans

January 29, 2020 · 5:28 PM

History Undusted: Human Alarm Clocks

If you were living in the 19th century, before the age of reliable and affordable mechanical alarm clocks, how could you be ensured of getting up on time to get to work? Hire a knocker-up, of course. That’s if you lived in Britain or Ireland. Knockers-up were employed from the time of the Industrial Revolution; the last one retired in Bolton (a former mill town in Greater Manchester) in 1973. Also known as “human alarm clocks” they would use sticks, clubs, pebbles or pea shooters to knock on clients’ door and windows; some would move on after a few taps, while others wouldn’t move on until they were sure the client was up. I wonder who woke them up?

According to the Lancashire Mining Museum, there was a conundrum from the times that went like this:

We had a knocker-up, and our knocker-up had a knocker-up

And our knocker-up’s knocker-up didn’t knock our knocker up, up

So our knocker-up didn’t knock us up ‘Cos he’s not up.

The original problem employed knockers-up faced was how not to wake up their paying clients and several of their neighbours on either side for free; they hit upon (no pun intended) the idea of long poles or pea shooters to tap on the upper windows; clients obviously couldn’t sleep in a back room, or they’d never hear the knock. The fees charged depended on how far the knocker had to travel to reach the house and how early said knock needed to be.

In 1878, a Canadian reporter was told by Mrs Waters, of northern England, that she charged eighteenpence a week for those who needed waking before 4 a.m., and for those after 4 a.m., it was a shilling (twelvepence) a week. Those who had to be aroused from five to six o’clock paid from sixpence to threepence.

The miners of County Durham, Ireland, refined the requirements a bit: Built into the outer wall of their houses was a slate board, on which they would write their shift times in the mine; the company-hired knockers-up would then know when and when not to wake them up. These boards were known as wake-up slates or (far better, in my opinion), knocky-up boards.

Here are a few rare photographs of knockers-up knocking up:

HUMANA~3

Knocker-up - old-leigh-marshs-row-twist-lane

And just so we’re clear, the American English phrase “to be knocked up” (pregnant) has nothing to do etymologically with the British occupation or the sundry adjectives that derived from it. The knockers-up were usually elderly men or women, or even policemen who supplemented their incomes by taking on the task of waking their clients. In fact, one policeman (as told during the inquest) saw no reason to abandon his post as a knocker-up when a man found him on his route and told him that he’d found a dead woman; she turned out to be Mary Nichols, the first victim of Jack the Ripper.