The most in-depth video I was able to find regarding the invention of the steam engine spends 15 minutes on the topic. I can safely say that steam, iron, coal and pistons are involved, but I never learned what a piston is (I know they exist and are in engines) in school, so I can’t grok the engine as a whole because of the circular definitions.
I’m sure I could read all about it, but this is something I need to see in action for it to click. And I’m finding myself getting more curious about the tech changes of the Industrial Revolution overall, given the rate of change under way, to better understand the social upheaval.
My middle school American history course essentially spent days on how the cotton gin was fast (but not how it worked), endless sections about textiles, and then interstate railroads sprang from nothing. That’s feeling a bit sparse as a representation of the time.
The History Guy has a few decent niche tech videos. I think he did one on the invention of screws which was kind of interesting.
The screw history video has no business being as captivating as it is.
I don’t know of a series covering Industrial Revolution technologies. But the videos below should giv you a good conceptual understanding of steam engines:
Unrelated to steam engines or the industrial revolution, Bill Hammack’s play lists are great deep dives in topics from an engineer’s perspective. Be sure to sort his videos by “popular” there are a number that are over 10 years old but are still amazing short explorations of things like the aluminum can (over 18 Million views).
There are a few videos from Machine Thinking that focus on the early or past days of industrial technology, particularly things such as precision, screws, lathes, etc. I can recommend these in particular:
- Origins of Precision
- The 1751 Machine that Made Everything (the lathe)
- America’s Iron Giants - The World’s Most Powerful Metalworkers
- Where DO screws come from? (part 1 of a, so far, 3-part series on screws)
Another thing to look at would be infographics, especially from Animagraffs by Jacob O’Neil. They’ve got a few gems that cover some of what you’re asking about, such as pistons:
For something a little closer to a full-blown free course or series, there’s this Basics of Mechanical Engineering playlist put together by John Bedford Solomon, but it doesn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason as to the order, so skip around a bit, or look more specifically at any of the channels it selects videos from.
Lastly, the top videos from US Auto Industry on YouTube (sort by popular) are some old but phenomenal educational content on some of the basics of cars, with videos about differential steering, transmission, suspension, and hydraulics.
Happy learning!
Something like the American Precision Museum or videos of Fred Dibnah might help? He even has an episode called Engines at Work .
