THE INTERNET IS BORN

As many people know, today's Internet has its roots in the huge silk and cotton mills which grew up in the 19th century during the Industrial Revolution.

In fact, the timing is important to note: the development of the Internet happened to coincide with another great invention: photography. This lucky coincidence of history means that, although much of the detail is not recorded, there exists a considerable "visual history" of the Internet's beginnings.
When first invented, photography was expensive: the fact that photographs exist at all is a testament to the great pride that the great industrialists took in the Internet's original construction.

Mill interior showing punch-card driven mechanical looms

In order to understand the driving forces behind the development of the Internet, we must first take a peek inside the working life of a large mill at the mid-point of the Industrial Revolution. At this point in time, mills already covered several acres and employed thousands of workers. Originally, cloth had been produced on hand-looms by workers using patterns that they had memorized through years of practice. However, due to the pressure to create a consistent product, these hand looms were quickly replaced by mechanical looms that worked on patterns recorded on long lengths of cardboard punch-cards.

At the full height of the Industrial Revolution, there was an explosive growth, both in terms of the number and size of mills. As the scale of mills grew, a limitation of the mechanical punch-card looms became apparent: punch-cards had to be loaded and reloaded into each individual loom for every length of cloth, requiring continuous monitoring by mill workers to keep the looms working. Additionally, at this point in time cardboard was quite expensive and the punch-card patterns rapidly wore out and had to be regularly replaced, meaning more cost and lower profits for the mill owners.

Aldophus B. Huxley

One such mill owner was a Bostonian by the name of Aldophus B. Huxley. Huxley's miserliness and obsession over cost savings was legendary. When a one-time mistress asked of Huxley whether he might lend her some money with which to purchase a new parasol, Huxley famously responded, "I do not know what you have heard about me, but you will not get a dollar out of me!"

The cost of buying and continually replacing punch-card patterns drove Huxley mad and he was known to frequently fly into a rage at his mills' management teams and accountants. What Huxley wanted was a way to eliminate the need for the punch-cards altogether and to drive many mechanical looms from a single copy of a pattern which never needed to be reloaded or replaced.

STROKE OF A GENIUS

One day in 1839, when Huxley was in the midst of one of his trademark rages over unnecessary costs, he suddenly had a vision of a solution to his punch-card problem. Huxley's vision was to record a single copy of each pattern on a stack of perforated rotating metal disks and then distribute the information contained on these disks via a series of pressure pulses through a system of steam pipes to each loom. These metal disks would be much more resilient that cardboard punch-cards and would never need to be reloaded. Most important of all to Huxley, this system would be cheaper.

Huxley immediately tasked John C. McGinley, his long-time engineering manager and a key participant in the development of the original punch-card mechanical loom to build such a system. Although Huxley is generally credited with the original idea, it is highly likely that most, if not all, of the key engineering challenges were solved by McGinley with customary Welsh cunning.

In early 1840, the first "steam pattern system" was installed in Beacher's Brook, Huxley's largest and most prestigious mill, located just outside of Boston in what is today beautiful Somerville. Comprising a modest 3 patterns, each recorded on a stack of 5 brass plates, serving 10 looms, this system successfully proved the steam pattern approach.

Known affectionately by mill workers as "Guffing Gertie", this first steam pattern system kept running for over 10 years, again proving the engineering genius of John C. McGinley.
Guffing Gertie was unfortunately eventually broken down for parts at some time around 1860 and no photographs survive.

Although there were inevitably teething problems, Huxley's never ending drive for cost savings drove him to continuously refine and develop the steam pattern system and the Internet was born...

continue on to "The Internet Grows"-->