Description: In Progressive Enlightenment, Leslie Tomory
examines the origins of the gaslight industry, from invention to
consolidation as a large integrated urban network. Tomory argues
that gas was the first integrated large-scale technological
network, a designation usually given to the railways. He shows
how the first gas network was constructed and stabilized through
the introduction of new management structures, the use of
technical controls, and the application of means to constrain
the behavior of the users of gas lighting. Tomory begins by
describing the contributions of pneumatic chemistry and
industrial distillation to the development of gas lighting, then
explores the bifurcation between the Continental and British
traditions in distillation technology. He examines the
establishment and consolidation of the new industry by the
Birmingham firm Boulton & Watt, and describes the deployment of
the network strategy by the entrepreneur Frederick Winsor.
Tomory argues that the gas industry represented a