오늘날 산업혁명 연구에서 점진론적 해석이 주류를 이루고 있음에도, 면업 분야의 경우 기계화와 증기력의 승리라는 전통적 해석에 대한 수정작업은 별로 이루어지지 않았다. 수력공장이 이전에 생각했던 것보다 정교한 기계설비와 장치를 갖추었고, 이 정교한 동력전달장치와 수력방적기 자체의 생산성 때문에 상당기간 경쟁력을 잃지 않았다는 사실은 근래에 밝혀졌을 뿐이다. 이 글에서는 1980년대 후반에 이루어진 더원트 강 유역 수력방적공장들에 대한 산업고고학의 탐사 결과가 산업혁명사 연구에 어떤 자극을 줄 수 있는지 검토한다. 이에 따라 문헌사학에서 당연시해온 몇 가지 사실들의 수정 필요성을 발견할 수 있다. 예를 들어 커훈의 수력방적공장 통계가 불완전하다는 것이 밝혀졌고, 면업분야의 공장제 도입도 전통과 단절이 아니라 이전 생산조직의 전통 안에서 새롭게 변화했다는 것을 알 수 있다. 면업 분야에서도 증기력의 보급은 이전에 생각했던 것보다 훨씬 더 점진적이었던 것처럼 보인다.

The current studies of the Industrial Revolution are dominated by the gradualist view that it was unspectacular, incomplete and modest. Evolutionist historians tend to reduce the ‘first industrial revolution’ to a ‘myth’ or a ‘misnomer’. They underestimate technological innovation and factory system in the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, some econometric historians have produced new macroeconomic indicators such as industrial output, national income or GDP growth. These new estimates indicate a more minimal picture of economic change in the Industrial Revolution than has ever emerged before. But the studies on the base of contemporary texts and literature have some limits. Most of persons related to economic activities in the Industrial Revolution did not leave their own writings behind them. Traditional historians have depended upon the parliamentary papers, some data on companies and contemporaries’ literature. So, for the sufficient research of the Industrial Revolution, we need to get some information from the field of industrial archaeology. Up to now, there were few dialogues between history and industrial archaeology. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the process of the introduction of the early factory system to the field of cotton industry by consulting the results of the recent archaeological investigation to the Arkwright mills the Derwent valley in Derbyshire. The results of the archaeological investigation shows us the facts that Patrick Colquhoun’s statistics of Arkwright mills in 1788 was inaccurate, and that the introduction of those mills to cotton industry meant not a discontinuity with the tradition. In addition, it seems that steam engines were spread more gradually than had been thought before.

The current studies of the Industrial Revolution are dominated by the gradualist view that it was unspectacular, incomplete and modest. Evolutionist historians tend to reduce the ‘first industrial revolution’ to a ‘myth’ or a ‘misnomer’. They underestimate technological innovation and factory system in the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, some econometric historians have produced new macroeconomic indicators such as industrial output, national income or GDP growth. These new estimates indicate a more minimal picture of economic change in the Industrial Revolution than has ever emerged before. But the studies on the base of contemporary texts and literature have some limits. Most of persons related to economic activities in the Industrial Revolution did not leave their own writings behind them. Traditional historians have depended upon the parliamentary papers, some data on companies and contemporaries’ literature. So, for the sufficient research of the Industrial Revolution, we need to get some information from the field of industrial archaeology. Up to now, there were few dialogues between history and industrial archaeology. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the process of the introduction of the early factory system to the field of cotton industry by consulting the results of the recent archaeological investigation to the Arkwright mills the Derwent valley in Derbyshire. The results of the archaeological investigation shows us the facts that Patrick Colquhoun’s statistics of Arkwright mills in 1788 was inaccurate, and that the introduction of those mills to cotton industry meant not a discontinuity with the tradition. In addition, it seems that steam engines were spread more gradually than had been thought before.

Industrial Archaeology, Arkwright Mill, Water-Frame, Evolutionist Theory, Steam Power