In 1812 a band of masked weavers crept through the Yorkshire dark to smash the machines that were taking their wages, signing their threats with the name of a general who never existed. Thirty years later an eight-year-old girl told a government inspector that she sat alone in a coal mine all day, opening a door in the dark, and that she was too frightened to sing. And in 1851 six million visits poured into a palace of glass in London to marvel at locomotives, steam hammers and machines from every nation. All three belong to the same story: the moment humanity learned to harness coal and steam, and changed how nearly everyone on Earth would live.

This course begins with the puzzle of why it all started in Britain, then follows the steam engine from flooded mines to the first railways and the cotton machines that created the factory. You will look closely at child labor and the laws that limited it, walk the crowded streets of Manchester, and stand with the reformers, Chartists and trade unionists who fought for a share of the new wealth. Finally you will watch industry spread from Rhode Island to Japan, and weigh its legacy of soaring prosperity, widening global gaps and a changed atmosphere.