Josiah White (1781–1850) was a key Pennsylvania industrialist who began early factory centered mill production in 1808 in water powered iron works near Philadelphia, along with his partner, Erskine Hazard when they quickly found their first mill at the Falls of the Schuylkill to be much too small. Subsequently, soon after they were forced to build a much more elaborate large mill nearby to refine pig iron and produce cast iron artifacts or roll wrought bar iron goods, including nails and wire. The pair were especially important after 1814 in helping make the American Industrial Revolution not only maintain, but accelerate its building momentum by agitating for infrastructure investment, sponsoring two key river navigations and the nation's first long railway, and then after initial success, increasingly supplying an expanding part of the country's overall energy needs including that of other industrialists at a time when there occurred the prolonged first energy crisis in the brief history of the country — where forests had grown remote from population centers through over logging, charcoal and imported coal were increasing in price rapidly, and fire wood was growing dearly expensive.
Born |
1781
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Died |
1850 (aged 68)
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Zodiac | |
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