Lowell Lecture
Mill Talk: From Textile Workers to Rideshare Drivers: The Never-Ending History of Creative Destruction
Date & Time
Nov. 15, 2022 at 7 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Location
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Located in the Historic Francis Cabot Lowell Mill
Park in the Embassy Theatre Lot — GPS "42 Cooper Street, Waltham"
154 Moody Street Waltham, MA 02453
Driving Directions
Speaker(s)
Dave Broker
Presenting Organization
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Topics
Contact
Bob Perry (director@charlesrivermuseum.org, 781-893-5410)
In the second decade of the 21st Century, a major shift took place in the world of ground transportation. Taxicab drivers – long protected by local barriers to market entry – found themselves overtaken in the marketplace by new and disruptive rideshare services. Uber and Lyft drivers were able to provide a cheaper and simpler and more convenient means of getting around. This has created a significant benefit to consumers, while upending the long-established order for drivers.
Yet even this now more democratic profession is at serious risk of redundancy, thanks to the prospect of the driverless car. While still in development, autonomous vehicles could well mean the end of a livelihood – not only for rideshare drivers, but also for truckers and other vehicle operators – in the years to come.
However, this is not a new phenomenon. In this talk, industrial history podcaster Dave Broker explains how, between the 17th and 19th centuries, an almost identical process played out in the British textile trade. It was the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and its explosive consequences should be remembered and studied as we face the economic changes on the horizon.
Dave Broker is the creator and host of The Industrial Revolutions podcast, which tells the story of how the last 250 years have had profound impacts on our world’s economies, governments, social relationships, environment, and more.