In the essay that follows, Baldick examines "stories of doomed experimenters" found in works by Hoffmann, Hawthorne, Melville, and Gaskell, suggesting that these authors portray various forms of production as self-destructive activities.

In the following excerpt, Chase praises the accomplishments of the Industrial Revolution, suggesting that problems usually associated with it are only "temporary inconveniences. "

In the following essay, originally published in 1829 in the Edinburgh Review, Carlyle describes what he observes to be the largely negative influence of modern technology on the action, thought, and feeling of nineteenth-century society.

In the excerpt that follows, Tichi discusses the figure of the engineer in late nineteenth-century American culture and literature, focusing on works by Edward Bellamy, Thorstein Veblen, and Henry Adams.

In the following essay, originally published in 1956 in The New England Quarterly, Marx examines the themes and images employed by American authors such as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville to indirectly respond to industrialization during the years before 1860. Marx also studies the influence of the Industrial Revolution on the literature of the time.

In the following excerpt, Zolla provides a chronology of literary responses to the Industrial Revolution, ranging from Blake to Melville.

In the excerpt that follows, West examines various British and American authors' treatment of industrialism as a form of power and discipline.

In the following essay, Wilson examines the self-portraits of the sewing machine inventors Elias Howe and Isaac Singer, suggesting that both men shaped their accounts according to the romantic stereotypes of inventors found in the popular literature of nineteenth-century America.

In the following essay written in 1905 and first published in 1918, Adams examines the influence of the machine on the Western world, suggesting that it functions like a religious symbol carrying a "moral force."

In this excerpt from an essay originally published in 1979, Parker discusses the spread of industrialization throughout Western Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century, emphasizing the economic conditions and the technological advances of the period.

In this essay, presented in 1980 as part of a series of lectures titled "Nineteenth-Century Industry and Culture in Connecticut," Sloane discusses Mark Twain's favorable impression of American industrialism as seen in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which he calls "Twain's most ambitious attempt to make a comprehensive dramatization of the issues surrounding democracy and industrial progress."

In the essay that follows, Sussman examines the machine as a prominent symbol in Victorian literature, addressing various critiques and celebrations of technology in works by such authors as Carlyle, Wordsworth, Mill, and Kipling.

In the following excerpt, Orvell examines Whitman's treatment of technology and his influence on such modern writers as John Dos Passos and James Agee.

In the following essay first published in 1951, Hawkes outlines various causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution, emphasizing the destruction of eighteenth-century rural culture and the predominance of scientific thought..