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Turned Upside Down

The onset of the Industrial Revolution caused major changes in virtually every craft. Machinery worked on a scale and at a cost that a pre-industrial artisan could not compete with, and the advent of canals and railroads meant that the village artisan had to contend with rivals not just across the next hill, but across the country. But as profound as that change was, something even more traumatic happened; the fundamental axioms were turned upside down. This change disrupted how the buying public valued good work. This shift happened in part because the Industrial Revolution rose alongside the emergence of nation-states that competed against one another for industrial dominance. This trend developed into National Exhibitions to showcase advances in industry...

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