Technology Transfer and the Early Development of the Cotton Textile Industry in Nineteenth Century Spain

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the transformation process of Catalonia into a major industrial district. Our analysis finds that the origins of industrial development can be traced back to the first decades of the eighteenth century with a calico-printing industry appearing with the support of a prohibitionist trade policy. This early development led to the diffusion of a cotton spinning and weaving industry in the same century. After severe crises in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the Catalan cotton textile industry was able to reestablish its lead position in the Mediterranean basin on the basis of two fundamental pillars: availability of skilled labor and capacity to import the latest technologies from abroad, especially from Great Britain. This cotton-based industrial district underwent an important crisis in the first decades of the twentieth century but its skilled workforce and entrepreneurial networks helped develop new industrial sectors that have survived until today.