LOW-TECH MAGAZINE

The short history of early pedal powered machines

Ever since the arrival of fossil fuels and electricity, human powered tools and machines have been viewed as an obsolete technology. This makes it easy to forget that there has been a great deal of progress in their design, largely improving their productivity. The most efficient mechanism to harvest human energy appeared in the late 19th century: pedals. Stationary pedal powered machines went through a boom at the turn of the 20th century, but the arrival of cheap electricity and fossil fuels abruptly stopped all further development.

Hand powered drilling tools and machines

Hand-powered devices have been used for millennia. However, during the last quarter of the 19th century a radically improved generation of tools appeared.

These tools took advantage of modern mass production machinery and processes (like interchangeable parts) and an increased availability in superior material (metal instead of wood).

One of the outcomes included an array of new drilling machines. These human-powered tools were not only a vast improvement over those that came before them, they also had many advantages in comparison to the power drills that we use today.

A 1922 breast drill (picture credit).