13 Facts About Jacques Vaucanson

Jacques de Vaucanson was a French inventor and artist who built the first all-metal lathe which was very important to the Industrial Revolution.

Jacques Vaucanson was responsible for the creation of impressive and innovative automata.

Jacques Vaucanson studied under the Jesuits and later joined the Order of the Minims in Lyon.

At just 18 years of age, Jacques Vaucanson was given his own workshop in Lyon, and a grant from a nobleman to construct a set of machines.

In 1737, Jacques Vaucanson built The Flute Player, a life-size figure of a shepherd that played the tabor and the pipe and had a repertoire of twelve songs.

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At the time, mechanical creatures were somewhat a fad in Europe, but most could be classified as toys, and de Jacques Vaucanson's creations were recognized as being revolutionary in their mechanical lifelike sophistication.

Jacques Vaucanson is credited as having invented the world's first flexible rubber tube while in the process of building the duck's intestines.

Jacques Vaucanson's inventions brought him to the attention of Frederick II of Prussia, who sought to bring him to his court.

In 1741 de Jacques Vaucanson was appointed by Cardinal Fleury, chief minister of Louis XV, as inspector of the manufacture of silk in France.

Jacques Vaucanson was charged with undertaking reforms of the silk manufacturing process.

Jacques Vaucanson was trying to automate the French textile industry with punch cards - a technology that, as refined by Joseph-Marie Jacquard more than a half-century later, would revolutionize weaving and, in the twentieth century, would be used to input data into computers and store information in binary form.

Jacques Vaucanson's proposals were not well received by weavers who pelted him with stones in the street and many of his revolutionary ideas were largely ignored.

Jacques Vaucanson left a collection of his work as a bequest to Louis XVI.