Lagging behind or catching up? The mechanization of the Portuguese cork industry (1880-1914)

Abstract

In the second half of the nineteenth century the cork industry mechanized the production of cork stoppers, the main and, almost, the only cork product of that time. This movement began in the mid-nineteenth century in the most industrialized and non-cork forest countries, threatening the dominant position of the Spanish cork industry, located mainly in Catalonia. Subsequently, from the 1880s, the Catalan industry began a rapid process of mechanization, regaining part of its global prominence in the transformation of cork. This article explores the mechanization of the Portuguese cork industry with the objective, on the one hand, of understanding if there was a delay in relation to the Catalan process and, on the other hand, of tracing the technological modernization of the Portuguese cork industry within the general Picture of Portuguese industry.