La force motrice hydraulique au service du développement économique helvétique : L'exemple du réseau d'eau sous pression à Lausanne 1868-1914

The success story of hydroelectricity long influenced and dominated Swiss scholarly literature devoted to the history of technology. This means of conducting power, which emerged at the end of the 19th century and is still dominating today, has attracted much more attention than technologies that have been shadowed by its success. In spite of their important contribution to Swiss economic development, the distribution networks of pressurized water have been neglected by scholars. This article contributes to close this historiographic gap by analyzing the introduction of pressurized water distribution in 1876 in Lausanne, in the context of the building of the first Swiss cable funicular between Lausanne and Ouchy. This article shows how pressurized water distribution transformed socio-economic practices in the urban areas in which it was adopted. Indeed, this innovation, which allowed the use of distant hydraulic resources, enabled the rationalization of industrial and artisanal production as well as improved the density of the urban industrial base. By facilitating the introduction of electric lighting, pressurized water networks played a key role in the early development, and further successes, of the Swiss hydroelectric industry.

The hotel industry and its importance in the technical and economic development of a region : the Lake Geneva case (1852-1914)

The historiography dedicated to tourism has emphasised how some socio-economic evolutions such as urbanisation, mechanisation of transport or the advent of leisure time in society have supported pleasure trips and therefore the development of the hotel industry. On the contrary, the research has too often neglected or at least minimised the impact of the hotel sector on a region's development. This contribution seeks to fill this gap by analysing the Geneva Lake region, one of the most important birthplaces of the European tourism. In this space not much touched by the first industrial revolution, the hotel business has in fact played the role of an economic motor, stimulating investment and employment. This dynamism provoked a domino effect on several other sectors of the economy (industry, bulding sector, banking). To please their customers, the hoteliers have not only given impulses on housing modernisation, but also to the revitalisation of transport, energy and communication networks. The necessity to remain on the state-of-the-art of technical issues, with the concern of competitiveness, has called forth an acceleration of the technology transfer and stimulated the constitution of technical know-how.