Mora 1

Jeyden Mora
Block 6
Comp. Bus. App.
10 Nov. 2015
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution came gradually. It happened in a short span of time; however,
people had worked entirely by hand. John Kay invented the flying shuttle in 1733 and James
Hargreaves the spinning jenny 31 years later, but before that, the manufacturing of yarn and the
weaving of cloth was pretty much the same for thousands of years. By 1800, new and faster
processes were in use in both manufacture and transportation. Children were hired to work in
these factories at a very low wage. They worked up to 12-hour shifts, the same as an average
adult worker during that time.
The Industrial revolution paved the way to more importing and exporting, since it started
in England, and gradually expanded to the U.S., and eventually to the rest of Western Europe.
English merchants were leaders in developing a commerce which increased the demand for more
goods. The expansion in trade made it possible to accumulate capital to invest in industry. A
cheaper system of production had grown up which was largely free from regulation.
In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, resulting in a much faster way of cleaning
cotton before the Industrial Revolutions factory boom took place.