Industrial Revolution

Mechanization, Urban Growth, Proletarianization,

Consumption
 Origins
• Agricultural revolution
– Horse and steel plow
– Fertilizer use
– Yields improved 300% 1700-1850
• Growth of foreign trade for manufactured goods
– Foreign colonies
– Increase in ships and size
• Successful wars and foreign conquest
 Origins – Why England?
• Factors in England
– No civil strife
– Government favored trade
– Laissez faire
– Large middle class
– Island geography
– Mobile population
– Everyone lived within 20 miles of
navigable river
– Tradition of experimental science
– Weak guilds
"What were the factors that already marked Britain, rather than any other European
country, as the destined first home of the industrial revolution? The answer lies partly
in things remote from technology, such as the religious freedom which brought in the
Huguenots and other refugees with their numerous arts and encouraged the native
Puritan capitalist. There was the confident attitude natural to an island people that had
ceased...to reckon seriously with the prospect of invasion. The island possessed a
valuable stimulus to trade in its long coastline and frequent navigable rivers…

Moreover, the Act of Union in 1707 had made Britain into a single economic unit long
before any other area of comparable wealth and resources had ceased to be divided by
numerous customs barriers. But even with the addition of the Scots, the smallness of
the population as compared with the French gave at the same time an important
incentive to the use of labor-saving devices. Lastly, there was the plentifulness and
accessibility of coal in the island."

– T.K. Derry and T. I. Williams, A Short History of Technology

"In most of Europe, then, craft guilds eventually
became responsible for a level of regulation that
stifled competition and innovation. They did this
by laying down meticulous rules about three
elements of production that we might term 'the
three p's': prices, procedures, and participation."

– Mokyr, Joel, The Gifts of Athena, Princeton

University Press, 2002, p.259.
"The weak position of the guilds in Britain in the
eighteenth century can go some way in explaining
the series of technological successes we usually
refer to as the British Industrial Revolution and
why it occurred in Britain rather than on the
European continent, although clearly this was only
one of many variables at work."

– Mokyr, Joel, The Gifts of Athena, Princeton

University Press, 2002, p.260.
 Mechanization
• During the first half of the
19th century, the European
manufacturing process
shifted from small-scale
production by hand at home
to large-scale production by
machine in a factory setting.
 Manufacturing
• Textiles
– 4-5 spinners per weaver

Flying Shuttle
 Manufacturing Textiles
• Cotton gave stronger
fibers
• Invention of Spinning
Jenny
– Demand for skilled
weavers
• Mechanical looms (flying
shuttle)
• Jacquard looms
 Richard Arkwright – 1771
• Invents the spinning water frame
• Constructs the first spinning factory
– Realized that several machines could be linked to
create a factory
– Needed water power to turn the machines (water
wheel expert)
– Needed gears (watchmaker)
The creation of the first spinning factory
was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
 Edmund Cartwright–1787
• Power loom factory
 Manufacturing Textiles
• Jacquard looms
 Manufacturing Negatives
• Poor working conditions
• Children supplied labor
• Luddites
– Handicraftsman replaced
by machine
– Organized to stop
industrialization
Energy and Transportation
• Animal power and plant burning
• Water emerged as energy source
• Iron industry energy crisis
– Lack of wood
– Coal discovered
– Steam pumps for mines
• Steam engines
• Railroads
"Newcomen's engine consisted mainly of a large, vertical piston and
a beam that rocked back and forth on a central support like a giant
seesaw. The piston sat several feet below one end of the beam,
attached to it by a chain. Each time the piston moved downward, it
would pull down on that end of the rocking beam, forcing the other
end up. The opposite end was attached to a suction pump, similar
to the hand-operated pumps you still see on come old water wells,
and each downstroke of the piston would bring gallons of water
gushing up through a pipe from the mine below."

– Pool, Robert, Beyond Engineering, Oxford

University Press, 1997, p. 122.
"When the steam flowed in under the rising piston [of the
Newcomen engine], Watt realized, all but a fraction of it condensed
immediately because the surrounding cylinder–having just been
cooled by a jet of water–was at a relatively low temperature. This
meant that several times as much steam was used–and several
times as much fuel was consumed–as was theoretically sufficient to
fill the piston on each stroke... Watt suddenly realized how to fix the
problem: build a machine with a condensing chamber separate from
the cylinder and keep the two at different temperatures."

– Pool, Robert, Beyond Engineering, Oxford

University Press, 1997, p.124-125.
England vs. Continental Europe
England vs. Continental Europe
• Produced 20% of • Belgium’s coal and
industrial goods iron resources
• Gross national • Germany iron and
product rose 4x wool factories
• Population increase • France slow to
• Inventors took industrialize
inventions abroad • Mechanization
came but late
 Effects of the Industrial Revolution

• What was the industrial revolution?

– Machines coordinated to make goods
– Energy from non-animal sources
– Industry grew 4 times faster
• Changed all aspects of society
– Most profound effect since agriculture
– Government change
• Political and military balance
• Europe as dominant power
– Transformed social classes
– Higher standard of living for most
Effects of the Industrial Revolution
Effects of the Industrial Revolution
 At the Expense of Workers
• The shift meant high quality products at
competitive prices, but often at the expense of
workers. For example, the raw wool and cotton
that fed the British textile mills came from:
– Lands converted from farming to sheep
raising, leaving farm workers without jobs
– The southern plantations of the United
States, which were dependent upon slave
labor
 Urban Growth
• Those who could no longer
make a living on the land
migrated from the countryside to
the cities to seek work in the
factories.

1850: Population Living in Cities

 Population Growth
• At the same time, the
population of Europe
continued to grow.
 The Plight of the Cities
• The sheer number of human beings put
pressure on city resources:
– Housing, water, sewers, food supplies,
and lighting were completely
inadequate.
– Slums grew and disease, especially
cholera, ravaged the population.
– Crime increased and became a way of
life for those who could make a living in
no other way.
Conditions in the Countryside
• The only successful farmers were
those with large landholdings who
could afford agricultural innovations.
• Most peasants:
– Didn’t have enough land to support
themselves
– Were devastated by poor harvests
(e.g., the Irish Potato Famine of
1845-47)
– Were forced to move to the cities to
find work in the factories.
 The Role of the Railroads
• The railroads, built during the 1830s and
1840s:
– Enabled people to leave the place of
their birth and migrate easily to the
cities.
– Allowed cheaper and more rapid
transport of raw materials and finished
products.
– Created an increased demand for iron
and steel and a skilled labor force.
 The Labor Force
• No single description could include all of these
19th century workers:
– Factory workers
– Urban artisans
– Domestic system craftsmen
– Household servants
– Miners
– Countryside peddlers
– Farm workers
– Railroad workers
• Variations in duties, income, and working
conditions made it difficult for them to unite.
 The Condition of Labor
• All working people, however, faced
possible unemployment, with little or no
provision for security.
• In addition, they were subject to various
kinds of discipline:
– The closing of factory gates to late
workers
– Fines for tardiness
– Dismissal for drunkenness
– Public censure for poor quality
workmanship
– Beatings for non-submissiveness
 Proletarianization
• During the century, factory workers
underwent a process of
proletarianization (i.e., they lost
control of the means of production).
• Factory owners provided the financial
capital to construct the factory, to
purchase the machinery, and to
secure the raw materials.
• The factory workers merely
exchanged their labor for wages.
Family Structures Changed
• With the decline of the domestic system and
the rise of the factory system, family life
changed.
– At first, the entire family, including the
children, worked in the factory, just as
they had at home.
– Later, family life became fragmented (the
father worked in the factory, the mother
handled domestic chores, the children
went to school).
Family as a Unit of Consumption
• In short, the European
family changed from
being a unit of
production and
consumption to being a
unit of consumption
alone.
 Gender-Determined Roles
• That transformation prepared the way for
gender-determined roles.
– Women came to be associated with
domestic duties, such as housekeeping,
food preparation, child rearing and
nurturing, and household management.
– The man came to be associated almost
exclusively with breadwinning.