The Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution?
• Sudden?
• Meaning?
• Costs vs. Benefits?
Economic Productivity
• Cotton textiles, iron, steam engine
Prerequisites
• Agricultural expansion
• Transportation
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct
Availability of Capital
• Empire matters
• Investors looking for solidity, not bubbles
• Reinvestment of profits
Inventiveness
• Inventors
• Attitude
• Enlightenment
Natural Resources
• Coal, iron, water
What made Britain different?
• Single common market
• Common coinage
• Common system of weights and measures
• No internal tolls
• Lack of regulation
Labor Mobility
• Geographically
• Socially
Dissenters’ Schools
• Modern curriculum
• Business open
Dissenting innovators
• Thomas Newcomen
• James Watt
Costs
• Old jobs lost
• Societal disruption (mass society)
• Emphasis on punctuality
• Consumer culture
• Pollution
Benefits
• Work load eases
• Material goods
Process vs. Span of Time
The Period
• Poverty just more noticeable?
• Population growth and urbanization
Conclusions
• Mechanical labor replaces human labor
• Change made permanent
• Expectation of progress
• Division of labor
• Socialism
• Science weds industry