7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

1/9

Sp. Ch.20 562-9

Chapter 20: The Industrial Revolution and its Impact on European Society

The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain

I.By 1850, the Industrial Revolution had made Great Britain the wealthiest countryin theworld; it had also spread to the New World.Origins

I.A number of factors coalesced in Britain to produce the first Industrial Revolution. Oneof these was the agricultural revolution of the 18thc.A.The changes in the methods of farming and stock breeding that characterized thisagricultural transformation led to a significant in food production. British agriculturecould now feed more people at lower prices w/less labor.B.Unlike the rest of Europe, even ordinary British families did not have to use mo

st oftheir incomes to buy food, giving them the potential to purchase manufacturedgoods. At the same time, a rapid growth of population in the 2nd of the centuryprovided a pool of surplus labor for the emerging factories.Supply of Capital

I.Britain had a recent supply of capital for investment in the new industrial machines andthe factories that were needed to house them.A.In addition to profits from trade and the cottage industry, Britain possessed an

effective central bank and credit facilities. Nowhere in Europe were people soaccustomed to using paper instruments to facilitate capital transactions.Early Industrial Entrepreneurs

I.Britain had a fair number of individuals who were interested in making profits if theopportunity presented itself. No doubt the English revolutions of the 17thc hadhelpedcreate an environment in Britain, unlike that of the absolutist states on the Continent,where political power rested in the hands of a progressive group of people who favored

innovation in economic matters.II.The early industrial entrepreneurs faced considerable financial hazards.Mineral Resources

I.Britain had made ample supplies of important mineral resources, such as coal andironore, needed in the manufacturing process.II.

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

2/9

Britain was also fairly small, and the short distances made transportation easier.III.From the mid-17thc onward, both private and public investment poured into theconstruction of new bridges, roads, and canals.A.Unlike the Continental countries, Britain had no internal customs barriers to hinderdomestic travel.Role of Government

I. Britains government also played a significant role in the process of industrialization.A.Parliament contributed to the favorable business climate by providing a stablegovernment and passing laws that protected private property.B.Britain was remarkable for the freedom it provided for private enterprise. It placedfewer restrictions on private entrepreneurs than any other European state.Markets

I.A supply of markets gave British industrialists a ready outlet for their manufac

turedgoods.A.In the course of its 18thc wars and conquests, Great Britain had developed a vastcolonial empire at the expense of its leading Continental rivals, the Dutch Republicand France.B.Britain also possessed a well-developed merchant marine that was able to transportgoods anywhere in the world.II.

A crucial factor in Britains successful industrialization was the ability to produce cheaplythe articles most in demand abroad.III.Britain had the highest standard of living in Europe and a rapidly growing population.

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

3/9

IV.This demand from both domestic and foreign markets and the inability of the oldsystemto fulfill it led entrepreneurs to seek and adopt the new methods of manufacturing that aseries of inventions provided. In doing so, these individuals initiated the IndustrialRevolution.Technological Changes and New Forms of Industrial Organization

I.In the 1770s and 1780s, the cotton textile industry took the first major step toward theIndustrial Revolution w/the creation of the modern factory.The Cotton Industry

I.There were shortages of yarn in England until James Hargreavess spinning jennyenabled spinners to produce yarn in greater quantities. Richard Arkwrights waterframespinning machine, and Samuel Cromptons mule, which combined aspects of the waterframe and the spinning jenny, increased yarn production even more. EdmundCartwrights power loom allowed the weaving of cloth to catch up w/the spinning of

yarn.A.Even then, early power looms were grossly inefficient, enabling home-based loom-weavers to continue to prosper until the mid 1820s. After that, they were graduallyreplaced by new machines.B.The water frame, Cromptons mule, and power looms presented new opportunities toentrepreneurs. It was much more efficient to bring workers to the machines andorganize their labor collectively in factories located next to rivers and streams than toleave them dispersed in their cottages.

C.The concentration of labor in the new factories also brought the laborers and theirfamilies to live in the new towns that rapidly grew up around the factories.II.The new devices used to speed up the process of spinning and weaving were the productsof weavers and spinners. But the subsequent expansion of the cotton industry andtheongoing demand for even more cotton goods created additional pressure for new andmore complicated technology.A.

The invention that pushed the cotton industry to even greater heights of productivitywas the steam engine.The Steam Engine

I.The steam engine revolutionized the production of cotton goods and allowed the factorysystem to spread to other areas of production, thereby securing whole new industries. The

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

4/9

steam engine thus ensured the triumph of the Industrial Revolution.A.B/c steam engines were fired by coal, they did not need to be located near rivers;entrepreneurs now had greater flexibility in their choice of location.II.The new boost given to textile production by technological changes became readilyapparent.A.By 1760, Britain had imported 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton, which was farmedout to the cottage industries. In 1787, the British imported 22 million pounds ofcotton, most of it was spun on machines, some powered by water in large mills. By1840, 366 million pounds of cotton were imported.B.By this time, most cotton industry employees worked in factories. British goodsweresold everywhere in the world.C.In Britain itself, cheap cotton cloth made it possible for millions of poor people to

wear undergarments. Cotton clothing was tough, comfortable, cheap, and easilywashable.III.The steam engine proved indispensable. The steam engine was a tireless source ofpowerand depended on for fuel on a substancecoalthat seemed unlimited.A.The success of the steam engine led to a need for more coal and an expansion incoalproduction; b/w 1815 and 1850, the output of coal quadrupled. In turn, the newprocesses using coal furthered the development of the iron industry.The Iron Industry

I. The British iron industry was radically transformed during the Industrial Revolution.

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

5/9

A.Britain had large resources of iron ore, but at the beginning of the 18thc, thebasicprocess of producing iron had altered little since the Middle Ages and still dependedheavily on charcoal.B.In the early 18thc, new methods of smelting iron ore to produce cast iron weredevised, based on the use of coke derived from coal.C.Still, a better quality of iron was not possible until the 1780s, when Henry Cortdeveloped a system called puddling in which coke was used to burn away impuritiesin pig iron to produce an iron of high quality.D.A boom then ensued in the British iron industry. In 1740, Britain produced 17,000tons of iron; in the 1780s, almost 70,000 tons; by the 1840s, over 2 million tons; andby 1852, almost 3 million tons.II.The development of the iron industry was in many ways a response to the demand f

or thenew machines.A.The high-quality wrought iron produced by the Cort process made it the most widelyused metal until the production of cheaper steel in the 1860s.B.The growing supply of less costly metal encouraged the use of machinery in otherindustries, most noticeably in the new means of transportation.A Revolution in Transportation

I.

The 18thc had witnessed as expansion of transportation facilities in Britain asentrepreneurs realized the need for more efficient means of moving resources andgoods.II.The railways got their start in mining operations in Germany and British coal mines. Bythe early 19thc, railwaysstill dependent on horsepowerwere common in Britishmining and industrial districts. The development of the steam engine led to a radicaltransformation of the railways.III.The engines of George Stephenson proved superior, and it was in their workshopsthat the

1st modern railways of Britain were built.A.Stephensons Rocket was used on the 1st public railway line. Within 20 years,locomotives had reached 50 miles/hour.B.During the same period, new companies were formed to build additionalrailroads as the infant industry proved successful technically and financially.III. The railroad contributed significantly to the maturing of the Industrial Revolution.A.

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

6/9

The railroads demands for coal and iron furthered the growth of those industries.B.British supremacy in civil and mathematical engineering was in large based on theskills acquired in railway building.C.The huge capital demands necessary for railway construction encouraged a wholenew group of middle class investors to invest their money in joint-stock companies.IV.Railway construction created new job opportunities, especially for farm laborersandpeasants.A.A cheaper and faster means of transportation had a rippling effect on the growthofthe industrial economy. By reducing the prices of goods, larger markets were created;increased sales necessitated more factories and more machinery, thereby reinforcingthe self-sustaining nature of the Industrial Revolution, which marked a fundamentalbreak w/the traditional European economy.

B.The great productivity of the Industrial Revolution enabled entrepreneurs to reinvesttheir profits in new capital equipment, further expanding the productive capacity ofthe economy.C.Continuous, even rapid, self-sustaining economic growth became a fundamentalcharacteristic of the new industrial economy.The Industrial Factory

I.Initially the product of the cotton industry, the factory became the chief means

oforganizing labor for the new machines.

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

7/9

A.As the workplace shifted from the artisans shop to the factory, the latter was notviewed as just a larger working unit. Employers hired workers who no longer ownedthe means of production but were simply paid wages to run machines.II.From its beginning, the factory system demanded a new type of discipline from itsemployees.A.Factory owners could not afford to let their machinery stand idle. Workers wereforced to work regular hours and in shifts to keep the machines producing at a steadypace for maximum output. This represented a massive adjustment for early factoryworkers.III.Factory owners had to create a system of time-work discipline that would accustom theworkers to working regular hours during which time they preformed a series of tasks asefficiently as possible.

A.Factory regulations were minute and detailed. Employers found that dismissals andfines worked well for adult employees; in a time when great population growth hadproduced large numbers of unskilled workers, dismissal could be disastrous.IV.The efforts of factory owners in the early Industrial Revolution to impose a newset ofvalues were frequently reinforced by the new evangelical churches.A.Methodism in particular emphasized that the people reborn in Jesus must forgoimmoderation and follow a disciplined path. Laziness and wasteful habits were

sinful.B.The acceptance of hardship in life paved the way for the joys of the next.C.Evangelical values paralleled the efforts of the new factory owners to instill laborersw/their own middle-class values of hard work, discipline, and thrift.Britains Great Exhibition of 1851

I.In 1851, the British organized the worlds first industrial fair. It was housed inthe CrystalPalace, an enormous structure made entirely of glass and iron, a tribute to Brit

ishengineering skills.A.It contained 100,000 exhibits that showed the wide variety of products created by theIndustrial Revolution.B.The Great Exhibition displayed Britains wealth to the world; it was a giganticsymbol of British success.III.

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

8/9

By the year of the Great Exhibition, Great Britain had became the worlds first industrialnation and its wealthiest.A.It produced of the worlds coal and manufactured goods.B.Britains certainty about its mission in the world in the 19thc was grounded in itsincredible material success.

7/29/2019 5196451-sp-ch-20

9/9