INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (ENGLAND AND EUROPE IN 1800'S) -- LECTURE NOTES

Overall description and effects of the industrial revolution

  1. Revolution?
  2. In the long view of history, the onset of the industrial revolution happened very quickly
  3. Industry grew at 0.7% per year between 1700 and 1760
  4. Industry grew at 3% per year between 1801 and 1831
  5. The period of the Industrial Revolution is generally taken as 1780 to 1880 and occurred in stages across the world (chiefly Europe and America)
  6. Made changes in all types of society
  7. Had a major influence in changing governments and the way they treated people
  8. Description
  9. The division of labor had already occurred when people started to live in cities
  10. However, work was still principally done by hand and goods were made one at a time
  11. The industrial revolution occurred when machines were used in a coordinated way to make goods
  12. Impact
  13. May have had the most profound effect on humans since the beginning of agriculture at the beginnings of history
  14. Changed patterns of work
  15. Transformed social class structure
  16. Altered the international balance of political and military power
  17. Established European culture as the dominant culture of the world
  18. Allowed ordinary people to gain a higher standard of living
  19. The term "Industrial Revolution" was coined in 1830 (which shows that it was quickly recognized as a major change in English society)

Origins

  1. Factors in England that spawned the industrial revolution occurred after the American Revolution and mostly before the end of the 19th Century
  2. No civil strife or invading armies
  3. Relatively good and stable government that favored trade and commerce
  4. Laissez faire economic policy
  5. No internal tariffs to hinder trade (as opposed to France prior to 1789 and in the politically fragmented Germany and Italy)
  6. Strong and stable central bank to regulate the money supply along with good credit institutions
  7. The presence of a large middle class (developed through trade, banking, and light manufacturing from England's basic need for outside money to survive)
  8. The middle class had money in excess of that needed to simply buy food and survive and was, therefore, a growing market for goods
  9. The money of the middle and upper classes was available for capital investment in the new factories
  10. There was an attitude of praise and respect for people who made money (Note the excellent reception of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, 1776)
  11. A middle class was available to become the factory owners and managers
  12. A geography that encouraged trade
  13. Island nation
  14. Reputation and history for trade and commerce
  15. Most of the nations of Europe looked to London as a place to bank, get insurance, and market their goods and materials
  16. Portugal, for instance, shipped over £50,000 per week in Brazilian gold through London
  17. Everyone in England lived within 20 miles of a navigable river, thus providing easy transportation for imported goods to reach consumers
  18. Natural rivers were supplemented with canals (built in the 1770's)
  19. Good population growth
  20. A population that was mobile enough to be able to move into cities and work in the factories
  21. A population that had enough food, even with the low wages
  22. A tradition of strong experimental science and problem solving
  23. The Agricultural Revolution led to the conditions which engendered the Industrial Revolution
  24. The use of the steel plow and the horse caused great changes (late Middle Ages)
  25. More total land brought under cultivation
  26. Some was wild, hard soils
  27. Some was land reclaimed by drainage
  28. Crops rotated in a more systematic method (rather than fallowing)
  29. Heavy use of fertilizer (phosphorous and nitrogen)
  30. Yields improved (300% over 1700 to 1850 even though population in agriculture had increased only 14%)
  31. Principally important because the changes in agriculture accelerated economic growth
  32. The ability to grow crops on much larger pieces of land changed the village-centered pattern of living
  33. The Low Countries were the leaders in this area but the English copied them quickly
  34. The English lands were owned by large estate holders who could dictate rapid changes
  35. The peasant classes in the rest of Europe slowed adoption of changes
  36. Selective breeding of cattle (learned in the course of breeding race horses)
  37. Enclosure of lands (fencing) protected the land that was being highly developed
  38. The conversion of a common village pasture into fenced land removed the ability to graze cattle and earn a little extra money
  39. This led to high costs of survey and fencing that forced many small landholders to sell to their more wealthy neighbors
  40. A class of mobile, agricultural workers was created (worked for wages rather than ownership/profits)
  41. Growth of foreign trade
  42. Aggressive pursuit of foreign colonies for economic purposes
  43. Settlement rather than exploitation (Jamestown) gave more stability
  44. Companies formed which financed these colonies (Sir Walter Raleigh, the East India Company, the Hudson Bay Company)
  45. Dramatic increase in the number and size of ships
  46. The English were behind the Dutch and so they (the English) tried harder
  47. Ships built for both trade and warfare in England
  48. Successful wars and foreign conquests
  49. War with the Dutch (1600's)
  50. Fought 3 Anglo-Dutch wars to counteract the Dutch thrusts in foreign trade
  51. These wars hurt the Dutch more than they did the English
  52. War with the French (1700's)
  53. After the Dutch were defeated (or at least slowed down), the French were the major force to be dealt with
  54. The War of Spanish Succession hurt the French and the Spanish and gained key colonial territories for the English (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Hudson Bay territory, West Africa)
  55. The Seven Years' War gained all of France's New World and Indian possessions for England
  56. Napoleonic wars
  57. None were fought on British soil
  58. Britain gained land as a result of the wars
  59. British navy emerged as the most powerful in the world
  60. Land and wealth in North America
  61. Large population increases because of the free land that was available
  62. Gave England a ready market for goods

Manufacturing

  1. Textiles
  2. The Industrial Revolution became centered in Manchester, the center of the textiles industry
  3. Prior to the advent of the Industrial Revolution textiles were a family enterprise
  4. 4 to 5 spinners needed to keep one weaver busy
  5. This imbalance was especially true after the fly-shuttle was invented
  6. Unemployed and widows (spinsters) were used to supplement what a family could spin
  7. Internal trade was stimulated by people traveling to try and secure more thread
  8. Cotton provided a material for which spinning methods could be improved
  9. Cotton was being imported from India
  10. Wool and flax were not strong enough to withstand many of the spinning wheel improvements
  11. James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in 1767
  12. Hand powered machine
  13. Able to spin up to 24 spools of cotton simultaneously
  14. Richard Arkwright invented the water frame spinning machine about 1769
  15. Able to spin over a hundred spools of cotton of better strength and better fineness than on spinning wheels
  16. Could not be powered by hand and so water power was used
  17. Samuel Crompton combined the best features of the jenny and the water frame into the spinning mule (1779)
  18. Productivity increased to over 100 times as much as the spinning wheel
  19. Quickly led to specialized mills that used the water power systems that were needed
  20. These mills each employed hundreds of people
  21. The skills of weavers suddenly became critical since thread was now in excess
  22. Prices of cotton cloth dropped since every household could find enough thread
  23. Weaver wages rose dramatically since mills began to weave their own cloth
  24. Many of the agricultural workers (who were paid wages) moved to cities and became weavers
  25. Mechanical power looms increased the output of the weavers (invented in 1785, but they didn't work well until after 1800)
  26. Jacquard looms
  27. Invented by Joseph-Marie Jacquard, a Frenchman (1801)
  28. Used wooden cards with holes to prevent or allow movement of needles, thus controlling the weave pattern
  29. Precursor to IBM punch cards
  30. By 1831 over 22% of the entire industrial production of England was due to textiles
  31. Working conditions in the factories
  32. Very poor, especially when compared to the cottage industry conditions (work at home)
  33. Factories turned to children, especially orphans, to supply the labor
  34. Luddites (1811)
  35. Handicraftsmen who were displaced by machines
  36. Organized together to try and stop further industrialization
  37. Masked night raids with much equipment destroyed
  38. Mass trial in 1813 resulting in numerous hangings and deportations

Energy and Transportation

  1. Early sources for energy were animal power and plants (burning)
  2. This situation limited the amount of production since the animals usually required humans on a direct and nearly one-to-one basis
  3. Methods to transport energy were futile
  4. Water emerged as a source of energy
  5. Water mills had been in widespread use since the late Middle Ages
  6. England had water capacity but was quickly using up the available space on rivers with sufficient elevation drop to run the mills
  7. The iron industry reached an energy crisis
  8. Iron production used lots of wood (for burning and to make charcoal)
  9. England had long since cut down its trees and made farms
  10. Coal became the energy source
  11. Coal was needed in large supplies and so the mines were dug deeper and deeper
  12. The mines often filled with water
  13. 75% of patents issued in England for 100 years previously were connected to the coal industry and 14% were devoted solely to draining the mines
  14. Pumps were installed but they were powered by horses (over 500 horses were used in one mine during this time)
  15. Steam pumps developed for the mines
  16. Savery (1698) and Newcomen (1705) invented the first primitive steam engine pumps
  17. James Watt vastly improved the steam engine efficiency (1763)
  18. Added a separate condenser so that the condenser could stay hot
  19. Watt secured financing and formed a company to make steam engines
  20. Steam engines were widely applied to many industrial situations, including textiles and iron
  21. The steam engine was used to power the iron rolling mills
  22. A conversion from wood to coal (coke) gave the iron industry its needed raw materials since England was almost out of trees
  23. The iron industry boomed (an increase from 17,000 tons in 1740 to 3,000,000 in 1844)
  24. Steam engines allowed factories to be built anywhere, with dependence on water availability
  25. Railroads
  26. Steam power applied to coaches, especially for freight transportation
  27. Rails were laid as the logical solution
  28. Roads were generally not adequate to support continued use of the heavy cars needed for freight transportation
  29. Railroads were built throughout England and were immediately profitable
  30. The railroads brought reliability to freight transportation
  31. The railroads expanded the markets that could be served by a factory
  32. People were able to commute and so large urban centers were created
  33. Other industries
  34. Grow in textiles let to factories for dyeing and bleaching compounds and soap
  35. Metalworking increased as the supply of iron improved
  36. Pottery (Wedgewood, Twyfords, Doulton) in the mid-lands where clay was especially good quality

England versus continental Europe

  1. By 1860 England was producing 20% of the industrial goods of the entire world
  2. England's gross national product rose 4x between 1780 to 1851
  3. Population in England increased from 9 to 21 million in that time frame
  4. Several British inventors took their technology to continental Europe and licensed it and supervised the building of factories to use it but these were often considered to be anti-British so there was a reluctance to take too much technology abroad
  5. Belgium was the first continental country to adopt Britain's industrialization
  6. Belgium had large coal and iron resources
  7. Belgium was a new nation (created after Napoleon's defeat) and was anxious to succeed in the world
  8. Germany established iron factories and woolen weavers, especially in the Saxony and Silesia areas where raw materials were plentiful but was much slower than England in developing industry
  9. France was much slower to industrialize
  10. No tradition of money making
  11. France was much larger than England and had fewer navigable rivers and poorer roads
  12. France's government was not as progressive in supporting commerce
  13. France had fewer coal deposits
  14. The French Revolution and its chaotic aftermath in France slowed any progress and ate up capital
  15. Major inventions/discoveries
  16. Photography -- Daguerre (1839)
  17. Radioactivity -- Becqueral and Curie (1890's)
  18. Mechanization
  19. Internal combustion engine -- Lenoir (1860)
  20. 4-stroke combustion engine -- Otto (1876)
  21. Automobile -- Benz (1885)

Creativity and the Industrial Revolution

  1. The technology of the Industrial Revolution seemed to build on itself, it this characteristic of other creative periods or just those linked to technology?
  2. How is technological creativity different from and similar to artistic creativity?
  3. Are technically innovative people different from artistically creative people?
  4. What role does training serve in both types of creativity?
  5. How should technological creativity be directed or controlled?
  6. Were the Luddites wrong in method? (Unabomber)
  7. Were the Luddites wrong in concept?
  8. Is it OK to censor creativity in technology but not in the arts?