The Industrial

Revolution

STARTS IN England

• 1760s - England

• Machines started taking the place of many hand tools

• Power of men and horses - replaced with flowing water,

water wheels, and steam engines

• Three major needs – Food, clothing & shelter

• Improvements in the Textile Industry - Clothing

Factories

• Factory Systems – Bringing workers and the machinery

together in one place.

• Disadvantage of building factories on rivers

• Dry season

• Water/rivers may not be close to a city

• Up-water rights – fighting over control of water

• Women and children used to run factory (Terrible Conditions)

• STEAM POWER

• Factory could now be in city without river/flowing water

• TOP SECRET – Britain tries to guard its industrial secrets

America

• Samuel Slater

• Apprentice of Arkwright

• Memorizes machinery and other details

• Immigrates to America

• Moses Brown

• Wealthy Rhode Island (RI) merchant

• Likes inventions / Has a crude textile mill

• Slater joins Brown – Reconstructs spinning machine (by memory)

• New factory starts creating cotton thread

Industrial Revolution Comes to America

http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/videos/the-industrial-revolition?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false

America

• War of 1812

• British blockades force America to depend on her own

resources. Creates a need for factory system in America.

• IMPROVING the English System

• Francis Cabot Lowell saw English factories

• Returned to American and creates factories

• NEW IDEA! Bring spinning & weaving into one factory

• LOWELL GIRLS

• Wanted improved labor conditions – Not like English factories

• Factories were staffed with young women from nearby farms

• Boarding houses – strict rules in place

• Lectures and libraries – Education

This chart shows the increase number of female and

male textile workers in Lowell from 1820 to 1879.

This chart shows the change in weekly wages for female

and male textile workers from 1824 to 1868.

FACTORY LIFE

• CHILD LABOR

• Textile Factories / Coal Mines / Steel Foundries

• Starting at 7-8 years of age

• No education opportunities

• Very dangerous conditions / many injuries

• 1880 – 1 million children between 10-15 worked for pay

• FACTORY CONDITIONS

• Poorly lighted / little fresh air

• Machines were unsafe – Easy to lose a hand/foot

• No help if you were injured – Let go!

• Workdays – 12-14 hours long

Child labor

"Two children I know got employment in a factory when they were five

years old… the spinning men or women employ children if they can get

a child to do their business... the child is paid one shilling or one

shilling and six pence, and they will take that (five year old) child before

they take an older one who will cost more." George Gould, a

Manchester merchant, written in 1816.

"The smallest child in the factories were scavengers... they go

under the machine, while it is going... it is very dangerous when

they first come, but they become used to it." Charles Aberdeen

worked in a Manchester cotton factory, written in 1832.

"We went to the mill at five in the morning. We worked until

dinner time and then to nine or ten at night; on Saturday it could

be till eleven and often till twelve at night. We were sent to clean

the machinery on the Sunday." Man interviewed in 1849 who had

worked in a mill as a child.

Inventions

PERSON INVENTION DATE

James Watt First reliable steam engine 1775

Eli Whitney Cotton Gin Interchangeable parts for muskets

1793 1798

Robert Fulton Regular Steamboat service on the Hudson River

1807

George Stephenson First Locomotive 1814

Samuel F. B. Morse Telegraph/Morse Code 1836

Elias Howe Sewing Machine 1844

Isaac Singer Improves and markets Howe's Sewing Machine

1851

1. Transportation was expanded.

2. Electricity was effectively harnessed.

3. Improvements were made to industrial processes.