The Industrial Revolution

Day 33-36McKay 725-750, Palmer 11.52

Industrial Revolution

1763 1769 1775 1780 1798 1812 1830 1841 1851

Treaty of Paris end 7 Years’

War

James Watt

invents Steam Engine

Hargreave’s invents

Spinning Jenny (1765)

Population explosion

begins in GB

Industrial Revolution

Begins

American Revolution

Begins

Luddites Revolt

Malthus, Essay on

the Principle of Population

List’s National

System of Political

Economy-Mines Act

(1842)

Industrial Rev. begins

on Continent

(1815)

Factory Act (1833)

Great Exhibition in Crystal

Palace

Domestic System

Second Industrial R

evolution

What do you need to have an Industrial Revolution?

• Stable food base

• Workers

• Wealthy, entrepreneurial class

• Stable/ business-friendly government

• Right geography/ resources

• Technological breakthroughs

• OR

• Autocratic Totalitarian Dictatorship

Big Ideas• Industrial Revolution defined

– transition from hand produced, animal powered manufacturing to machine produced, coal powered manufacturing

• Where?– England 1st

– Continental Europe after 1815• Characteristics & Effects

– Urbanization• Rapid Growth in cities

– horrible housing, working, living conditions until after 1850• Manchester = “Cottonopolis”

– Transportation via RR– Social Revolution

• Bourgeoisie v Proletariat– Growth of Isms

• Romanticism, Nationalism, Socialsim, Liberlism, Conservatism, Communism

Why did it begin in Great Britain?• Geography

– No part of GB further than 20 miles from H2O

– Canal network enhanced water transportation (after 1770s)

• Natural Resources – Iron & coal deposits

• Stable/ Business Friendly government– Laissez Faire

• Allowed for innovation, person initiative

– Strong Central Bank and Credit– No internal tariffs– Wealthy, innovative commercial class

• Agriculture Revolution– Low prices for food– More disposable income – Large mobile labor force

• Enclosure Acts (18th and 19th Centuries)– Series of laws pushed through

Parliament during late 1700s & 1800s which ended Open Field system

– Landowners evicted tenant farmers– Joining the strips of the open fields

to make larger compact units of land and fenced or “enclosed” land into one unified farm

– Landowners often experimented with new, more efficient ways of farming

– Jethrow Tull• Advocated drilling seed• Better husbandry of horses

• By 1870 English farmer produced 300% more than 1700

• Displaced tenant farmers flocked to cities seeking work

The Agricultural Revolution in Britain

The Gleaners (1857)Jean-François Millet

Industrialization in Britain: Incentives and Inventions

• England had new colonial markets, control of seas

• Profit, Profit, Profit fueled the search for more rapid methods of production

– Ie. Woolen had been a staple export – but more production possibilities

were limited (under the Domestic System)

• Cotton Textiles more comfortable but costly before late 1700s

• Wealthy land owners (from enclosure) could afford to divert some profits to experimenting with industry

• Only a country already wealthy from commerce and agriculture could have been the first to initiate the machine age

• But to make the leap from the domestic system to the factory system requires a technological leap

Inventions in textiles• Flying Shuttle

• John Kay in 1733 made machine that required 1 not 2 to weave cloth on loom

• created strong demand for yarn• Spinning Jenny

– invented in 1760s allowed yarn production to increase

– James Hagreaves (hand powered)– Richard Arkwright (water powered) to

operate jennies– Could spin many threads at a time,

stronger– A female dominated job– jennies overwhelmed loomers with yarn

• Power Looms– Watered powered machines displaced

weavers • Mill (factory) had to be located near

water source• BUT now supply of raw cotton could not meet

demand• UNTIL

Developments in Textiles• Cotton Gin

– Eli Whitney was a Conn tutor

– While in a Georgia plantation invented a Cotton ‘engine’ to separate seeds from cotton in 1790

– Expands cotton industry & slavery in South

– 1820 makes up half of British exports (cotton textiles)

– Also led to great expansion in the slave trade (in US)

Steam Power• Steam Engine

– Invented by Puritan Thomas Newcomen

• Powered water pump for coal mine in 1705

– Considered inefficient & a coal guzzler

• James Watt – Father of the Factory System– Perfected Newcomen’s engine– Worked on Un. Of Glasgow

Newcomen engine 1763 – Newcomen’s wasted 3/4th of its

energy– Came up with idea to use 2 piston

chambers– Utilized John Wilkinson’s new method

for boring holes for cannons• Watt’s engine used 1/4th energy

– more efficient engine for factories

English inventor Thomas Newcomen built the first successful steam engine in 1712. It was used to pump water out of mines.

Railroads• Horse/canals had been used for

heavy freight– Slow, expensive, limited market

potential• Rails had been used in mines to

reduce friction• George Stephenson 1829

– Created the “Rocket” locomotive on Liverpool and Manchester Railway (only reached 16 mph)

• Significance– Reduced cost/time of shipping– Broadened markets– Encouraged larger factories– Workers who built RR usually

settled in city and became factory workers

Joseph MW Turner (1775-1851) 

BBC - History - 'Stephenson's Rocket' Animation

Early Factory Workers• Worst working conditions in pre

1850 period (in England)• Factory owners used orphaned

or abandoned children– Parish officers “apprenticed” them

out– 5-6 years of age– Provided food, shelter, “schooling”– 14 hour days with no pay– Brutal discipline– Very dangerous conditions– 5 AM to 7 PM– Treated worse than West Indian

slaves (by some accounts)A young "drawer" pulling a coal tub up a mine shaft

Early Factory Work Continued• Easily replaceable• Brutal life in factory illustrated by A

Memoir of Robert Blincoe – Worked as an "indentured servant to

cotton manufacturer in 1799– Told he would be fed ”roast beef &

plum pudding” ride horses, make lots of $

– Noted 14 hr, 6 day a week– Severe treatment even with injury (he

lost a finger)• Had teeth filed, hung by wrists

over machine (had to keep his legs up or else)

– No pay as owners believed they were serving the nation by providing room and board

• Robert Owens Testimony (see page 746)

• John Brown, A Memoir of Robert Blincoe (1828)

A girl named Mary Richards, who was thought remarkably handsome when she left the workhouse, and, who was not quite ten years of age, attended a drawing frame, below which, and about a foot from the floor, was a horizontal shaft, by which the frames above were turned. It happened one evening, when her apron was caught by the shaft. In an instant the poor girl was drawn by an irresistible force and dashed on the floor. She uttered the most heart-rending shrieks! Blincoe ran towards her, an agonized and helpless beholder of a scene of horror. He saw her whirled round and round with the shaft - he heard the bones of her arms, legs, thighs, etc. successively snap asunder, crushed, seemingly, to atoms, as the machinery whirled her round, and drew tighter and tighter her body within the works, her blood was scattered over the frame and streamed upon the floor, her head appeared dashed to pieces - at last, her mangled body was jammed in so fast, between the shafts and the floor, that the water being low and the wheels off the gear, it stopped the main shaft. When she was extricated, every bone was found broken - her head dreadfully crushed. She was carried off quite lifeless.

Impact of Industrialization• Urbanization• Cities grew rapidly

– Grew from 10 mil in 1750 to 30 mil in 1850 (England and Ireland)

– with coal and iron in Midlands and north new cities rose• Manchester

and Birmingham

• New social paradigm emerged– Individuals became members of economically

determined classes (instead of socially determined) whose class had conflicting interests with other classes

– Marx called this “class consciousness”– Factory owners

• Bourgeoisie (in Marxist language)• Often Presbyterians, Quakers, & other

dissenters(Calvinistic) excluded from life of landed gentry

• By 1830 leading industrialist were well educated, highly class conscious class

• Investment in factory system was in no way a sure thing

• Constant battle to cut costs & stay in business

• Increasingly excluded their wives and daughters from business

• Women should enhance their femininity, be good wife and mother

Impact of Industrialization

Reactions to Industrialism• Luddites

– Name for a secret reactionary group of weavers whose jobs were displaced by Wm Cartwright’s power loom

– Attempted to destroy machines in hope of halting mechanization

– Named for legendary figure Ned Ludd who had destroyed stocking-knitting machine

• 150 killed by gov. troops 4/11/1812 at Cartwright’s mill

• Frame Breaking Act of 1812 made industrial sabotage a capital crime

Manchester• Poster city for the ills of

industrialization• Population

– 1772= 25,000 by 1851= 455,000• No legal status (had no legal

method of incorporating cities until 1835)– IE. No representation in

Parliament– Yet “rotten boroughs” did

• This created problems providing public services to rapidly growing urbanization

• Dirty, dark, sooty, drab, cloudy climate

• Tenements, entire families in 1 room, swarming with ragged children (who had nicknames only)

Manchester, England ("Cottonopolis"), pictured in 1840, showing the mass of factory chimneys

Manchester (1650)

View from Kersal Moor towards Manchester by Thomas Pether, circa 1820. The town was primarily a rural landscape just before the onset of the Industrial Revolution

Manchester (1801)

Manchester from Kersal Moor, by William Wyld in 1857, a town now dominated by chimney stacks as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution

Experiences of the workers• Were the conditions of the workers

worse?• Yes (during Early Industrial Rev)• Purchasing power remained same

until 1820• Food prices rose faster than wages• By 1850 there was significant

economic improvement for workers

• BUT• Workers worked more hours

– 250 days per year (1760)– 300 days per year (1830) – Averaged 11 hr. work day

• Diets improved– Potatoes, fruits, dairy products

more available• Clothing improved

– underwear, cotton• BUT Housing deteriorated

A Punch cartoon of 1844 entitled Capital and Labour contrasts the luxurious life of a mineowner with the harsh working conditions in the pits. Although the Industrial Revolution brought Britain as a whole greater material prosperity, it also caused massive social upheavals

Changing working conditions/Family structure • Putting Out system (17th century-early

1800s)• Completed in spurts• “Saint Mondays” was informal day off• End of week family pulled “all-nighter”

to meet Saturday deadline• Involved entire family unit

– Males were weavers– Females spinners– Children cleaned wool/cotton– Allowed nursing mothers flexibility

• Monotony of factory system unattractive– Could only get poor and orphaned

children• 1802 law forbade the use of pauper

children

• Factory System (1790-1832)• Family economic unit was retained in the

mills– Mill owners bargained with head of family

& paid him for work of entire family• Mines

– Men hewed coal, women hauled it, children sorted it

– Allowed parents to continue to raise children

• Testimony of Robert Owen and other reformers led to changes

• Factory Act of 1833– Limited workday for 9-13 year olds to 8

hours– 14-18 to twelve– Elementary school required for children

under 9 (paid for by factory owner)– Led to rapid decline in employment of

children– Broke up the family economic unit

Changing working conditions/Family structure

Sexual Division of Labor• Pre-industrial Europe had

defined divisions of labor by sex• After 1833 a new pattern of

“separate spheres” emerged• Men became primary

breadwinner• Women expected to concentrate

on child care, craftwork at home• Women who did work

– Usually stopped after 1st child– Were from poorest families or

widowed– Usually confined to low-paying

jobs• Why did this happen?

Reasons for Separate Spheres• Relentless clock managed

factory system did not mesh well with nursing, child care

• Domestic work (cooking, cleaning, shopping) in urban poverty was time consuming

• Victorian morality– Factory and mine prevented

constant supervision of the morals of boys and girls

• Mines Act of 1842– Prohibited underground work for all

women and boys under 10 (see McKay 752)

How you doin?

• Chartist Movement– Early labor movement in England– Six Points (Chartist Goals)– Main goals

• universal male suffrage • secret vote• No property qualification for elected

members of Parliament • Payment of Members of Parliament

– Led a petition signing drive

• Petition with nearly 2 million signatures presented to House of Commons 1839

• Ignored by Parliament• Movement faded away after 1848

The Chartist Movement

Great Exhibition• Great Exhibition of 1851

• First “world’s fair” which featured latest breakthroughs in machinery/industry/ inventions

• Held in Crystal Palace

– Constructed of glass/iron

– Cast plate glass technique invented in 1848 allowed for strong, cheap glass

– Astonished visitors

• Visited by 6 million

• Showcased Great Britain as the “workshop of the world”

• 20% of entire world manufactured goods