Industrial Revolution in Great Britain

• The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain during the late eighteenth century.
• It spurred a shift towards manufacturing in factories using machines versus traditional farming and handicrafts.

The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain

• The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the 1780s.
• It took decades to spread to other Western nations.
• The Agricultural Revolution changed agricultural practices in the eighteenth century.
• Factors such as expanded farmland, good weather, improved transportation, and new crops, such as the potato, dramatically increased the British food supply.
• Increased food production allowed more people to be fed at lower prices and with less labor, enabling families to purchase manufactured goods.
• Population growth occurred with the increased food supply.
• Parliament's enclosure movement laws fenced off common lands, forcing peasants to move to towns and provide labor for factories.
• Britain had capital to invest in new machines and factories.
• Entrepreneurs found new business opportunities for profit.
• The country possessed plentiful natural resources.
• Rivers provided water power for factories and transported raw materials and finished products.
• Abundant supplies of coal and iron ore were available.
• Colonial markets offered British manufacturers an outlet for their goods, with British ships able to transport goods worldwide.
• Domestic markets increased due to population growth and cheaper food, leading to a demand for cotton cloth.

Textile Manufacturing and the Industrial Revolution

• Great Britain surged ahead in the production of inexpensive cotton goods in the eighteenth century.
• Manufacturing cotton cloth involved spinning cotton thread and weaving it into cloth on looms.
• Tasks were initially performed in rural cottages, which was known as a cottage industry.
• Technological and scientific advances made the cottage industry inefficient, spurring the Industrial Revolution.
• James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in 1764, which accelerated spinning.
• Edmund Cartwright's 1787 water-powered loom enabled weaving to catch up with spinning.
• Factories near streams and rivers became common, providing water power to machines.
• James Watt improved the steam engine in the 1760s, enabling it to drive machinery.
• Coal-powered steam engines allowed cotton mills to be located anywhere.
• Cotton cloth production increased from 2.5 million pounds (1.14 million kg) of raw cotton imported in 1760 to 366 million pounds (166 million kg) by 1840.
• Cotton cloth became Britain's most valuable product.
• The factory created a new labor system requiring workers to work in shifts.

The Factory System and Free Enterprise

• The factory system used water, steam, or electricity-powered machines to manufacture goods.
• The system also featured unskilled labor, centralized machinery under one roof, and standardized parts.
• The factory impacted labor, human life, and economics by requiring a system of regular hours and repetitive tasks.
• Multiple daily work shifts were instituted to keep machines constantly producing.
• Goods produced in the factory system were made quickly and in large numbers, replacing cottage industries.
• Efficiencies led other industries beyond textiles to adopt it.
• Mills and smokestacks dotted Great Britain's landscape by the mid-1800s.
• Many European governments adopted free enterprise, an economic system with few restrictions on business ownership or decisions.
• Factory owners could make decisions based solely on business needs, maximizing production, expanding industries, and increasing profits.

Coal, Iron, and Railroads

• The steam engine was crucial to Britain's Industrial Revolution and depended on coal.
• The success of the steam engine increased the need for coal, expanding coal production.
• New processes using coal aided the iron industry.
• Britain's natural resources included large supplies of crude iron called pig iron.
• Henry Cort developed puddling in the 1780s, using coke derived from coal to burn away impurities in pig iron, resulting in higher quality iron.
• The British iron industry boomed after Cort's process came into use.
• Production jumped from 17,000 tons in 1740 to nearly 70,000 tons in the 1780s.
• By 1852 Britain produced almost 3 million tons, which was more iron than the rest of the world combined.
• High-quality iron was used to build new machines and trains.
• Railroads were important to the success of the Industrial Revolution.
• Richard Trevithick built the first steam locomotive.
• In 1804 Trevithick's locomotive ran on an industrial rail line, pulling 10 tons of ore and 70 people at 5 miles per hour.
• The Rocket was used on the first public railway line, which opened in 1830 and extended 32 miles from Manchester to Liverpool.
• The Rocket sped along at 16 miles per hour while pulling a 40-ton train.
• Locomotives reached 50 miles per hour within 20 years.
• By 1840, Britain had almost 2,000 miles of railroads, and by 1850, more than 6,000 miles of railroad track crisscrossed the country.
• Building railroads created new jobs, and less expensive transportation led to lower-priced goods.
• These larger markets meant more sales, demand, factories, and machinery.
• Business owners could reinvest profits, becoming a basic feature of the new industrial economy.

The Spread of Industrialization

• By the mid-nineteenth century, Great Britain had become the world's first industrial and richest nation.
• Great Britain produced one-half of the world's coal and manufactured goods.
• Its cotton industry in 1850 was equal in size to the industries of all other European countries combined.
• The Industrial Revolution spread to the rest of Europe at different times and speeds.
• Belgium, France, and the German states industrialized first, with governments providing funds to build roads, canals, and railroads.
• By 1850, a network of iron rails spread across Europe.
• The Industrial Revolution occurred in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century.
• The U.S. population had grown to more than 30 million people by 1860.
• Many people moved into the cities.
• Eight cities had populations over 100,000, and only about 50 percent of American workers were farmers.
• A good transportation system was needed, and thousands of miles of roads and canals were constructed.
• Robert Fulton built the first paddle-wheel steamboat, the Clermont, in 1807, making waterway transport easier.
• By 1860, about 30,000 miles of railroad track covered the continental United States.
• Railroads turned the country into a massive market for the manufactured goods produced in the Northeast.
• Labor for the factories in the Northeast came from the farm population.
• Women and girls made up a majority of the workers in textile factories.

Social Impact of Industrialization

• The Industrial Revolution changed society by spurring city growth and a new industrial middle class and working class emerged.

Population Growth and Urbanization

• The European population almost doubled from 140 million in 1750 to 266 million in 1850 due to a decline in death rates, wars, and major epidemic diseases.
• An increase in the food supply made people more resistant to disease.
• More than 1 million people died during the Irish potato famine.
• Poverty led a million people to migrate to the Americas.
• Industrialization also spurred urbanization, as migrants moved from the countryside to cities for work.
• By 1850, London's population swelled to about 2.5 million, and nine cities had populations over 100,000.
• More than 50% of the population lived in towns and cities.
• Rapid growth of cities in the first half of the nineteenth century led to poor living conditions, leading to urban reform calls.

New Social Classes

• Industrial capitalism developed based on industrial production, and an industrial middle class.
• The bourgeoisie came to include those involved in industry and banking, as well as lawyers, teachers, or doctors.
• The industrial middle class consisted of the people who built the factories, bought the machines, and developed markets.
• Work hours ranged from 12 to 16 hours each day, 6 days per week, with no security of employment or minimum wage.
• Conditions in coal mines were harsh, with steam-powered engines lifting coal, but dangerous conditions persisted inside the mines.
• Cramped conditions and dampness led to workers' deformed bodies and ruined lungs.
• The worst conditions were in cotton mills, which were dirty, dusty, dangerous, and unhealthy.
• In Britain, women and children made up two-thirds of the cotton industry's workforce by 1830.
• The Factory Act of 1833 set nine as the minimum age for employment and limited hours for older children.
• Women made up 50 percent of the British labor force in textile factories and were paid half or less than what men received.
• Men now earned most of the family income by working outside the home, while women cared for the family and performed low-paying jobs at home.

Early Socialism

• Socialism is where society—usually the government—owns and controls some means of production, such as factories and utilities
• Early socialism was the idea of intellectuals; Karl Marx later labeled them 'utopian socialists'.
• Robert Owen, a British cotton manufacturer, transformed the squalid factory town of New Lanark, Scotland, into a flourishing community.
• He created a similar community at New Harmony, Indiana, which failed.