Chapter 20
The Industrial Revolution and
Its Impact on European Society
Britain in the Industrial Revolution
1. The cotton industry began to surpass wool textile manufacturing in the eighteenth century due to numerous new inventions such as the flying
shuttle, the spinning jenny, the water frame, and the spinning mule. The first machines were cheap enough to permit the cotton spinners to continue
their work at home but as the size of the machines grew (and in conjunction, their output), the workers moved to workshops or mills located near
water sources that could power the machines. The advent of the steam engine permitted factories to be built around population centers such as
Manchester.
2. In 1813 there were 2,400 power looms in Britain and by 1850 they had grown to 250,000. The number of hand-loom weavers were 250,000 in
the 1820s but by 1860 there were only 3,000 left. Cotton manufacturing was mostly centered in Lancashire and Glasgow.
3. In addition to allowing flexibility as to the location of factories, the steam engine also provided a constant source of power that permitted factories
to run for longer periods of time. Furthermore, the engines stimulated the coal industry. Between 1815 and 1850 the output of coal increased
fourfold as it served to fuel both the textile and iron industries. By 1850 Britain was producing half the world's coal.
4. Like its coal reserves, Britain had extensive supplies of iron ore. The traditional fuel for smelting iron was charcoal from burning wood. In the
early eighteenth century more efficient coke derived from coal was being used in the smelting process. As the demand for iron increased, the more
proficient coke method was utilized. By 1852 the annual English production of iron was almost three million tons. This was more than the output of
the rest of the world combined.
5. A key to British industrial growth was a transportation network. New roads and canals were built between 1760 and 1830. Their importance,
however, paled beside the new railway system. The first public line, established in 1830, was between Liverpool and Manchester, a distance of
thirty-two miles that was covered in two hours. By 1850 locomotives were doing fifty miles per hour over the 6000 miles of track crisscrossing the
country. The British trackage amounted to slightly more than a quarter of all the mileage in the world. Since Britain was a small island, it was easy
to tie together the cities, factories, and ports by a transportation network. By 1851 half of all the manufactured goods in the world came from Britain.
6. Industrialization brought a change in the structure of the population with 48 percent of the workers involved in manufacturing by 1850. Much of
the manufacturing centered in cities that had grown tremendously. In 1800 Britain had one city of one million people, London, and six cities
between 50,000 and 100,000 people. By 1850 London had more than 2.6 million inhabitants while there were nine cities of over 100,000 and
eighteen cities between 50,000 and 100,000. When the populations of cities under 50,000 are added to these totals it can be determined that 50
percent of Britain's 28 million people lived in urban areas.
Questions:
1. What advantages did Britain have to foster industrial development?
2. How important for British industrialism was the creation of a transportation network?
3. How did industrialization affect the population of Britain? What would be the consequences of large urban areas?
Britain in the Industrial Revolution
 The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain
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Origins
 Agricultural revolution
 Capital for investment
 Mineral resources
 Government favorable to business
 Markets
Technological Changes and New Forms of Industrial
Organization
 Cotton Industry
 Water frame, Crompton’s mule, power looms
 Steam engine
 Coal
 James Watt (1736-1819)
 Rotary engine
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 Iron Industry
 Coke
 Transportation
 Railroad
 Richard Trevithick’s locomotive
 George Stephenson’s, Rocket
 Industrial Factory
 Factory laborers
 Time-work discipline
The Great Exhibition: Britain in 1851
 Crystal Palace
 Great Exhibition
 Prince Albert
The Industrialization of Europe by 1850
1. Hindering industrial growth in Europe were the wars between 1790 and 1815 that played havoc with the economies. After the conflicts,
Europeans were unwilling to make the investments necessary for the newest machinery. Instead, businessmen opted to use older, less productive
machines.
2. In France, as well as the rest of Europe, the wars had resulted in the interruption of the supply of cotton due to the British blockade. Thus, the
wool industry exploded. It was concentrated in France, Belgium, and northern Germany. Since manual labor was cheap, mechanization was slow.
Moreover, the consequence of the inundation of British cotton goods was production of specialty goods not made in England. As a result,
mechanization in France first occurred in the silk industry and then in cotton specialties.
3. The three centers of industrialization on the Continent were Belgium, France, and the German states. In Belgium, where there was an
abundance of cheap coal and scarce water power, the steam engine became a source of power to run the textile factories. France was a distant
second to Britain in cotton manufacturing and was dependent upon less efficient machines and labor. Moreover, manufacturing was dispersed
throughout France. Regardless, early industrialization in Belgium and France provided the conduit through which mechanics could spread their
knowledge on the Continent.
4. Unlike Britain which built its industrialization upon cotton manufacturing, the Continent witnessed heavy industry leading the way with its reliance
upon plentiful coal and iron reserves. Nevertheless, Germany, which failed to utilize the tremendous coal reserves it had in the Ruhr, built an iron
industry on the old method of burning wood for the charcoal.
5. In banking, the Belgian banks of Société Général and Banque de Belgique developed large capital resources by accepting deposits from many
depositors and then investing it in large scale projects such as railroads, mining, and heavy industry. This proved particularly important in
developing the Belgian coal industry that was to become the largest on the continent in the 1840s. The Crédit Mobilier in France, the Darnstadt
Bank in Germany, and the Kreditanstalt in Austria served the same purposes.
6. Whereas Britain had large population concentrations in the cities (see Acetate 62, Map 20.1), such migration and growth were not evident on the
Continent. In France, by 1851 Paris had a population of one million and only Lyons and Marseilles approached 200,000. In Germany and Austria
only five cities had more than 100,000 inhabitants. The most heavily industrialized country in Europe, Belgium, still had almost fifty percent of its
male workers involved in agriculture.
Questions:
1. What was the uniqueness of European industrialization?
2. In terms of urban growth, how was the industrialization of continental Europe different from that of Britain? What was the consequence of this?
The Industrialization of Europe by 1850
 The Spread of Industrialization
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Limitations to Industrialization
 Lack of a transportation system
 Upheavals of war
 Traditional habits of business
 Lack of technical education
What Encouraged Its Spread
 Entrepreneurs with Technical and Business Skills
 Technical Schools
 Government Support
 Joint-Stock Investment Banks
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Centers of Continental Industrialization
 Cotton manufacturing
 Belgium
 France
 Germany
The Industrial Revolution in the United States
 Borrowing from Britain
 Transportation network
 Labor
 The Social Impact of the Industrial Revolution
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Population Growth
 Decline of the death rate
The Great Hunger
 Irish population growth
 Reliance on the potato
 Potato crop fails, 1845-1851
 Emigration
Growth of Cities
 Urban Living Conditions
 Sanitary conditions
 Suburbs
 Row houses
Adulteration of food
 Moral consequences of urban life
 Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890)
 Use of drainage
New Social Classes: The Industrial Middle Class
 Out of mercantile trades
 Out of dissenting religious minorities
 New business aristocracy
New Social Classes: Workers in the Industrial Age
 Laborers and servants
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 Working Conditions
 Cotton mills
 Coal mines
 Child labor
 Pauper apprentices
 Women
 Factory Acts
 Standards of Living
 Fluctuations of wages and prices
 Consumption
 Periodic overproduction and unemployment
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Efforts at Change: The Workers
 Robert Owen (1771-1858), Utopian Socialism
 Trade unionism
 Luddites
 The People’s Charter
Efforts at Change: Reformers and Government
 Factory Act, 1833
 Coal Mines Act, 1842