Images from the
Industrial Revolution
Pages 428-435
Objectives
• Identify the impact of the Agricultural Revolution
and the Enclosure laws.
• Understand the advantages that England
possessed as a leader in the Industrial
Revolution.
• Why was the Industrial Revolution both good
and bad for human beings?
• What were the main ideas of Malthus?
• In what ways did some reformers try to mitigate
(or lessen) the impact of the Industrial
Revolution on human beings?
Before the Industrial Revolution
occurs, there is a great improvement in
food production.
Common lands are enclosed;
larger farms are created
Better food production methods are developed.
Nitrogen was recognized as an important
fertilizer. Turnips and clover replaced lost
nutrients. Science and Agriculture merged.
With food
supplies
increased, the
population
grows.
The great scourges of the Plague diminish
with better sanitation and stone and brick
buildings…
Small pox remains a killer, but it too
will decrease as methods of inoculation
and vaccination are used.
The
Industrial
Revolution
begins in
Britain…
A country with many advantages…sitting
on huge iron ore and coal deposits…
A country with many
rivers and
streams…so water
power can be
harnessed.
A country with a mighty navy and
overseas colonies…
And finally, Great Britain is an island
nation with a relatively stable constitutional
monarchy.
The first inventions are in the textile
industry. With the increased population,
the demand for cloth was great.
The domestic system meant that
spinning and weaving was farmed out
at home…
As you can imagine,
this production capacity
was limited.
There were several inventions that occurred
one after the other. All were considered
innovative--
The Flying shuttle 1733
The spinning Jenny…1760’s
The Water Frame 1769
And in America… the Cotton Gin
As the machinery of cloth production
became larger and more cumbersome, mills
were built along streams, and workers
flocked to the mills..
Salem, Oregon has an outstanding example
of a Mill at the Mission Mill Museum.
Rivers and Streams were great for
making “power”—but they do dry up
in the summer…
So, steam
became a
source of
energy
around
1780.
Steam.. The next
frontier. First
harnessed in 1702 by
Thomas Newcomen,
then improved by
Thomas Wyatt. Legend
has it that Thomas
Wyatt first noticed the
power of steam when
he observed his
mother’s tea kettle.
But steam must be produced by heat, and
by this time, wood was dwindling in
England’s once great forests.
And wood that remained was needed for
Britain’s powerful navy.
Thus, coal begins to be used in great
amount—but do to Newcomen’s steam
engine which drives the pumps that get the
water out of the mines…
See how this all ties together?
It is this reciprocal
inventiveness that really
makes it an Industrial
Revolution.
Steam was soon used to “move” across
areas, boats…and in 1829, The ROCKET!
The first locomotive.
Railroads changed
the landscape.
Early on, there
were the gauge
wars—a famous
dispute about how
far apart tracks
should be.
The smaller distance won—and as a result,
railroad cars were less stable.
Villages grew into towns, and towns grew
into cities.
Manchester,
Liverpool,
Leeds are all
industrial
cities.
Workers crammed into housing so that they
could be close enough to hear the “whistle”
which announced the workday.
Skilled labor or
weavers and spinners
was all replaced by
machine—machines
that produced far better
quality goods.
Some suggested smashing the machines
that took away their work.
The reverend
Ludd encouraged
this. His
followers were
called Luddites.
Even today, a
“Luddite” is
someone who
does not embrace
change.
In 1776, Adam
Smith, an English
economist observed
the inventions and
change occurring.
He wrote a
monumental book
called The Wealth of
Nations.
He predicted that workers were at the mercy of
the law of supply and demand. Competition and
Free Trade would rule the future.
Capitalists were
seen as greedy.
The truth was,
many were
bewildered
themselves by the
forces of an
unregulated
cuthroat
marketplace…
The first years
of the
Industrial
Revolution
were, for the
most part, a
horror story.
Workers, desperate for employment,
struggled to survive.
Children
worked 1214 hour
days.
Young children were maimed in the mines
and in the mills.
"There was a young woman, Sarah Goodling, who
was poorly and so she stopped her machine. James
Birch, the overlooker, knocked her to the floor.
She got up as well as she could. He knocked her
down again. Then she was carried to the
apprentice house. Her bed-fellow found her dead
in bed.”
There was no
organized
labor, only
random mob
violence.
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,
it was unrestrained capitalism and unsafe
working conditions.
All of this misery was observed by two
important men: Malthus and Ricardo.
Malthus said that mankind was condemned to
overpopulation and “checks” on the population
by war, famine, disease and mother nature
(earthquakes, floods, drought)
Though not a
cruel man, his
underlying idea
was that one
should not
improve the lot
of man,
because if
things get
better, they
will just
“breed” more.
As the population grows, this will result in
another cycle of “checks” by famine,
disease, wars and mother nature.
So, said
Malthus: don’t
make things
better. If its too
good people will
have more
kids—and the
cycle will repeat
itself.
Malthus could not
foresee that in the
Industrial World,
people would begin
to limit the size of
their families as
health and education
improved.
Also, as the economy expanded, even large
families would be successful—and many of
your grandparents came from families of 7
or more children.
But sadly, in the
Global South, Malthus
has proved right.
Hunger, disease,
warfare, drought and
natural disasters have
killed billions. AIDS
is a good example of a
disease that is
“checking” the
population of Africa.
Ricardo was a “sidekick” of Malthus. He
spoke of an “Iron Law” of wages: when
there are too many workers, wages go
down. But when there are fewer workers,
wages go up.
Malthus and Ricardo were the dreary
prophets of the Industrial Revolution—
Malthus being the most famous.
Because Malthus has proven to be right—in
the more miserable areas of the world, his
name has become synonymous with
“Malthusian” ideas of doom for mankind
and its burgeoning population.
As we study the political history of Europe
in the 1800s, we must always remember
that the Industrial Revolution is ongoing. It
spreads to continental Europe and America.
Textiles, Steam, and Railroads, make way
for electricity, the internal combustion
engine, gas (cars) and steel (skyscrapers)
All of your ancestors suffered through this
time. Mrs. Olsen’s great great grandmother
was found begging for food for her children
on the streets of Stockholm, Sweden, in
1840. There was no work, few social
programs…
But, things will improve. Great leaders,
both men and women will transform how
we look at human beings and the world.
Thus the 1800s is really the most significant
century we will study.
Because somewhere around 1800 people lived,
or were born, who would take it upon
themselves, to make life better for others—this
humanitarianism of both men and women, we
will learn about soon.
It is as if a “light” was switched on in
Western Civilization: that humans must
look around them and see their capacity to
improve others’ lives with social and
economic reforms.