Industrial Revolution
Before the Industrial Revolution - Life Prior to 1750
1. People relied on subsistent farming or farming as a way of survival. What was left over was sold at
market for a meager profit. See the children’s book, The Ox Cart Man. Farms and land was generally
rented from wealthy land owners rather than owned outright. The village commons was the area of
land shared by the farmer.
2. Families centered on traditional economies. A traditional economy is a system where the allocation
of available resources is made on the basis of inheritance. The family also practices the same trade
as their ancestors using primitive tools. Example of a traditional economy would be a cobbler who
makes and sells shoes like his father did as well as his father before that. He works five days out of
the week, sells his shoes in market on Saturday, and rests on Sunday just like his ancestor had done
before him. When the man has a son, he too will be a cobbler. Sometimes when demand increased
for a certain good, merchants would pay families to produce these good in their homes. This system
became known as the domestic system. A good example of the domestic system is when in the 1700
demand for wool increased, merchants began to pay small sheep farmers money to sheer the wool
and produce the wool within their own home. This was also done with coal.
3. Life was hard and short. Work involved manual labor with very simple tools and machinery. Most
families lived in simple one or two room cottages with dirt floors. These dwellings were smoky,
poorly lit, and had no running waters or bathrooms. Sanitation and hygiene was very poor. In 1700,
only one out of every two people reached 21. Life expectancy in the 1700 was around 40. 1 in 3
babies died within their first year. Most individuals bathed once a week if that.
4. Cities were small. London was the largest city in Europe in 1750 with only a population of 700,000
people. Only 25% of the people lived in towns and villages.
5. Communication was poor and people lived fairly isolated from one another. Travel was difficult and
road conditions were poor. Other than traveling from market back and forth from their home,
people generally did not move away from where they were born and raised.
The Beginnings of Change
The process towards industrialization started in England and involved
the farming industry.
1. Enclosure Movement. Landowners and the British
government decided that farming would be more profitable
and efficient if the land was organized into larger plots. The
English government passed laws that allowed landowners to
take over small plots of privately owned lands as well as the
common areas for larger food production.
2. Jethro Tull invented the seed drill which allowed for more
efficient seeding.
3. Robert Bakewell is credited for created a system of scientific
breeding which ensured that sheep would grow bigger and
horses would grow stronger
4. Lord Charles Townshend help create a system of crop rotation
in which certain plants take nutrients out of the soil while
other plants such as the turnips add nutrients.
Industrial Revolution - Economics
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most countries had Traditional Economies. These were economic systems that were
based in the traditions of the day. Example - A man makes shoes, because his father made shoes. He works six days
of the week but rests on Sunday because of his religion. He makes his shoes out of wood because that is what the
shoes have always been made of. He trades in his shoes in the local markets for the food he needs to feed his family.
Traditional economies are rare in the world today with the exception of non-industrialized nations.
Today, modern economies throughout the world must answer the following three questions.
1. WHAT? – What should be produced?
2. HOW? – How it should be produced?
3. WHO? – Who should produce it?
The following are three types of economies that attempt to answer these three questions. Below are a few
of the economic systems and countries that practice these economic systems.
Command Economy
Communism
Mixed Economy
European Socialism Today
Market Economy
American Capitalism Today
Laissez Faire
1. Capitalism – Private citizens own the means of production
- Philosophy written about by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.
- The private citizens are motivated by profit and the increase of wealth.
- Society as a whole benefit from competition that drives down prices
Types of Capitalism
Free Market/ Laissez Faire – Purest form of Capitalism with no government interference. Very few, if any examples
of a real market system in the world today.
Mixed Economy – Government plus some form of capitalism. There are varying forms of government intervention in
a mixed economy. In the US, government controls wages with minimum wage requirements. The government also
makes businesses have safety requirements as well as pay taxes.
2. Socialism – Government owns and controls certain base industries. Socialist countries own these industries not to make
profit, but to provide goods and services to the citizens for cheap costs but citizens pay high taxes.
- Much of the European nations are socialists.
- The French government owns the health care system. There is no competition within the health care industry. However,
France allows private ownership in most other industries like Renault, Pierre, or Dom Perignon.
3. Communism – Government owns and controls all of the means of production. The system is based on equality that
demands that there is no acquired wealth and every citizen will be cared for.
- Founded by Karl Marx but countries that practiced the system tended to have dictatorial governments that Marx would not
have approved of. Marx’s books were The Capital and The Communist Manifesto.
- There is no profit or competition.
 Countries that practiced Communism were the former USSR and Cuba.
Industrial Revolution - Economics
1. Market Economy (Also known as Laissez Faire or Free Enterprise)
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Private citizens own the means of production. Consumers decided
What, How, and Who to their purchases in the market place.
Motivated by Profit and Competition.
No government control such as taxes or regulations.
This is the purest form of Capitalism – which is the economic system founded by Scottish Economist
Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) who believed in private ownership of businesses that were motivated by
profit and competition.
Example - Two businesses in Solon, Ohio sell shoes. They compete for customers in order to
get profit for the owners. They pay no taxes to the state or federal government. There is no
regulation on the quality, production, or cost of the shoes. As they compete for customers they
might increase advertisements, lower prices, and create a higher quality shoe in order to get the
largest share of the business and increase their own wealth.
2. Mixed Economy
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Government has some say on What is produced, How it is produced, and Who
Produces it?
Private Citizens own most of the means of production.
Privately owned businesses are still motivated by profit or competition.
Government imposes some regulations such as taxes and safety regulations.
In some instances, government owns businesses like the United States owning the U. S. Postal
System. Yet, The US Government allows other companies (UPS or Federal Express) to compete with
the US Postal system.
Over 99% of the world economic systems are Mixed Economies including the United States.
Example – Individual French citizens own businesses motivated by profit. However, the French
government controls the health care industry in order to make it available to all French citizens. The
French people pay high taxes to assure health care is provided for little or no costs to individuals.
The above example could also be referred to as Socialism, which means government owns and
controls certain base industries.
Karl Marx believed that all economic decisions centered on the bourgeoisie or
wealthy business owners and their oppression of the proletariat or workers. Marx
3. Command Economy
thought that eventually, the proletariat would rise up and overthrow the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat would then eventually set up its own economic
system that would be based on equality and would have a class less society.
3. Command Economy
 Government has complete say on What is produced, How it is produced, and Who
Produces it
 Command economy involves a lot of planning on the government’s part.
 Government owns most if not all of the base industries.
 There is little private ownership as well as little profit or competition / Equal distribution of wealth
 An example of a command economy is Communism, which is government owning all the means of
production. The father of this philosophy is German Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) who hoped to achieve
economic equality through the distribution of wealth and the destruction of competition and profit.
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Example - An example of a Command Economy would be the former Soviet Union, which began when
the Bolsheviks (The Russian political party that supported communism.) gained power in 1921 and
began to collect the wealth and redistribute the wealth according to need and governmental wants. In
addition, the Soviet Union’s government made most of the key decisions including what was produced,
who produced it, and how it was produced. Soviet citizens worked not for profit but for the benefit of the
Soviet people as a whole and the wishes of the Communist leadership.
Industrial Revolution – Economics
Why Great Britain was the first to industrialize?
1. Britain had a lot of capital or the money to invest in labor, machines,
and raw materials. In the 1700’s farming became more profitable
because of advancements and large sums of capital was made. These
wealthy landowners began to look for new ways to expand their
wealth.
2. Natural Resources materials that occur naturally within environments
in a natural form. Great Britain had a large number of safe harbors as
well as running water that flowed all year long. This running water
became the first fuel source needed to turn mills for the textile
factories. In addition, England had an abundance of coal and rich farm
land.
3. England had an abundance of workers with a growing population.
These individuals work in the factories. Some members of the
bourgeoisie, or wealthy upper middle class, became risk taking
entrepreneurs. These are individuals, who brought together capital,
labor, and new inventions in order to make more profit.
Textile was the first industry to appear in England. This is the making of cloth from cotton and wool. Textiles rely on
running water to turn the mill. This industry was improved upon by entrepreneurs such as James Hargreaves, the
inventor of the flying spinning jenny, which was a machine that increased the amount of thread in 1760. Richard
Arkwright, invented a larger version of the spinning jenny that ran with continual waterpower. Using both men’s
inventions, Arkwright and Hargreaves, Sam Crompton took the best of both features and created the spinning mule in
1799.
Spinney Jenny
Arkwright
Hargreaves
Crompton
Spinning Mule
Eli Whitney in America in 1793 created a device that
would remove seeds from cotton. The device was known
as the cotton gin. Whitney’s invention was 50 times
faster than the manual labor. However, his invention, led
to a greater need for slave labor, and entrenched itself
into Southern business and culture.
The Factory system was created in which workers and machines were brought together under the control of
the manager. When running water became too limited, a new source of power was needed. James Watt
designed an efficient steam engine that allows for factories to be built away from the water way.
Industrial Revolution – Economics
The Growth of Big Business
Reasons for Industrial Capitalism, which was the expansion of factories and investing in new
businesses.
1. Interchangeable parts, which involved machine made parts that were exactly alike and
easily assemble and exchanged help lead to industrial capitalism.
2. Division of Labor, a theory credited to Fredrick Taylor which allowed certain workers
to perform certain task so that they develop a level of expertise.
3. In America, Henry Ford used Taylor’s idea to create the assembly line to mass produce
the Model-T automobile. This system allowed for not only expertise but speed and
efficiency.
4. Partnerships began to emerge. Partnerships formed when two entrepreneurs join
together in order to create more capital and share their risk. As more partners joined
a company would create a corporation which are business organizations owned by
stockholders who buy shares in the company.
As markets become more complex, businesses began to become dependent on each
other. When coal prices increased, steel became more expensive. This
interdependence led to a phenomenon known as the business cycle. This is periods
of expansion and depression, which is characterized by bank failures and high
unemployment. This cycle exists to this day, and because of the global markets, the
businesses are inter-related and the world’s industries share the cycle together.
Industrial Revolution – Inventors and Advancements
Henry Bessemer (British) in the mid 1800’s, created the Bessemer system which
allowed for steel to be made in large quantity for a cheap price. Steel was the
cornerstone of industrialization in Europe and in America.
James Watt (British) engineer who in the late 1700’s help create a
working steam engine that allowed some factories to move away from
rivers as a fuel source.
Rudolf Diesel (German) who in the late 1800’s invented the combustible engine
that relied on oil instead of steam for power. It created a demand for oil as a
fuel source that still exists around the world to this day.
Samuel Morse (American) who in the 1830’s invented a device called the
telegraph that allowed dash and dots to be interpreted into a language. It
allowed for communication of two individuals who were miles away.
Alexander Graham Bell (British) invented the telephone in 1876.
Guglielmo Marconi (Italian) in1896 created a wireless telegraph that
was eventually modified into the radio we have today.
Thomas Edison (American) invented the light bulb in 1879 and the phonograph in
1877. He had over 1,000 patents (which our copyrights that protect one’s
intellectual property) to his name.
Michael Faraday (British) in 1831 discovered that an electrical current could be
created when a magnet moved through a coil. This invention, later led to the
creation of an electrical generator.
Robert Fulton (American) in 1807 designed the first practical steamship that allowed for boats
to travel up stream. The invention was important to growth of American industry because it
allowed for travel up the Mississippi River moving raw materials both North and South.
Wilbur and Orrville Wright (Americans) who in 1903 carried out the first
successful flight of a motorized airplane.
Industrialization – Class Ranks
Through the 1800’s Europe began to see the expansion of
the middle class in large part because some capital or
wealth was dispersed through increase investment and
entrepreneurship. Before the industrial revolution, only
doctors, lawyers, and merchants were part of the middle
class. As industrialization grows, the middle class began to
expand to business owners and factory operators and
managers. As these professional workers increased in
numbers service industries arose to meet their needs; like
teachers, clerks, and secretaries. These groups of
individuals also joined the ranks of the middle class.
For the working class, things were very hard. Workers
depended solely on the money they made from the
factory. Factory work was unsafe. Pay was poor. The
work involved long hours with no overtime. 12 hour /
seven day weeks were normal. The working class flocked
to the cities, because that was where the factories and
jobs were. In these cities, like Manchester, England and
Lowell Massachusetts USA, the working poor lived in
cramped housing that was diseased filled with little
privacy. To make ends meet, some families turned to their
children to increase the family’s finances. Child labor was
necessary for some families in order to buy food. Children
worked rather than go to school to better themselves.
Many working class families even sent their
young daughters out to work in the textile mills.
This group was known as mill girls. These girls
lived in boarding houses together. Although
denied formal education, they often relied on
each other to learn to read. They were poorly
paid and poorly treated but they were able to
send some money back to their families.
Industrial Revolution
As more individuals enter the factory system in Europe and the US and experienced the poor
pay and conditions, a new movement is created known as the Labor Union. Labor Unions
are when working people ban together and make demands of ownership.
Activities of Unions
1. Collective Bargaining. This is when workers ban together and make the same equal
demands for all members across the board.
2. Strike. This occurs when workers demands are not met. Workers will leave their jobs
in hopes of shutting the factories down so that they might have their objectives met.
3. Litigation. Taking the business to court to achieve its goals.
Unions faced animosity from the British government. The government passed 1799 and
1800 the Combination Acts which banned unions. However, the laws proved in time to
unenforceable and workers continue to meet and discuss ways of bettering their
condition. By 1870, Parliament legalized strikes.
Why might Labor Unions be needed? / Are Labor Unions needed today?
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire by Doug Linder (2002)
It was a warm spring Saturday in New York City, March 25, 1911. On the top three floors of the ten-story Asch
Building just off of Washington Square, employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory began putting away their work
as the 4:45 p.m. quitting time approached. Most of the several hundred Triangle Shirtwaist employees were teenage
girls. Most were recent immigrants. Many spoke only a little English. Just then somebody on the eighth floor
shouted, "Fire!" Flames leapt from discarded rags between the first and second rows of cutting tables in the hundredfoot-by-hundred-foot floor. Triangle employee William Bernstein grabbed pails of water and vainly attempted to put
the fire out. As a line of hanging patterns began to burn, cries of "fire" erupted from all over the floor. In the
thickening smoke, as several men continued to fling water at the fire, the fire spread everywhere--to the tables, the
wooden floor trim, the partitions, the ceiling. A shipping clerk dragged a hose in the stairwell into the rapidly heating
room, but nothing came--no pressure. Terrified and screaming, girls climbed through streamed down the narrow fire
escape and Washington Place stairway or jammed into the single passenger elevator. Dinah Lifschitz, at her eighthfloor post, telephoned the tenth floor headquarters of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory: "I heard Mary Alter's voice on
the other end. I told her there was a fire on the eighth floor, to tell Mr. Blanck." Lifschitz tried next to alert the
workers on the ninth floor. She got no answer. "I can't get anyone! I can't get anyone!", she yelled. On the eighth
floor, only Lifschitz and Samuel Bernstein remained in the gathering smoke and flames. Bernstein told Lifschitz to
escape, while he attempted a daring dash through the blaze into the Greene Street staircase. He ran up to the ninth
floor, but found the fire so intense he could not enter. He continued up to the tenth floor where he found panicked
employees "running around like wildcats." Some employees had fled through the elevator, but now that it had stopped
running the only escape route was to the roof on top of the Asch building. Assistant cashier Joseph Flecher looked
down from the tenth floor roof to see "my girls, my pretty ones, going down through the air. They hit the sidewalk
spread out and still." Fifteen feet above the Asch building roof, Professor Frank Sommer was teaching his class at the
New York University Law School when he saw dozens of hysterical Shirtwaist workers stumbling around on the roof
below. Sommer and his students found ladders left by painters and placed them so as to allow the escaping employees
to climb to the school roof. The last tenth-floor worker saved was an unconscious girl with smoldering hair who was
dragged up the ladder. Of the approximately seventy workers on the tenth floor, all but one survived. In the hell of the
ninth-floor, 145 employees, mostly young women, would die. Those that acted quickly made it through the Greene
Street stairs, climbed down a rickety fire escape before it collapsed, or squeezed into the small Washington Place
elevators before they stopped running. The last person on the last elevator to leave the ninth floor was Katie Weiner,
who grabbed a cable that ran through the elevator and swung in, landing on the heads of other girls. A few other girls
survived by jumping into the elevator shaft, and landing on the roof of the elevator compartment as it made its final
descent. The weight of the girls caused the car to sink to the bottom of the shaft, leaving it immobile. For those left on
the ninth floor, forced to choose between an advancing inferno and jumping to the sidewalks below, many would jump.
Others, according to survivor Ethel Monick, became "frozen with fear" and "never moved." It took only eighteen
minutes to bring the fire under control, and in ten minutes more it was practically "all over." Water soaked a pile of
thirty or more bodies on the Greene Street sidewalk. Doctors pawed through heaps of humanity looking for signs of
life. Police tried desperately to keep crowds of hysterical relatives from overrunning the disaster scene. Officers filled
coffins and loaded them into patrol wagons and ambulances. The bodies were taken to a temporary morgue set up on a
covered pier at the foot of East Twenty-sixth Street. Firemen searched the burned-out floors of the Asch building,
hoping to find survivors. What they mostly found were, according to Chief Edward Croker, "bodies burned to bare
bones, skeletons bending over sewing machines." Four hours after the fire, workers discovered a lone survivor trapped
in rising water at the bottom of the elevator shaft.
Industrial Revolution – Political Philosophers
Reason the Industrial Revolution lead to a Cultural Revolution?
1. Better means of communication. Inventions like the telegraph and the telephone,
lead to a greater expansion of ideas thus spurring on a Cultural Revolution. The
growth of cities mean more people living in a closer proximity and are able to
exchange ideas.
2. With the wealth and leisure time, created by the Industrial Revolution, the
bourgeoisie now can focus on ideas and philosophies that were radical in their time.
3. Enlightenment Ideas and philosophies.
Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) (Scottish) developed the theory of capitalism and the idea that profit and
competition, when put into practice, was the best solution to assure the economic success of a country
and its people. He advocated a laissez faire system that did not address government interference in
economic affairs. This system today is called free market. Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations.
William Wilberforce (1759 – 1833) (British) was an Evangelical Parliamentarian who made a passionate appeal to
his fellow legislators to end the slave trade which was ended in 1807. Later in 1833, after Wilberforce’s death, the
British abolished slavery throughout their empire. Enlightenment ideas, along with religious institutions, helped
fuel the cause of abolition. The United States would not abolish slavery until 1865.
Karl Marx (1818 –1883) (German) believed that all governmental decisions were motivated by economics and the misuse of the
proletariat by the bourgeoisie. This exploitation of workers would eventually lead to a violent revolution in which Communistic
system, based on equal distribution of wealth and no profit or competition would occur. Marx hated capitalism and saw it as
the next step past feudalism. His books were the Communist Manifesto and Das Capital. Marx worked extensively with fellow,
German, Fredrich Engels.
Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1842) (British) developed the philosophy of utilitarianism and the idea that
government exists to bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people. He wrote in 1781 An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Bentham argued for personal and economic
freedom as well as equal rights for women.
John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) (British) like Bentham, is associated with the concept of utilitarianism.
Mill wrote On Liberty in which he describes his philosophy of power and legitimacy of government. His
views were very liberal in nature arguing against slavery, censorship, exploitation of workers, and
economic inequality.
Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834) (British) centered most of his work on the concept of population and its growth. Malthus
believed that population could only grow to a certain degree until invariably individuals would die off due to starvation,
disease, or wars fought over land and resources. “The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce
subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.” Malthus T.R. 1798. An essay on
the principle of population
Robert Owen (1771 – 1858) (British) advocated for socially constructed societies where all members
benefited from the work of the community. This was an early form of socialism, which is when
government owns and controls certain base industries. Owen created in New Lanark, Scotland, a
community built around his principles. He tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the New Lanark, in Indiana.
David Ricardo (1772 – 1823) (British) said that workers competition would ultimately drive down wages
and lead to high unemployment and increased poverty. His belief was that the tenants of Capitalism
were somewhat incomplete in meeting the needs of the citizens.
Industrialization Revolution – Scientific Advancements
Charles Darwin (1772 – 1823) (British) developed the idea of evolution and the survival of the species.
This is the idea that many organisms have progress from earlier species and that these changes were
necessary for their survival. Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Spices , was a landmark book detailing
his findings and thesis.
Edward Jenner (1749 – 1832) (British) is known as the “father of immunology” and developed a
vaccine to small pox based on the less dangerous cow pox. Jenner used Bacon’s scientific method to
accomplish this goal.
Marie and Pierre Courie (1867 – 1934) (Polish) (French) was a husband and wife team that
revolutionized the field of medicine. Pierre Courie, learning from Jenner’s work, discovered
bacteria. His wife, discovered that highly radioactive elements of radium emits energy.
John Dalton (1766 – 1784) (English) devised the idea that all matter in the
universe is composed of the atom.
Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936) (Russia) developed the idea of condition response and the idea that human
actions were unconscious reactions to stimulus. Pavlov conducted this experiment using a dog’s
salivation to a plate of meat.
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) (Austrian) is known as the father of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis
involves investigating the unconscious mind to discover people’s motives for the decisions that we
make every day. Freud’s work is still used today within the field of psychiatry.
Industrial Revolution – Effects
The picture below was taken by Margret Bourke - White during the Great Depression.
What elements of irony do you notice in the photograph?
How does the photograph correlate with the data today from the United Nations below?
Results of the Industrial Revolution
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
People during this time become increasingly mobile. Emigration
means to leave their home land. While, immigration means to
come to an area and wish to settle their permanently. How does
the industrial revolution lead to a greater level of mobility?
Increase Standard of Living. Standard of living generally involves
the per person income, poverty rate, life expectancy, and
educational standards such as literacy rates. Most of these
elements improved during the industrial revolution. However, it
is important to note, that the working poor, who flocked to the
cities to find factory jobs, often lived in cramped tenement
homes, with poor sanitation, and little educational opportunities
for their children. Today the main measure of standard of living
is through the Human Development Index.
Growth of the cities. During the period of industrialization,
urbanization, or the growth of cities occurs. Why would the
industrial revolution lead to urbanization?
Leisure time expands. Time was available for people to enjoy
cultural activities such as art, music, and sport. However, this
leisure times was more prevalent for the bourgeoisie than the
poor workers. Why would the wealthy middle class have more
leisure time than the poor working class?
Advancement in education. As populations became more
aggregated or denser, education becomes more of an easier to
accomplish and more of a necessity. Public schools spring up
around Europe and the United States. Education was made
available to women for the first time in some parts of the
developed world. Still today, one of the leading factors in
determining levels of standards of living is whether a country has
expanded educational opportunities to women within that
nation. Why would women’s educational levels be a symptom of
high standard of living?
Human Development
Index 2009
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Norway
Australia
Iceland
Canada
Ireland
Netherlands
Sweden
France
Switzerland
Japan
Luxembourg
Finland
The HDI combines three
dimensions:
Life expectancy at
birth, as an index of
population health
and longevity
2. Knowledge and
education, as
measured by the
adult literacy rate
(with two-thirds
weighting) and the
combined primary,
13.United States
secondary, and
14. Austria
tertiary gross
15. Spain
enrollment ratio
16. Denmark
(with one-third
17. Belgium
weighting).
18. Italy
3. Standard of living, as
19. Liechtenstein
measured by the
20. New Zealand
natural logarithm of
21. United Kingdom
gross domestic
22. Germany
product per capita at
23. Singapore
purchasing power
24. Hong Kong, China (SAR)
25. Greece
parity.
Source - United Nations
Source - United Nations
Development Program
Development Program
1.