WHAP - Mr. Duez
Unit 5 - The European Moment
Ch 18 - "Revolutions of Industry"
Notes Part I: IR Begins in Britain
The Industrial Revolution was an increase in production brought on by the use of machines & characterized by the use of new energy sources.
It saw a shift from an economy based on farming & handicrafts to an economy based on manufacturing by machines & industrial factories.
Before I.R. about 80% of people were involved in farming as a way of living. After the I.R. only about 1% (in U.S.).
At first, working conditions were severe & could often result in injury or even death in the workplace. Children worked in factories, especially textile mills. Early conflicts between workers & employers produced positive effects for workers in modern society.
I.R. replaced many handcrafted items w/mass produced items
Improved farming methods increased food supply, which drove food prices down & providing families w/disposal income for manufactured goods.
The increased food supply also supported a growing population.
Manchester, Great Britain
I.R. occurs around the same time frame as all the Atlantic Revolutions we have studied in the past chapter, yet it is far more impactful.
Without question, the wheels of the I.R. have brought gears of change & innovation that have forever changed the planet.
The American Revolution, 1775–1787
The French Revolution, 1789–1815
The Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804
The Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1825
The Industrial Revolution, 1770-1840
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status as the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
Just 300 years ago, the Industrial Revolution sparked greater human change & innovation since the Neolithic Revolution & the advent of farming in 10,000 BCE.
First water driven, then steam, & later electric engines captured energy built up in waterways & coal to provide humans the opportunity to suddenly ‘drive’ production & innovation. Not since the domestication of animals had humans been able to harness such a change in productivity.
Breakthrough came w/costs, namely: pollution, change in quality of life.
How Britain's Industrial Revolution
created the modern world.
So Why did it begin in Great Britain?
Above: Illustration of waterwheel furnace bellows, 1313 AD, China; Below - 1800 wood block carving India.
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status
as the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
So Why did it begin in Great Britain?
Some have posited a few possible reasons:
? Cultural Superiority of Europeans: NO
Scientific Revolution & Enlightenment paved the way for innovative learning & advancements to made I.R. possible
Freer political institutions encouraged innovation & strong property rights created incentives for inventors
Europe’s relatively small population, which created the need for inventors to do more with less workers
*Problem here: Eurocentricity!
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status
as the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
So Why did it begin in Great Britain?
Wages were high + energy was cheap = need for automated machines
India - the Opposite Scenario:
No coal + low wages + huge workforce = no need for automation. India did not industrialize, yet had the biggest textile production in the world
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status
as the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
1700: India world’s main producer of cotton textiles, substantial exports.
Indian textiles were exported to Britain on a large scale (17th cent.)
Early 19th Century: Britain had become world’s most important cotton textile producer. Britain dominated world export markets, & even exporting to India.
In the past, some have thought that the answer to why Europeans gave birth to the Industrial Revolution was due to their unique features of European society, economy, or history.
Some thought these supposed inherent advantages gave Europe a long-term advantage and head-start in industrializing.
The monetary value of all the finished goods & services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period, though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis.
% GDP
So Why did it begin in Great Britain?
Cheap, amazingly productive Indian cotton created the demand in Great Britain for textiles. Which spurred a need by agents of industry to create their own textile industry through the use of automated machines.
India’s people-powered, homespun version of textile manufacturing inspires the British Industrial Revolution’s automated machine-driven approach.
So “European Industrial Revolution” was truly global... in that sense.
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status as
the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
Some patterns of European internal development favored innovation:
European rulers had an unusual alliance w/merchant classes other societies developed market-based economies by 18th century (Japan, India, & China)
Europe was at the center of the most varied exchange network (thanks to American colonization)
Contact w/culturally different peoples encouraged innovation
Americas provided silver, raw materials, & foods
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status as
the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
The New Middle Men of Trade:
Very competitive European nations.
Britain: Most commercialized of Europe’s larger countries
Ready supply of industrial workers w/few options
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status as
the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
British political life encouraged commercialization & economic innovation
Despite the absence of legislative reform, the British patent system was continually evolving & responding to the needs of an industrialising economy. Inventors were able to obtain & enforce patent rights with relative ease. This placed Britain in an exceptional position.
Only country where inventors were frequently able to appropriate returns from obtaining intellectual property rights, thus encouraging them to develop the new technology industrialisation required.
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status as
the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
Patent: an official document that gives a person or company the right to be the only one that makes or sells a product for a certain period of time
The First Industrial Revolution
Urbanization of Great Britain (England) 1701-1911
Emphasis of the Scientific Revolution was different in Britain
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status as
the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
Industrialists could enforce 12-HR work days, difficult working conditions = more $
What was distinctive about Britain that may help to explain its status as
the breakthrough point of the Industrial Revolution?
Painting depicting the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, 1830, 1st inter-city railway in the world & which spawned Railway Mania
Analyze the positives & negatives of
the Industrial Revolution.
Was industrialization ultimately
good for society?
“to make the men �into machines that cannot err.”
There was still limited opportunity for education & children were expected to work. Employers could pay a child less than an adult even though their productivity was comparable; there was no need for strength to operate an industrial machine, and since the industrial system was completely new, there were no experienced adult labourers.
This made child labour the labour of choice for manufacturing in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution between the 18th and 19th centuries.
In England & Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers
in 143 water-powered cotton mills were described as children.
Children as young as four were employed.
Children employed as mule scavengers by cotton mills would crawl under machinery to pick up cotton, working 14 hours a day, six days a week. Some lost hands or limbs, others were crushed under the machines, and some were decapitated
Beatings & long hours were common, with some child coal miners worked from 4 am until 5pm.
Conditions were dangerous, with some children killed when they dozed off and fell into the path of the carts, while others died from gas explosions. Many children developed lung cancer & other diseases & died before the age of 25.
“A New System of Old Slavery.”
Bitter cartoon from Punch from 1842, showing the luxury enjoyed by the rich contrasted with the poverty and squalor endured by the labouring poor which support them.
The Rhodes Colossus: Cecil Rhodes spanning "Cape to Cairo"
Britain had a ready supply of capital (money to invest) for industrial machines & factories.
Wealthy entrepreneurs were eager to find ways to invest & make profits. Britain had abundant natural resources & a supply of markets, in part because of its colonial empire.
British Colonial Empire
“Industrialization is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind… God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. The economic imperialism of a single tiny island kingdom (England) is today [1928] keeping the world in chains. If an entire nation of 300 millions took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts… The machine produces much too fast.”
There can be no doubting the positive impacts of industry on increasing human life span. For as many lives that were lost in accidents during the early days of the I.R., how many have been saved since?
The impact is too great to comprehend. Communication improvements, advanced medical treatments, speed and safety of travel... so many influences.
Industrial Advances Create a Powerful U.S.A.
What in this room was NOT made through industrial processes?
Today it seems the whole world is ‘processed.’
It was not always this way.
Positive Aspects of Industry, Technology, & Innovation
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC
200 Countries, 200 Years, in 4 minutes
Global health data expert Hans Rosling’s famous statistical documentary The Joy of Stats aired on BBC in 2010, but it’s still turning heads. One segment in particular is pretty mind-blowing. Rosling uses augmented reality to explore public health data in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers, in just 4 minutes. His work plots life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, pointing to a closing gap between Western & non-Western countries.
Let me show you the world, says Swedish academic Han Rosling as he demonstrates the dynamics of population growth, child mortality & carbon dioxide emissions. The challenge for the world is to get everyone out of extreme poverty & get the richest people to use less fossil fuels so that everyone can share their energy levels, he says.
On May 28, 2008, Adam LeWinter & Director Jeff Orlowski filmed a historic breakup at the Ilulissat Glacier in West. Greenland. The calving event lasted for 75 minutes & the glacier retreated a full mile across a calving face three miles wide. The height of the ice is about 3,000 feet, 300-400 feet above water & the rest below water.
Chasing Ice won the award for Excellence in Cinematography, 2012 Sundance Film Festival & the Best Documentary from International Press Association.