Industrial Revolution, 1760-1850

Pre-1800 economic growth in agricultural societies

Economic growth depends on increases in:

Agricultural output

Population growth

Sources of energy

Humans 70%

Animals 15%

Wind and water 15%

Significance of Industrial Revolution

New source of wealth for W. Europe

Sustained economic growth

Manufacturers vs. Raw materials suppliers

W. European military dominance

Environmental transformation

Birth of the Industrial Revolution: Cotton Spinning

*Cottage industry

Common in Europe and Asia

Start of the industrial revolution in Britain

Production bottleneck in Britain, 18th c.

Import duties on cotton cloth

Mercantile trade with American colonies

Solution: Mechanized spinning

*Spinning jenny, James Hargreaves, 1764

Water frame, Richard Arkwright, 1769

*Mule, Samuel Crompton, 1785

British cotton cloth production

Output increased 800%, 1780-1800

Price dropped 90%, 1782-1812

Increased demand for cotton

Plantation slavery in U.S.

700,000 slaves in 1790s

3.2 million slaves in 1850

*Steam engine

Thomas Newcomen, 1712

*James Watt, 1736-1819

Double acting steam engine, 1775

Uses of steam engine

Steamship

*Robert Fulton

"Clermont" 1807

Locomotive

Horse-drawn Railroad

*Rainhill Locomotive Trials, 1829

George Stephenson's “Rocket”

Stephenson Locomotive, 1839

Transportation Revolution

Europe to India

5-8 months in 1780s

1 month in 1860

Social and environmental impact

Factories

Poor conditions

Long hours

Low pay

Factory towns

Air pollution

Water pollution

Disease

Average life span Britain, 1850s

Entire country, 40 years

Manchester, 24 years

Poor sections of Manchester, 17 years

Study Questions-Lecture

1. How did the industrial revolution change the direction of world history and contribute to a changed global balance of economic and military power?

2. What role did the cotton spinning industry play in starting the industrial revolution?

3. How was the steam engine adapted to transportation uses the 19th century? Why did the steam engine lead to a transportation revolution?

4. What were the negative social and environmental consequences of the industrial revolution?

Study Questions-Reading

Hansen 660-82

1. What were the major inventions of the industrial revolution? How did they transform production and transportation?

2. What were nationalism and socialism? Why were they the two of the most powerful ideas to arise in the nineteenth century?

Andrea, The Human Record, pp. 266-272

1. What were working conditions like in mines and cotton factories?

2. How did owners of businesses defend their labor practices?

Pomeranz 41-47, 189-191, 228-30

"The Tactics of Transport" and “How Time Got That Way”

1. Compare the speed of transportation before and after the invention of steam power. Explain why steam power led to "a conceptual revolution in time, space, and commodification" (p. 46).

2. Why did steam power lead to the creation of time zones?

“Fiber of Fortune”

1. Why was cotton rather than wool the primary textile fiber of the industrial revolution?

2. What did cotton have in common with sugar cane as an example of the Columbian exchange and catalyst of plantation slavery?