Chapter 20 - The Industrial Revolution and its Impact on European Society

The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain:

• Many things led to this revolution. Some of these were the emergence of capitalism, European imperialism, efforts to mine coal, and the effects of the Agricultural Revolution.

  Technology Changes and New Forms of Industrial Organization:

• The cotton industry was one thing that surged ahead in the 18th century.

• The steam engine also revolutionized the production of cotton goods and allowed factories to be more spread out.

• The British iron industry was radically transformed during the Industrial Revolution.

• In the early eighteenth century, new methods of smelting iron ore to produce cast iron were devised, based on the use of coke or ‘‘coke’’ that was made by slowly burning coal.

• There was also an expansion in transportation facilities in Britain. There were many roads and canals for the new forms of transportation that were being built.

• Soon there were factories booming everywhere, and this became the means of organizing labor for new machines. Most workers had long irregular hours, and it made much change to the way people were living. Most self businesses were shut down due to the bigger factories around the area.

  

The Spread of Industrialization

• During the eighteenth century, some of the Continental countries had experienced developments similar to Britain.
• They had achieved population growth, made agricultural improvements, expanded their cottage industries, and witnessed growth in foreign trade.
• But whereas Britain’s economy began to move in new industrial directions in the 1770s and 1780s, Continental countries lagged behind because they did not share some of the advantages that had made Britain’s Industrial Revolution possible.
• Lack of good roads and problems with river transit made transportation difficult.
• Toll stations on important rivers and customs barriers along state boundaries increased the costs and prices of goods.
• Guild restrictions also created impediments that pioneer industrialists in Britain did not have to face.
• Finally, Continental entrepreneurs were generally less enterprising than their British counterparts and tended to adhere to traditional business attitudes, such as a dislike of competition, high regard for family security coupled with an unwillingness to take risks in investment, and excessive worship of thriftiness.

Industrial Revolution in the US

• In 1800 the United States was an agrarian society. There were no cities with populations more than 100,000, and most people were farmers. By 1860 the population had grown from 5 million to 30 million.
• Unlike Britain, the US was a large country and had a need for transportation. They built an internal railroad that was 27000 miles long and stretched from east to west. Many towns and factories popped up near the railroad. The labor for these factories was usually from rural areas.

Limitations

• In eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind.
• Russia remained largely rural and agricultural, and its autocratic rulers kept the peasants in serfdom
• There was not much of a middle class, and the tsarist regime, fearful of change, preferred to import industrial goods in return for the export of raw materials, such as grain and timber.
• India is another example. In the eighteenth century, India had been one of the world’s greatest exporters of cotton cloth produced by hand labor; it produced 85 million pounds of yarn per year, versus 3 million for England.
• In the first half of the nineteenth century, much of India fell under the control of the British East India Company.
• Due to British control came inexpensive British factory-produced textiles, and soon thousands of Indian spinners and hand-loom weavers were unemployed.
• British policy encouraged Indians to export their raw materials while buying British-made goods.

The Social Impacts of Industrialization

• Due to the industrial revolution population growth boomed. Due to this unexpected growth, there was not enough food, and a lot of poverty.
• There was an average of 110,00 people emigrating from Europe a year. Most of these were from places like Ireland and Germany where peasant life was very hard.
• In this time there was also a growth of many large cities such as London, or Belgium.
• There was also a new middle class which was called the industrial middle class, which had industrial entrepreneurs. These people made factories, purchased machines, and figured out where marks were. These people played a huge role in societies.
• Many people working in factories faced terrible working conditions. This included long hours, excruciating work, terrible pay, and kids missing school to do work way too dangerous for them.
• Due to this workers looked to the formation of labor organizations to gain decent wages and working conditions. Some of these unions were willing to strike to get what they needed.
• Some efforts to change these conditions came from outside the working class, but the government took action and things slowly got better.