AP Euro: Unit 10 - The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution (IR) (mid 1700s-1830s)

• ripe for revolution:
  • IR began in England and spread throughout the world
  • England was the perfect place for IR because...
    • agricultural revolution (help from the Dutch): 
      • able to feed more people for less money and required less labor
    • ready supply of capital:
      • capital are factors that allow further production of raw materials (factories, machines, etc.)
    • entrepreneurs:
      • England had men with disposable money who wanted to make more 
    • the right minerals (ex. coal)
    • ready and willing markets (India, China, etc.)
    • govt favorable to businesses
• developing a textile industry:
  • England already had cottage industry producing textiles (cloth items) so workers had experience in manufacture
  • more workers were available to work in the new factories because of agricultural revolution
  • reliable sources of cotton from India and USA
  • new tech made creating textile faster and more efficient than before
• new technologies:
  • *check unit 8
• workers and conditions:
  • most workers were exploited young, poor children (from farms) and women
  • working conditions:
    • crowded
    • unsanitary
    • unsafe
    • ex. workers spent long workers breathing in soot (mines) and cotton fibers (factories) in the air, and loud machines could cause lasting damage
  • living conditions:
    • most live in tenements (low income housing)
    • crowded
    • unsanitary
    • no running water
    • diseases like cholera were rampant
• first factories:
  • first textile industry was the cottage industry/putting out system:
    • cotton was delivered to people's homes and woven there - very inefficient
  • first factories used water power to drive machines and later steam engine, started small and towns built around/by factories
  • England wanted to protect this industry so it was illegal for factory owners and machine designers to leave England
• lower class:
  • lived in awful conditions
  • lack of personal space --> rampant spread of diseases like cholera
    • cholera: bacterial infection which drains you of bodily fluids, symptoms included vomiting, diarrhea, etc.
• labor force and social classes:
  • IR improved lives of some people:
    • industrial factories needed managers, mechanics, etc. (skilled people) and these people could become rich and own their own mills
    • the still-healthy craft industry in many European nations (shoemakers, tailors, artists, lawyers, etc.) created higher quality products than mills and factories
• immigration:
  • people relocated around Europe based on where there was good work and pay (England, Germany, and the US were popular places to immigrate to)
  • some immigration was caused by poor conditions
    • Irish are poor due to British taxes --> potato famine where many people faced starvation --> people either go to English cities or the US --> most immigrated to the US because there were better conditions
  • people urged for reform to areas where the standard of living was low

Other New Technologies and the Spread of Industrialization

• steam engine:
  • important because...
    • allowed factories to be powered by burning coal to heat water into steam to power devices, breaking dependency on water power (factories no longer needed to be located near a body of water)
    • pumped water out of mining sites --> more resources, especially coal, could be mined
    • revolutionized travel with the invention of the steamboat (invented by American Robert Fulton, had the tendency to explode) and railroad
    • furthered iron industry
• cheap, high quality iron:
  • progression of metalworking:
    • old school metalworking - hammering hot metal into desired shape, have to keep reheating metal to keep it malleable
    • smelting - forge and heat metal to shape
    • blast furnace - melt metal and pour into a mold, allows for same pieces to be recreated
  • blast furnaces allows us to shape iron easily and gets rid of impurities and makes metal stronger (pig iron to wrought iron)
• transportation revolution:
  • iron was cast into rails for railroads and to reproduce steam locomotives which powered trains
  • uniform building specifications and replaceable parts allowed broken rails and parts of steam locomotive to be replaced easily
  • 1830 - Manchester to Liverpool line opened up
  • 1850 - you could reach almost any city in England via railroad
  • canal building craze (workers didn't care about unsafe canal-building conditions) because of steamboats
  • people pay per use of steamboats because they were privately built
  • many went bankrupt after building a steamboat but leave England with great steamboat
• industrial factories:
  • huge change in lifestyle:
    • live life by the clock (unlike farming where work times depended on weather)
    • work in shifts because factory owners had machines constantly running to protect their investments
    • factory work was boring and repetitive, adults were fined/fired if late, children were beaten because they didn't understand the implications of their mistakes
• Britain's Great Exhibition (1851): 
  • world's first industrial fair
  • hosted at Crystal palace (glass and steel, tribute to England's engineering skills)
  • 19 acres, over 100k exhibits, world began to view England as greatest workshop, banker, and trade of the world
  • big show of power and prestige, other nations wanted England's industrial success
• spread of industrialization: 
  • Europe:
    • most of Europe was behind England because of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars
      • industrialization began after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo
    • Belgium, Netherlands, Northern France, Switzerland, and German-speaking lands were the first to industrialize
    • most erected tariffs to protect local markets from cheap British goods, and England protected industrial advantage by making exportation of mill tech illegal (smuggled out of England anyway)
    • Russia didn't industrialize until end of 19th century, weakening them for WWI
• industrialization in US:
  • spread to America when Samuel Slater founded mill in Rhode Island in 1790, brought people from farming communities into cities
  • America developed a middle class and factory work shifted to being done by immigrants (European immigrated to US because better working conditions)
• groups active in changing working conditions:
  • labor unions, Luddites, and Chartist movement formed in response to industry
  • labor unions: 
    • worked for better working conditions (shorter hours/days, no child labor, maternity leave, etc.)
    • targets - owners
  • Chartists:
    • tried to make parliament adopt measures to improve quality of life in tenements, industrial towns, and factories
    • target - government
  • Luddites:
    • made up of skilled workers that thrived pre-industrialization
    • attempted to destroy industrial revolution machines because they cost them their livelihood (ability to make a living)
    • target - machines
• transportation revolution (cont.):
  • turnpikes:
    • roads built by private citizens/companies and they can then charge people for use (like tolls)
  • railroads put canals out of business (don't explode and run where canals can't) and revolutionized travel (USA use this to cross great plains and desert)
• long term effects:
  • goods become cheaper and easier to make through machines (important in making weapons and war materials in timely fashion) and more available
  •  people buying goods from factories makes others anxious to enter into business and produce something else --> new goods
  • entrepreneurs and inventors always look for ways reduce their own costs and pass savings onto consumers --> competition between businesses further reduces costs of goods
  • department stores open up and changes life for consumers, producers, and entrepreneurs
• long term effects of failing to industrialize:
  • India and China still had successful industries of handmade items were specialty (expensive) items
  • when cheaply made British goods enter market, they destroy these successful industries which put people out of work
  • militarily, failure to industrialize was a death sentence 
    • ex. Russia failed to industrialize by WWII and had 2x casualties than everyone else