Unit 20 Notes Collective

The Revolution in Energy and Industry (1780-1850)

The industrial revolution started @ 1780 in Britain, WHY?

Factors such as high wages, a stable and centrailized government, success in global trade

• These factors created a capital-intensive, machine-powered system of production

  • also prefaced by the enlightenment and the scientific revouliton → embracing new ways of throughts

    • not just science → scientific societies, universities, museums, and workers’ associations

• 17th century expansion of rural industry = ⇈ cotton → ⇈ wages and profits

  • colonial holdings allowed for a stream of raw materials

    • ⇈ wages comapred to the rest of europe → ⇈ investment in development

• ⇈ efficiency in farming → ⇈ new technology → ⇈ food

  • landowners needed even less land

    • 1/3 of workers worked in manufacturing sectors by 1760s

      • could also spend more money on manufactured goods

        • ⇈ education and literacy, ⇈ numeracy

        • commercialization of the entire european economy

• ⇈ natural resoruced + well-developed infrastructure

  • close proxinimity from water

    • ⇈ coal → important in start of IR

      • ⇈ incentive to have new tech for coal

Technological Innovations

⇈ pressure to produce more goods + reduce labor costs from machine-powered factories in the British Cotton textile industry

Putting-out system and water-powered cotton

• merchant who loaned raw materials to cottage works → processed the raw materials → give back to mercahnt

  • didnt work because the ratio from spinners (of thread) to weavers → limitation to big to produce

• The cost to make in other parts of the world made the cotton easier to be exported as a luxurty → ⇈ need to make new technology to bring down intial manufacturing cost

  • James Hargreaves, invented his cotton-spinning jenny about 1765

  • Richard Arkwright invented (or possibly pirated) another kind of spinning machine, the water frame.

    • both of these inventions drove up the cotton textile in britian in the 1780s

      • Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin, a machine for separating cotton fibers from seeds, vastly increased the productivity of cotton fields (in united states)

  • with these innovations → cotton moved to water-powered factories

• To produce coal- the main source of energy, pumps powered by steam were made (1705)

  • 1736 → James Watt created a condensor that increased the efficiency

    • the advacnement made england more

    • watt created a jobs jsut for his engine and then then bolstered the fiancial success

      • inventors and egineers could aid poeple in their work (all) → helped cotton

        • took place of water power stuff

  • 1780s → Henry Cort → coke-fired puddling furnance to melt pig-iron + moulds for it

    • boosted the iron production

      • cheap, basic building blocks

        • also fueled other industrial advancements

• George Stephenson created the locomotive called the rocket in 1829

  • became a financial and technical succes → companies inveseting in railroads

    • reduced cost and the uncertainty of shipping

      • transportation changed the markets and expanded

        • artisans put under more pressure

  • steamships in the 1770s → speed, reliability, efficiency