the industrial revolution - msking.org · the industrial revolution in great britain plentiful...

The Industrial Revolution

Preview of Events

Guide to Reading

Section PreviewWhen coal and steam engines powerednew industry, people migrated to expand-ing cities to find jobs.

• Plentiful natural resources, workers,wealth, and markets explain why GreatBritain was the country where theIndustrial Revolution began. (p. 254)

• The pace of industrialization in Europe,the United States, and Japan dependedon many factors, including governmentpolicy. (p. 257)

• Industrialization urbanized Europe andcreated new social classes, as well asthe conditions for the rise of socialism.(p. 259)

Content Vocabularyenclosure movement, capital, entrepre-neur, cottage industry, puddling, indus-trial capitalism, socialism

Academic Vocabularydynamic, migrate

People to IdentifyJames Watt, Robert Fulton

Reading Objectives1. Trace the advances that made the

Industrial Revolution possible. 2. Describe how the Industrial Revolution

affected women and children.

Reading StrategyCategorizing Information Use a tablelike the one below to name importantinventors and their inventions.

California Standards in This SectionReading this section will help you master these California History–Social Science standards.

10.3: Students analyze the effects of the Industrial Rev-olution in England, France, Germany, Japan, andthe United States.

10.3.1: Analyze why England was the first country toindustrialize.

10.3.2: Examine how scientific and technologicalchanges and new forms of energy brought aboutmassive social, economic, and cultural change(e.g., the inventions and discoveries of JamesWatt, Eli Whitney, Henry Bessemer, Louis Pas-teur, Thomas Edison).

10.3.3: Describe the growth of population, rural to urbanmigration, and growth of cities associated with theIndustrial Revolution.

10.3.4: Trace the evolution of work and labor, includingthe demise of the slave trade and the effects ofimmigration, mining and manufacturing, divisionof labor, and the union movement.

10.3.5: Understand the connections among naturalresources, entrepreneurship, labor, and capital inan industrial economy.

10.3.6: Analyze the emergence of capitalism as a domi-nant economic pattern and the responses to it,including Utopianism, Social Democracy, Social-ism, and Communism.

Inventors Inventions

1782Watt builds steam engineto drive machinery

1764Hargreaves inventsspinning jenny

1840Steamships crossthe Atlantic

1833Factory Actpassed in Britain

1807Steamboats maketransport easier

✦1750 ✦1770 ✦1790 ✦1810 ✦1830 ✦1850

253CHAPTER 4 Industrialization and Nationalism

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:50 AM Page 253

The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain

Plentiful natural resources, workers, wealth,and markets explain why Great Britain was the countrywhere the Industrial Revolution began.

Reading Connection Think about how computers arerapidly changing today’s world. Read to understand how theIndustrial Revolution changed life in the nineteenth century.

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britainsometime around 1780. Within about fifty years,industrialization took hold in the rest of WesternEurope, but why did it occur in Britain first?

When a nation industrializes, a major transforma-tion occurs. A society is transformed from a stableagricultural world to an industrial society of constantgrowth. For the workers of the day, this transforma-tion could be traumatic.

A number of factors are necessary in order for thisdynamic process of industrialization to occur.

Contributing Factors First, Britain was producingmuch more food in the eighteenth century because itsagriculture had improved. More farmland, bettertransportation, and new crops like the potato dra-matically increased the food supply. More peoplecould be fed at lower prices with less labor.

Second, with more abundant food supplies, thepopulation increased dramatically. At the same time,Parliament passed laws in the 1700s that allowedlandowners to fence off common lands. As a result ofthis enclosure movement, many peasants wereforced to move to towns to find work. Britain thushad a plentiful supply of labor.

Third, Britain had a ready supply of money, orcapital, to invest in the new industrial machines andthe factories needed to house them. Some wealthypeople, called entrepreneurs, sought new businessopportunities and new ways to make profits.

Fourth, natural resources were plentiful in Britain.The country’s many rivers provided the water powerfor the steam engine, as well as transportation forraw materials and finished products. The Britishlandscape was also rich in the coal and iron ore thatwas necessary for manufacturing.

Fifth, Britain had a relatively free society. Its gov-ernment did not heavily regulate the economy, andideas also circulated freely. Inventors and capitalistsfelt they had the freedom to act on their ideas.

Finally, the British had a ready market in their vastempire, and British ships could transport manufac-tured goods anywhere in the world. At home, too,the market was growing because the population wasgrowing. Since food was cheaper, the mass of thepopulation were able to buy more than just theirdaily bread. With demand expanding, capitalists—those with money to invest—had a huge incentive tofind methods to expand production.

254 CHAPTER 4 Industrialization and Nationalism

The new factories forced employees to complywith a new kind of discipline. In 1844, a factory inBerlin posted the following rules:

“The normal working day begins at all seasonsat 6 A.M. precisely and ends, after the usual breakof half an hour for breakfast, an hour for dinnerand half an hour for tea, at 7 P.M. . . . Workersarriving 2 minutes late shall lose half an hour’swages; whoever is more than 2 minutes late maynot start work until after the next break, or at leastshall lose his wages until then. . . . No worker mayleave his place of work otherwise than for reasonsconnected with his work. . . . All conversation withfellow-workers is prohibited. . . . ”

Supervisors ensuring constant work

Culver Pictures, Inc.

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:51 AM 54

Changes in Cotton Production In the eighteenthcentury, Great Britain had already surged ahead ofother countries in making inexpensive cotton goods.Making cotton cloth was a two-step process. First,spinners made thread from raw cotton. Then,weavers wove the thread into cloth on looms. In theeighteenth century, people performed this work intheir rural cottages, so the production method wascalled a cottage industry.

A series of technological advances in the eigh-teenth century made the cottage industry inefficientand outdated. First, the invention of the “flying shut-tle” made weaving faster. Now, the weavers neededspinners to produce thread more quickly since theycould make cotton faster.

In 1764 James Hargreaves invented a machinecalled the spinning jenny, which met this need. Otherinventors made similar contributions. The spinningprocess became so quick that thread was being pro-duced faster than weavers could use it.

Yet another invention allowed the weavers tocatch up. This was a water-powered loom, inventedby Edmund Cartwright by 1787. It now became moreefficient to bring workers to the new machines andhave them work in factories near streams and rivers,whose water powered the early machines.

The cotton industry became even more productivewhen Scottish engineer James Watt improved thesteam engine in the 1760s. Then, in 1782, Watt madechanges that allowed the steam engine to drivemachinery.


Factory workers

Women beating and lapping cotton by hand (above); (below) a machine performing the same function

A series of complex developments brought aboutthe Industrial Revolution—two of these develop-ments included increased demand and the fact thatsome businesspeople had capital to invest. Anothermajor step forward came when steam power couldbe used to spin and weave cotton.

Because steam engines were fired by coal, they didnot need to be located near rivers. Before long, cottonmills powered by steam engines were found all overBritain.

British cotton cloth production increased dramati-cally. In 1760, Britain had imported 2.5 millionpounds of raw cotton—or 1.14 million kilograms—for use in cottage industries. In 1787, imports rose to22 million pounds (10 million kg), and by this time,most cotton was spun on machines. By 1840, 366 mil-lion pounds (166 million kg) were imported eachyear. Factory-made cotton cloth was Britain’s mostvaluable product and was sold everywhere in theworld.

(tl)National Trust/Art Resource, NY, (tr)Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art and Architecture, (b)Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art and Architecture

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:52 AM Page 255


The Coal and Iron Industries Since the steamengine was crucial to the Industrial Revolution,Britain had to have the coal for its engine. In Britain,coal seemed to lie everywhere under the ground. Asmore factories were built, more coal was needed.Inventors found ways to use coal more efficiently.These new methods aided another important indus-try—the iron industry.

Britain had plenty of iron ore as well as coal. In theearly 1700s, the process of making iron had changedvery little since the Middle Ages. In the 1780s, how-ever, Henry Cort developed a way to produce betteriron with a process called puddling.

In puddling, coke, a coal derivative, was used topurify crude iron. The result was higher-quality iron,and the iron industry boomed. In 1740, 17,000 tons(15,419 t) had been sold, but once the puddlingprocess came into use, production jumped to about70,000 tons (63,490 t). In 1852, Britain produced moreiron than the rest of the world combined—almost 3million tons (2.7 million t). The new iron was used tomake machines and to build railroads.

History through Art

Biermeister and Wain Steel Forge by P.S. KroyerIndustry’s raw power captured the imagination of manyartists. Kroyer, a Norwegian-born Dane, painted this scenein 1875. How do the conditions for workers compare toindustry today?

Railroads In the eighteenth century, roads andcanals had already made moving goods more effi-cient. It was railroads, however, that dramaticallyimproved Britain’s transportation.

In 1804, the first steam-powered locomotive ranon an industrial rail line. It pulled 10 tons (9 t) of oreand 70 people at 5 miles per hour (8.05 km per hour).Better locomotives followed. The Rocket moved onthe first public railway line, which opened in 1830between Liverpool and Manchester. Today the tripwould take an automobile a half hour, but in 1830, ittook the Rocket two hours as it sped along at 16 milesper hour (25.7 km per hour). Within 20 years, thespeed of locomotives almost tripled. By 1850, rail-roads crisscrossed much of the country—about 6,000miles (9,654 km).

Railroad expansion caused a ripple effect in theeconomy. Building railroads created more jobs andless expensive transport made goods cheaper to buy.Cheaper goods created more sales and more sales ledto more factories. When business owners profited,they invested profits in new and better equipment,which increased economic growth. In the old agricul-tural society, growth was rare and intermittent. In anindustrial society, economic growth is permanent.

Superstock

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:53 AM Page 256

The New Factories The factory was very importantto industrialization. Early on, factories were situatednear water and powered by mills. When new energysources were developed, however, factories could belocated in cities near workers.

This new industrial economy created an entirelynew labor system. Because factory owners wantedtheir machines producing goods constantly, workerswere forced to work in shifts to keep the machinesgoing.

Early factory workers migrated from rural areas.In the country, they were used to periods of hecticwork, followed by periods of rest. Factory ownerswanted workers to work without stopping. They dis-ciplined workers to a system of regular hours andrepetitive tasks. Anyone who came to work late wasfined, or quickly dismissed for misconduct, espe-cially for drunkenness. Child workers were oftenbeaten.

Describing Why did employers feelthey needed to discipline factory workers?

Reading Check

The Spread of Industrialization

The pace of industrialization in Europe, theUnited States, and Japan depended on many factors,including government policy.

Reading Connection Are some groups more willing tochange than others? Read about the factors that help explainwhy nations adapt to change at different speeds.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Great Britain, theworld’s first industrial nation, was also the richest. Itproduced half the world’s output of coal and manu-factured goods. Its cotton industry alone was equalin size to the combined industries of all other Euro-pean countries. Most of them were just beginning toindustrialize.

The Industrial Revolution spread to continentalEurope at different times and speeds. Countries withmore urban areas and a tradition of trade industrial-ized earlier. Belgium and France did not have all ofBritain’s advantages, but both countries showed

significant industrial growth after 1830. In the German states, it was another story.There was no single nation, but more than30 states, many very small. Instead of sell-ing goods in a national market, manufac-turers had to face multiple governmentalunits and regulations.

In the early 1830s, Prussia, one of thelargest German states, took an important


Popu

latio

n (in

milli

ons)

1830 1870 1900

1830

.032

1870

11.0

1900

18.6

90

24.031.0

12.9

38.6

76.0

41.0

75

60

45

30

15

0

Britain United StatesComparing Britain and the United States*

Popu

latio

n (in

milli

ons)

1830 1870 1900

1830

.023

1870

53.0

1900

195.0

90

75

60

45

30

15

0

Railr

oad

Trac

k(in

thou

sand

s of m

iles)

Railr

oad

Trac

k(in

thou

sand

s of m

iles)

210

180

150

120

90

60

30

0

Britain United States

*As you compare, keep in mind the vast difference in area betweenBritain and the United States. Britain (England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland) totals 94,548 square miles (244,879 sq km); the continental United States, 3,717,796 square miles (9,629,091 sq km).

210

180

150

120

90

60

30

0

Britain was the leading industrial nation in theearly and mid-nineteenth century, but countriessuch as the United States eventually surpassedBritain in industrial production.

1. Comparing How did Britain’s populationgrowth, from 1830 to 1870 and 1870 to 1900,compare to the United States’s growth? Howdid Britain’s expansion in railroad tracks com-pare to that of the United States during thesame period?

2. Problem Solving Which country had thehighest percentage of railroad track miles incomparison to total square miles in 1870? In 1900?

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:53 AM Page 257

step by creating a free trading zone. Industrializationbegan, but it did not transform the economy until1870 when Germany was united.

In Britain, a freer society, private entrepreneurstook the lead. In France, Belgium, and the Germanstates, governments tended to be active in promotingindustrialization. Often governments funded roads,canals, and railroads.

One of the most important facts in modern historyis that Western Europe and the United States indus-trialized first. They therefore had an immense advan-tage in becoming wealthy, powerful nations, nationsthat soon dominated other parts of the world.

One Asian country, Japan, followed the Westernexample. Japan had seen the importance of industrialpower in 1853. In that year, American admiralMatthew Perry steered his steam-powered ship intothe Japanese harbor and demanded that Japan tradewith the United States. Many Asian countries hesi-tated to change their culture and adopt some Westernways, but the new Japanese government of 1868decided that it must copy Western technology tobecome a strong nation.


400 kilometers0Chamberlin Trimetric projection

400 miles0

N

SEW

0°5°W 20°E10°W15°W

55°N

50°N

45°N

AtlanticOcean

EbroR.

LoireR.

Vistula R.

Po R.Danube R.

Neman R.Balti

c Sea

NorthSea

MediterraneanSea

Adriatic Sea

BlackSea

NORWAY

SWEDEN

RUSSIA

PRUSSIA

POLAND

SERBIA

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

ITALY

SWITZERLAND

SPAIN

FRANCE

BELGIUM

UNITED KINGDOM

NETH.

DENMARK

GERMANY

Edinburgh

Leeds

Sheffield

BradfordLiverpool

Manchester

BristolLondon

Amsterdam

Brussels

Paris

Bordeaux

Cologne

Hamburg

Copenhagen

Oslo

Stockholm

St. Petersburg

WarsawBreslau

Prague

Berlin

Munich

ViennaPest

Venice

Rome

Florence

Genoa

MilanTurin

Marseille

Glasgow

Birmingham

Industrialization of Europe by 1870

The Industrial Revolution spread throughout nineteenth-century Europe.

1. Interpreting Maps What was the predominant indus-try in the United Kingdom?

2. Applying Geography Skills What patterns do yousee in the distribution of the major industries? What geographical factors could account for these patterns?

Coal miningIron workingTextile production

Industry:Manufacturing andindustrial area Major industrial centerMajor railways by 1870

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:54 AM Page 258


This English train of the mid-1840s shows early passen-ger travel. The first line to handle both passengers andgoods opened between Liverpool and Manchester in1830. What does the style of the rail coaches remindyou of?

History

substantial majority of textile workers. Early capital-ists even advertised for whole families. In Utica, NewYork, one newspaper ran this ad: “Wanted: A fewsober and industrious families of at least five chil-dren each, over the age of eight years, are wanted atthe cotton factory in Whitestown. Widows with largefamilies would do well to attend this notice.”

Evaluating Why was the railroadimportant to the industrialization of the United States?

Social Impact in Europe

Industrialization urbanized Europe and creatednew social classes, as well as the conditions for the rise ofsocialism.

Reading Connection Do you know any entrepreneurswho run their own businesses? Read about how early entre-preneurs contributed to the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution drastically changed thesocieties of Europe and, eventually, the world. Themajor signs of this change were the growth of cities andthe emergence of two new social classes, the industrialmiddle class and the industrial working class.

Growth of Population and Cities In 1750, Euro-pean population stood at an estimated 140 million.By 1850, the population had almost doubled to 266million. The key to this growth was a decline in death

Reading Check

In the United States, the pace of industrializingwas fairly quick, especially considering that Ameri-cans were also busy expanding across the continent.In 1800, six of seven American workers were farmers,and no city had more than 100,000 people. Between1800 and 1860, the population of the United Statesgrew from about 5 million to 30 million. In the sameperiod, cities grew, too. Nine cities had populationsover 100,000, and now only half of Americansworked as farmers.

Once the United States extended to the Pacific, anational transportation system was vital. Thousandsof miles of roads and canals were built to link east andwest. Robert Fulton built the first paddle-wheelsteamboat, the Clermont, in 1807. By 1860, a thousandsteamboats plied the Mississippi River and madetransportation easier on the Great Lakes and alongthe Atlantic coast. It was the railroad that reallybrought the nation together. In 1830, there were fewerthan 100 miles of track (160.9 km). By 1860, about30,000 miles of track (48,270 km) had been built.

In the early years, factory workers came from thefarms of the Northeast. Women and girls made up a

Lambert/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:56 AM Page 259

Cities grew faster than the basic facilities like aclean water supply and sewers. Thus industrial citiesbred dirt and disease as workers crowded into ram-shackle housing. Upset by disease and human suffer-ing, reformers called for government action, but theirpleas were not met until later in the century.

The Industrial Middle Class Capitalism hadexisted since the Middle Ages, when men with capi-tal could invest in long-distance trade for profit. Inthis period, industrial capitalism, an economic sys-tem based on manufacturing, took hold. With a newkind of economy, a new social group emerged—theindustrial middle class.

In earlier times the term bourgeoisie, or middleclass, referred to burghers, or town dwellers. Theywere merchants, artisans, professionals such aslawyers or doctors, and government officials. Thebourgeoisie were not noble, but they were not poor.Some were quite wealthy.

During the Industrial Revolution, a new group wasadded to the middle class. The industrial middle classwere the men who built the factories, bought themachines, and figured out where the markets were.They had initiative, vision, ambition, and quite often,greed. As one manufacturer put it, “Getting of money. . . is the main business of the life of men.”

The Industrial Working Class The Industrial Rev-olution also created a new kind of worker, the indus-trial worker. Industrial workers worked from 12 to 16hours a day, six days a week, with only a half hour forlunch and dinner. They had no minimum wage andcould be fired at a moment’s notice.

In the cotton mills, the heat was stifling. “In thecotton-spinning work,” it was reported, “these crea-tures are kept, 14 hours in each day, locked up, sum-mer and winter, in a heat of from 80 to 84 degrees.”Dirt and dust filled the air, and machines operatedwithout safety codes for the workers.

Coal miners also faced harsh and dangerous con-ditions. Steam-powered engines could lift the coalfrom the pits to the surface, but deep below ground,miners had to dig out this “black gold” with sledges,pick axes, and chisels. Horses, mules, women, andchildren worked underground, too, hauling carts fullof coal on rails to the lift. Cave-ins, explosions, andgas fumes (called “bad air”) were a way of life. Thecramped conditions in mines—tunnels were oftenonly three or four feet high—and their constantdampness led to deformed bodies and ruined lungs.

As in the United States, women and children madeup a high percentage of workers in the cotton industry


rates, wars, and diseases such as smallpox andplague. Because of an increase in the food supply,more people were better fed and resistant to disease.Famine largely disappeared from Western Europe.

Cities and towns in Europe grew dramatically in thefirst half of the 1800s. The growth was directly relatedto industrialization. By 1850, especially in Great Britainand Belgium, many factories were located in cities,which now grew rapidly—factories were a magnet foranyone looking for work.

In 1800, Great Britain had one major city, London,with a population of 1 million, and six more citieshad populations of 50,000 to 100,000. Fifty years later,London’s population had swelled to nearly 2,500,000.Growth was seen all over Britain now—nine citieshad more than 100,000 residents, and 18 had popula-tions between 50,000 and 100,000. By 1850, half of thepeople were urban residents. This process of urban-ization was going on in other European countries,but it happened more quickly and more completelyin Britain than in many other countries.

A late-nineteenth-century photo shows housing condi-tions in England. Typically, houses backed up againstone another, creating narrow alleyways that did notallow for a patch of grass. How did the IndustrialRevolution contribute to such scenes?

History

Mary Evans Picture Library

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 3:57 AM Page 260

—about two-thirds by 1830. Reformers condemnedthe factories for enslaving children. The situationimproved after the Factory Act of 1833. It set 9 yearsof age as the minimum for child labor, but childrenbetween 9 and 13 could still work 9 hours a day, andthose between 13 and 18 years of age could work 12hours.

As the number of working children declined, morewomen were employed, and before 1870 they madeup half of the labor force in British textiles. Womenwere mostly unskilled and were paid half or less thanhalf of what men received. Excessive working hoursfor women were outlawed in 1844.

One reason women and children began by work-ing such long hours in factories was that familieswere accustomed to working together in cottageindustry. When laws limited working hours forwomen and children, a new pattern began to beestablished. Men would be expected to work outsidethe home, while women took over running the home.Women continued to add to family income by takinglow-paying jobs that could be done at home, such aswashing laundry or sewing.

Early Socialism The transition to factory work wasnot easy. Although workers’ lives eventuallyimproved, they suffered terribly during the earlydecade of industrialization. Their family life was dis-rupted, they were separated from the countryside,hours were long, and pay was low.

Some reformers opposed a capitalist system whichthey saw as responsible for destroying people’s lives.They advocated socialism. Socialism is an economicsystem in which society, usually in the form of the

government, owns and controls important parts ofthe economy, such as factories and utilities. In social-ist theory, this public ownership of the means of pro-duction would allow wealth to be distributed moreequally to everyone.

Early socialists wanted to replace competitionwith cooperation. They wrote books about the idealsociety that might be created, a hypothetical societywhere workers could use their abilities and whereeveryone would be cared for. Later socialists said thatthese ideas were impractical dreams. Karl Marx con-temptuously called earlier reformers of this grouputopian socialists. (He borrowed the term fromUtopia, a medieval work describing an ideal societyby Sir Thomas More.) To this day, we refer to theearly socialists in this way.

One utopian socialist was Robert Owen, a Britishcotton manufacturer. Owen believed that if only peo-ple lived in a cooperative environment, they wouldshow their natural goodness. At New Lanark in Scot-land, Owen transformed a squalid factory town intoa flourishing community. He created a similar com-munity at New Harmony, Indiana, in the 1820s,which failed. Not everyone was as committed tosharing and caring as Owen himself, and New Har-mony split up in the late 1820s.

Describing How did socialistsrespond to new and harsh working conditions?

Reading Check


Checking for Understanding1. Vocabulary Define: dynamic, enclo-

sure movement, capital, entrepreneur,cottage industry, puddling, migrate,industrial capitalism, socialism.

2. People Identify: James Watt, RobertFulton.

Reviewing Big Ideas3. Describe the importance of the rail-

roads in the growth of cities in Europeand the United States.

Critical Thinking4. Connecting

Ideas Analyze how the Industrial Revo-lution changed the way families livedand worked.

5. Cause and Effect Use a diagram likethe one below to list the causes andeffects of the Industrial Revolution.

Analyzing Visuals6. Examine the picture of female textile

workers shown on page 255 of yourtext. How does this picture reflect therole that women played in the Indus-trial Revolution?

CA HI 1

7. Informative Writing You are anineteenth-century journalist. Writea brief article depicting the workingconditions in cotton mills and anexplanation of how mill ownersdefend such conditions. CA WA2.3b

Causes Effects

IndustrialRevolution

For help with the concepts in this section of Glencoe WorldHistory—Modern Times, go to andclick on Study Central.

wh.mt.glencoe.com

Study CentralHISTORY

0248-0289 C04SE-867855 3/2/05 11:43 AM Page 261

the industrial revolution - msking.org · the industrial revolution in great britain plentiful...

Documents