1. Industrial Revolution

2. What factors combined to cause the Industrial Revolution?
Industrialization is an enormous change in world history and therefore is caused by not one thing but a combination of forces. The cause of the Industrial Revolution is one of the great questions of history.
Contributing factors include availabilities of new territories and resources (land) population growth (labor) and financial ability to support the process (capital)
Population growth in Europe in the eighteenth century due to improved diet and greater control over disease.
The second, the Agricultural Revolution is an important force with the enclosure of lands, new crops, and fertilizers.
The growth of “cottage industries” as well as the scientific innovations and the improved transportation networks with construction of roads as well as canals and railroads creating avenues for quicker distribution of larger quantities of goods.
Great wealth acquired through joint ventures stock companies and conquests of territory and resources during the Age of Exploration allowed for available capital

3. What four revolutionary innovations made possible the Industrial Revolution?
mass production through the division of labor
Josiah Wedgwood and the porcelain industry were one example of applying mass production techniques originally developed by the Chinese.
Wedgwood broke down the work into individual steps, maximizing the use of labor and other resources within each step.
new machines and mechanization
The cotton industry exemplified the role of machines in the Industrial Revolution. Machines such as the spinning jenny, the mule, and the power loom produced cotton textiles at lower costs.
Watermills improved both production and quality.
an increase in the supply of iron
As for the enormous increase in iron production, it allowed great expansion and improvement of transportation through the building of bridges, railroads, and steamships.
More iron also meant that more machinery could be built more cheaply, and larger factories were constructed to accommodate those machines.
Iron production was boosted by the innovation in removing impurities from both iron and coal.
Coke production allowed Britain to produce iron without depending on dwindling charcoal supplies, as other nations did
Later the Bessemer steel process magnified the early gains creating a new era in the Industrial Revolution
the steam engine.
The most important innovation, however, was in energy. James Watt’s improvement of previous designs of the steam engine made available cheap and portable energy sources—and insufficient energy seemed to have been the only constraint on rampant industrialism. Power for pumping water from mines, operating mills, and driving ships and trains let the Industrial Revolution careen forward.

4. For other workers, the Industrial Revolution seemed like a nightmare.
Describe both the positive and negative working conditions encountered by women and men during the Industrial Revolution.
On the positive side, many new opportunities opened up for those with particular skills, such as machinists and metal workers.
Wages for these specialties and others also increased.
For other workers, the Industrial Revolution seemed like a nightmare.
Most work was boring.
Repetitive motions mandated by the mass-production system made workers feel disassociated from their work.
Employers added new machines and ran them faster and longer.
Health conditions deteriorated, causing infant mortality rates to soar and average life expectancies to plummet.
Industrial accidents were commonplace, and workers were allowed little say in controlling their workplace. Many factories sought women and children as laborers.
The work day routinely lasted fourteen to sixteen hours.
National and international mass migrations of workers began, as workers moved from rural areas to industrializing cities they had to adjust to their new environment often causing dissonance in the quickly formed living environments.
Although some employers provided living quarters and places to buy items on credit and health care, most of these were soon turned to ways to exploit the newly arrived and trapped workers.

5. What were some of the ideological responses to industrialization
What were some of the ideological responses to industrialization? We refer to most of these as the “isms” of the 1800s and include all areas of society including culture, economic systems, political systems and social systems.
Many different categories of responses:
laissez faire, utilitarianism, positivism, utopianism, Chartism, and workers’ protests. Laissez faire, literally a policy of “let them do,” was embodied in Adam Smith and his The Wealth of Nations. According to laissez faire, if individuals sought personal gain and advancement, the general welfare would improve as well.
Government should protect private property, should not interfere in business or in the relations between workers and management, and should allow tax-free international trade.
Utilitarianism was a theory propounded by Jeremy Bentham, who said that an enlightened Parliament could legislate improved social conditions to maximize “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”
The count of Saint-Simon espoused positivism, which argued that the poor should work in ideal communities, led by scientists and benevolent business leaders. Utopians wanted to create communal societies that would provide prosperity for all.
The Utopians were unrealistic, but did have a lasting influence on late-nineteenth-century socialism.
Chartists presented petitions to Parliament to improve working conditions and helped create a legacy of labor organizing.
Workers themselves responded, sometimes in the extreme, with riots, strikes, boycotts, violent protests, and sabotage. (some called themselves “Luddites” and destroyed machines)
However, workers often protested without violence—by unionizing, presenting demands in common, and petitioning factory owners and political representatives.
Other isms include realism, modernism, impressionism, post-impressionism, naturalism, victorianism (social), feminism, expressionism, socialism (as in Utopian socialism, Democratic socialism, marxism) and more….

6. What was the environmental impact of the Industrial Revolution?
Deforestation for construction and fuel was readily apparent in Europe, but much less so in America. Europeans then adopted coal, and almost immediately suffered from breathing the harmful coal emissions.
As cities grew larger and population density increased, public water and sanitation became problems.
On the other hand, industrialization had some positive environmental effects.
In Britain, underground resources such as coal replaced wood, and overseas cotton replaced domestic wool.
As land diminished and feed for horses became expensive, less land-hungry mechanical transport spread.
Shipbuilding, which had traditionally consumed enormous quantities of wood, switched to iron.

7. How do you account for the spread of industrialization outside of England in the nineteenth century?
The beginnings of industrialization in Europe blossomed after the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815.
Generally speaking, the nations closest to England industrialized most quickly.
Belgium and France stole industrial secrets and smuggled skilled workers and machinery out of Britain.
Nations farthest from England, such as Russia and Sweden, industrialized much more slowly.
Many countries also waited until the British had solved the problems they had encountered.
Nations eliminated internal tariffs and tolls, and joint-stock companies and banks secured the capital necessary for industrial expansion.
In the United States, a high standard of living and a growing urban population created a demand for manufactured goods.
High tariffs helped ensure that they would be produced in the United States, where large distances encouraged the development of the railroad, telegraph, and steamboat.
American cotton growing spurred the development of the cloth and clothing industry.

8. How did industrialization alter the relationship between Western Europe and the non-industrialized world? How is the Nemesis as described in the text box a symbol of these changes?
The industrialization transformed Western Europe’s relationship with the non-industrialized world profoundly.
In the early modern era, Europe sought luxury goods from India and China such as silk, tea and cotton textiles but that as a result of industrialization Europe began to demand raw materials from Egypt, India and China instead.
England began to built steam powered gunboats like the Nemesis which they used to penetrate China and humiliate the large Chinese military.
This gave the West a distinct military advantage over China and showed the power of industry in spite of China’s size, history and population.
In Egypt and India, industrialization was not delayed but rather stopped when it had hardly begun.
Egypt developed a system of state capitalism, where the central government was the major benefactor.
European advisers built factories, foundries, and shipyards.
The aim was to lessen Egypt’s dependence on the Ottoman Empire, but instead it became more dependent on Great Britain.
The British intentionally flooded Egypt with cheap manufactured imports to prevent Egypt from becoming powerful.
India, once the world’s largest producer and exporter of cotton textiles, suffered from the domination of the British East India Company.
For example, after the Industrial Revolution began in England, the BEIC flooded India with duty-free textiles.
The former handcraft workers could find no employment, and most became landless peasants or emigrated overseas when slavery ended.
Like other colonies, India became an exporter of raw material and an importer of manufactured goods.
The British, however, controlled the Indian government and were more interested in encouraging British imports than in furthering Indian manufacturing.
In January 1840, a shipyard in Britain launched a radically new ship. The Nemesis had an iron hull, a flat bottom that allowed it to navigate in shallow waters, and a steam engine to power it priver and against the wind. In November it arrived off the coast of China, heavily armed. Though ships from Europe had been sailing to China for 300 years, the Nemesis was the first steam-powered iron gunboat seen in Asian waters.
A Chinese observer noted: “Iron is employed to make it strong. The hull is painted black, weaver’s shuttle fashion. On each side is a wheel, which by the use of coal fire is made to revolve as fast as a running horse….At the vessel’s head is a Marine God, and at the head, stern and sides are cannon, which give it a terrific appearance. Steam vessels, are a wonderful invention of foreigners, and are calculated to offer delight to many.”
Instead of offering delight, the Nemesis and other steam-powered warships that soon joined it steamed up the Chinese rivers, bombarded forts and cities and transported troops and supplies from place to place along the coast and up rivers far more quickly than Chinese soldiers could move on foot. With this new weapon, Britain, a small island nation half a world away, was able to defeat the largest and most populated country in the world. (Earth and Its Peoples, A Global History, Bulliet et al, 4th Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, pg. 641)

9. Why did the Industrial Revolution take place first in Britain rather than in another country?
Great Britain had the means of production at the time they were needed. Land, Labor and Capital
Although the British were innovative, they were no more innovative than some other nations
however, they made practical applications of those innovations much more quickly.
Furthermore, they were the world’s leading exporters of tools, guns, hardware, and other craft goods.
British engineers tried new approaches to problems.
Britain also had many skilled refugees, who brought important skills with them.
In addition, British society was a factor in promoting the Industrial Revolution.
The British monarchy was less powerful and oppressive than those in other countries, and political power was less centralized.
Because class lines were less sharply drawn, moving up through the classes was more feasible in England.
British superiority in shipping and water transportation played a crucial part in the era before railroads, when land transportation was prohibitively expensive. Finally, British financial institutions were most aptly suited to the Industrial Revolution. Examples can be seen in the writings of Adam Smith, as well as in joint-stock companies and the insurance system.