The Rise of Industry

How Did the Average European Live in 1750?

In 1750 … Worked as farmers using handmade tools Lived in one-room cottages in or around small villages Made their own clothes Grew their own food Only variety in goods was through occasional trade in the village Knew very little about the world outside their own village All travel was by foot or cart

How Did the Average European Live By 1850?

By 1850 … Worked in factories using machinery Lived in crowded multifamily apartment buildings in large towns or cities Bought all of their clothes Bought all of their food Had a variety of options in what they could buy from stores Knew a great deal about the outside world were able to travel rapidly by train or steamship

Agricultural Revolution New chemical fertilizers improved the quality of the soil and crop yield The seed drill (a machine which planted seeds in even rows) was invented Practiced new forms of crop rotation and discovered which crops replenish nutrients in the soil the fastest (if you’re curious, it’s turnips)

Agricultural Revolution Small farms disappeared as they were bought up by wealthier landowners to create more efficient large farms this increased farm output and profitability it also left a lot of peasant farmers homeless and jobless; they were left with no choice but to move into the cities

Population Growth More efficient farms → more food → more people Population of England grew from 5 million in 1700 to 9 million in 1800 Grew mostly from people living longer; no longer had to worry about starving to death or being weak from malnutrition

New Technologies Began to burn coal to produce energy Invention of steam powered engine, which would power ships and trains, by James Watt Learned how to make higher quality metals, specifically iron

Transportation Improvements Built new roads, canals, better bridges and harbors Railroads invented around 1830; thousands of miles of tracks quickly laid Began to replace sailing vessels with steamships

Industrial Revolution Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in Britain? Had lots of coal and iron deposits Had lots of workers available to work in the mines and factories Had the many mechanics and engineers necessary for developing new inventions Had many people who had grown wealthy from overseas trade that were looking for investments Had a stable government that supported economic growth

The Textile Industry Textiles are cloth goods Had been produced using the “putting-out” system since about 1600: raw cotton was distributed to peasant families who spun it into thread and then wove the thread into cloth the cloth was then sent into towns where skilled artisans finished and dyed the cloth, making it ready for use this process was SLOW, produced INCONSISTENT quality, and was EXPENSIVE!

The Textile Industry In the mid-1700s, inventors came up with a variety of machines to perform the spinning, weaving, finishing, and dying processes this made the process of making cloth much faster and cheaper the machines were large and heavy, however, and had to be housed in factories – rather than sending the work out to the workers, the workers now had to come to the work