The industrial revolution Flashcards
When was the Industrial revolution?
Roughly 1760-1850.
What was special about this era?
There was sustained economic growth, so income compounded to a mass of prosperity today.
Where did the industrial revolution take place?
Britain.
What were the technological changes of that time?
- steam engine
- machines to spin and weave cotton
- new processes to smelt and refine iron and steel using coal instead of wood fuels
What was the issue of increased labour wages?
Labour got too expensive thus exponentially increasing business costs.
What was the result of the labour cost problem?
Productivity, innovation, and competition increased. Thus a host of simpler machines that raised labour productivity in unglamorous industries,
like hats, pins, and nails were created.
What did 19th century scientists do to increase innovations?
In 19th century, engineers extended 18th century mech inventions across the board.
- Steam engine → applied to transport with invention of railway & steamship
- Power-driven machinery, whose use initially restricted to textile mills, was applied to
industry generally.
What were the cultural and political reasons for Britain’s success?
- Only 3-5% could vote.
- The majority of the country’s power was still under the Crown.
- English state collected about twice as much per person as France & spent a larger
fraction of the national income
→ these expenditures might have promoted economic growth → most of the money
was spent on the army and navy - Growth also promoted by Parliament’s power to take people’s property against
their wishes.
Explain the “Industrial revolution sustained by emerging scientific culture”.
→ scientific revolution of 17th century led to handful of discoveries about natural
world that were applied by inventors in 18th cent.
→ success of nat. phil. lent credibility to scientific method
→ Newton’s model of solar system – greatest achievement – inspired reorientation
of upper-class ideas about religion and nature
Who is an Important example of working-class inventors adopting Newtonian mode
John
Harrison – chronometer
Give a synapses of the industrial revolution.
- Explanation lies in Britain’s unique structure of wages and prices
- Britain’s high-wage, cheap-energy economy made it profitable for British firms to
invent and use the breakthrough tech of the Ind Rev - Labour became cheaper relative to capital as the years past (late 1500s, 18th, 19th
century) - Incentive to mechanize production was correspondingly less in India.
- Same story with energy → Britain (especially on coal fields in north & midlands)
had the cheapest energy in the world - → energy much cheaper compared to labour in Britain than anywhere else
- As result of differences in wages and prices, businesses in England found it
profitable to use tech that saved on expensive labour by increasing the use of
cheap energy and capital - With more capital and energy at disposal, British workers became more productive
→ secret of economic growth
Give a brief synapses of the Cotton industry.
- From tiny beginnings in mid-18th century, the industry grew to be Britain’s largest
- Cotton was first industry to be transformed by factory production
- Growth of cotton led to explosive growth of Manchester & many smaller cities in
north of England and Scotland - International competition → spur that led to mechanization of cotton spinning
- [finer cotton → took more time to spin]
- Wages so high in England that competition with India was only possible in coarsest
fabrics - Large market in finer fabrics → but England could only compete if machines
invested to reduce labour
Explain why British inventors spent so much time and
money doing R&D (research and development).
→ key – machines they invented increased use of capital to save labour
→ profitable to use where labour was expensive and capital was cheap
→ nowhere else were the machine profitable
→ That is why Ind Rev was British
Who were the people that attempted to mechanize production and what did they invent?
- James Hargreaves – spinning jenny (mid 1760s) → first commercially
successful machine - Richard Arkwright – water frame
- Samuel Crompton – mule (invented in 1770s) → married jenny & water
frame → became basis of mechanical spinning for a century
Explain the ways in which cotton was manufactured.
- Bales of raw cotton broken open and dirt and debris removed
- Cotton was carded – strands of cotton aligned into loose strands called a roving,
by dragging cotton between cards studded with pins - Roving was spun into yarn.
