What was the Industrial Revolution about?

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840.

The Industrial Revolution began in the United Kingdom and the British were able to fully exploit their technological inventions as they had colonised over half of the World.

Britain was a politically stable society, as well as the world’s leading colonial power, which meant its colonies could serve as a source for raw materials, as well as a marketplace for manufactured goods.

What were the causes of the Industrial Revolution?

Great Britain provided the legal and cultural foundations that enabled entrepreneurs to pioneer the industrial revolution in the 18th centruty.

Key factors fostering this environment were:

(1) The period of peace and stability which followed the unification of England and Scotland by the Union of England and Scotland Act 1603;

(2) no trade barriers between England and Scotland;

(3) the rule of law (respecting the sanctity of contracts);

(4) a straightforward legal system which allowed the formation of joint-stock companies (corporations); and

(5) a free market (capitalism).

What were the factors that made Britain the ideal place for Industrialization?

The first Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain after 1750. There were several factors that combined to make Great Britain an ideal place for industrialization.

First, the Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century created a favorable climate for industrialization.

By increasing food production, the British population could be fed at lower prices with less effort than ever before. The surplus of food meant that British families could use the money they saved to purchase manufactured goods. The population increase in Britain and the exodus of farmers from rural to urban areas in search of wage-labor created a ready pool of workers for the new industries.

Britain had financial institutions in place, such as a central bank, to finance new factories. The profits Britain had enjoyed due to booming cotton and trade industries allowed investors to support the construction of factories.

British entrepreneurs interested in taking risks to make profits were leading the charge of industrialization. The English revolutions of the 17th century had fostered a spirit of economic prosperity. Early industrial entrepreneurs were willing to take risks on the chance that they would reap financial rewards later.

Britain had a vast supply of mineral resources used to run industrial machines, such as coal. Since Britain is a relatively small country, these resources could be transported quickly and at a reasonable cost.

The British government passed laws that protected private property and placed few restrictions on private business owners. Britain’s merchant marine could transport goods to foreign markets. Lastly, Great Britain’s colonial empire created a ready supply of consumers to purchase its manufactured goods.

Technological Changes

Without important technological changes, the first Industrial Revolution would not have been possible. In the 18th century, Britain’s cotton industry charged ahead of many other countries. With James Hargreaves’ invention of the spinning Jenny in 1764, yarn could be produced in greater quantities.

In 1787, Edmund Cartwright’s power loom revolutionized the speed of cloth weaving.

In the 1760s, the steam engine (developed by James Watt) further transformed the cotton industry.

Unlike early devices powered exclusively by water, these steam engines were powered by coal. This meant that factories no longer needed to be located next to sources of water.

Another change occurred in the production of iron. During the early 18th century, a new method of smelting iron by using coke or ‘courke’ was introduced. Since the coke could heat iron more quickly than charcoal, production rates increased. This iron was instrumental in creating industrial machinery and railroad lines.

Transportation

During the 18th century, British entrepreneurs sought an efficient system of transportation. Recognizing the need to move goods and resources, new networks of canals and roads were built beginning in 1760. However, railroads quickly surpassed other modes of transportation.

As early as 1700, wooden railroad tracks were being replaced by iron ones. Before the invention of the steam engine, railroad cars were moved by horsepower.

In 1804, Richard Trevithick developed the first working steam powered locomotive.

First tested in Wales, Trevithick’s locomotive ran at five miles per hour.

In 1829, George Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive ran at 16 miles per hour.

His design would influence train engines in Britain up until the 1960s. The British system of railroad tracks more than doubled from 1840 to 1850.

This improvement in railroad technology and the increase in the speed of the trains helped in transporting material quickly, cheaply and quite as importantly, safely, to the destinations.

What did the transition include?

The transition came from hand production methods to machines. The harnessing of steam power was one of the main highlights of the Industrial Revolution. New chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power and the development of machine tools were all important factors in the rise of Industry.

All the factors above led to the rise of the factory system.

What were the new technologies that really made a difference?

The important technological improvements were:

• Canals were built to allow heavy goods to be moved easily where they were needed.
• The steam engine became the main source of power. It replaced horses and human labour.
• Cheap iron and steel became mass-produced. Steel replaced wood as material for building many of the new things.
• Machine tools became commonplace. Things could now be mass-produced in factories instead of making them by hand.
• Seed drills and other agricultural machinery brought a British agricultural revolution. Fewer people were needed to work in farming, so many moved to towns and found new jobs in the factories although many of the new jobs were very harsh and dangerous.
• Railways were built all around England and then the world. They carried freight and passengers much more quickly and cheaply than before.
• Steamships began to replace sailing ships. They could be larger and faster than sailing ships and did not depend on wind and weather.
• The spinning Jenny and power loom made it easy to mass-produce clothes and fabrics.

Which was the dominant Industry during the Industrial Revolution?

Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and capital invested; the textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.

To which class did the Industrial Revolution really make a difference?

The Industrial Revolution in Europe and particularly, Britain mainly helped the capitalist class. It also helped the large middle class have a better standard of living. At approximately the same time the Industrial Revolution was occurring, Britain was undergoing an agricultural revolution, which also helped to improve living standards of the agrarian class.

However, life for the poor and working classes continued to be filled with challenges. Wages for those who labored in factories were low and working conditions could be dangerous and monotonous. Unskilled workers had little job security and were easily replaceable. Children were part of the labor force and often worked long hours and were used for such highly hazardous tasks as cleaning the machinery. In the early 1860s, an estimated one-fifth of the workers in Britain’s textile industry were younger than 15.

Urban, industrialized areas were unable to keep pace with the flow of arriving workers from the countryside, resulting in inadequate, overcrowded housing and polluted, unsanitary living conditions in which disease was rampant.

Was there any opposition to the changes that Industrial Revolution brought? What is “luddite”?

There were protests across Europe and America, largely owing to fears that the new machines will take away jobs.

The word “luddite” refers to a person who is opposed to technological change. The term is derived from a group of early 19th century English workers who attacked factories and destroyed machinery as a means of protest.

What was the Spinning Jenny? How did it help in furthering the Industrial Revolution?

Around 1764, Englishman James Hargreaves (1722-1778) invented the spinning jenny (“jenny” was an early abbreviation of the word “engine”), a machine that enabled an individual to produce multiple spools of threads simultaneously. By the time of Hargreaves’ death, there were over 20,000 spinning jennys in use across Britain.

The spinning jenny was improved upon by British inventor Samuel Compton’s (1753-1827) spinning mule.

Another key innovation in textiles, the power loom, which mechanized the process of weaving cloth, was developed in the 1780s by English inventor Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823).

What progress did communication technology make during the Industrial Revolution?

Communication became easier during the Industrial Revolution with such inventions as the telegraph. In 1837, two Brits, William Cooke (1806-1879) and Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), patented the first commercial electrical telegraph.

By 1866, a telegraph cable was successfully laid across the Atlantic.

How did the industrialization change the demography and movement of people?

The British enacted legislation to prohibit the export of their technology and skilled workers; however, they had little success in this regard. Industrialization spread from Britain to other European countries, including Belgium, France and Germany, and to the United States.

By the mid-19th century, industrialization was well-established throughout the western part of Europe and America’s northeastern region. By the early 20th century, the U.S. had become the world’s leading industrial nation.

How did other the other countries industrialize quickly?

The innovations and technologies of the first industrial revolution were relatively easier to copy and replicate. Cheap labour, lots of metal and coal were necessary which most countries at that time had.

Belgium was the second country to pick up on Britain’s lead and it was the first nation in continental Europe.

France followed suit.

Germany followed quickly. Germany was a global leader in chemical research in universities and industrial labs. German engineers did not have enough advanced knowledge initially to build railroads. However, by 1850 Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction and railways allowed for major economic growth.

What happened in Japan? How did the Industrial Revolution begin and fare there?

The Industrial Revolution began in Japan under the Meiji period after 1860. Japan was always intent to grow. They adopted a western-based education system and hired thousands of Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan. Japanese students were sent to Europe and America to learn.

Railways were built using knowledge from the Western workforce and engineers. The Japanese economy allowed for mass production and complex infrastructure. Railway construction began in the early 1870s and grew exponentially across the island nation.

There were a lot of other innovators and entrepreneurs in Japan which helped Japan grow quickly into a highly industrialized nation.

How did Japan industrialize itself so quickly?

Source: Quora answer

A thing worth remembering is that Japan wasn’t that far behind the Western world. Industrial revolution outside Britain was a matter of just one generation in 1860s, when Japan embarked on its modernization program. Indeed, it had barely even begun in places like Russia or Austria-Hungary (or even United States in the pre-Civil War South).

The achievements of the first Industrial Revolution were easy to duplicate. The technologies were fairly simple, and all you needed was access to cheap labour, good quality iron and a reliable source of energy. Japan had an abundance of the first, some of the second – enough for a start – and the third (coal) it could import from abroad at a heavy cost (there were some coal mines in Kyushu, but they could hardly keep up with the demand), once it opened the borders (Meiji Japan was running a rather substantial trade deficit at first).

Another factor was a large number of scholars, scientists and entrepreneurs who were chafing at the bits to kick-start Japan’s industrial revolution, trained in the Rangakuschools throughout the country (mostly in Western Japan). These people kept perfectly up to date with technological and social developments in the West, and as soon as they got their chance, wasted no time using their knowledge. Furthermore, since it was the former warlords of the Western Japan and their associates who formed the new Meiji government, these scholars and scientists suddenly found themselves very close to sources of power and influence over the country.

Once you have coal, steel, know-how and labour, the first phase of industrialization becomes simply a matter of amassing enough will and resources.

When the, arguably more important, Second Industrial Revolution came in the 1870s, Japan was ready and primed to take part in it from the start. Thus, it didn’t have any real catching up to do since then.

PS: One of the less known heroes of Japan’s early success was silk. Just as Japan opened to trade with the West, a plague destroyed European silk plantations. China, choked by the brutal paroxysms of late Qing, and slow to modernize production, could not keep up with the demand, and as a result Japan took over as the world’s leading producer of silk (up to 80% of world production at some point, although that includes the extended Japanese Empire of early Showa era). This helped to partly finance the crucial early stage of the industrialization of the country

Was Russia far behind in all this?

The initial phase of the Russian segment of the Industrial Revolution began in the 1880s with the establishment of large scale factories that produced textiles and steel. Coal mining became increasingly important and was abundantly available. The steel was used to construct railways.

The Trans-Siberian Railway, a vast railroad project carried out by the Russian government in order to bolster a more efficient process for the Russian domestic trade and military, was constructed from 1891 to 1916.

Working conditions were generally better than they were in the United Kingdom during its own Industrial Revolution. With the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914 and the immediate Russian involvement, the Russian military and government needed a copious supply of goods and money for the war effort which was provided by the burgeoning Industry.