History 152 Exam 2 Notes - The Industrial Revolution in...

The Industrial Revolution in Britain
Introduction
• Scales of time
o One scale of time is events (president winning/losing election)
▪ Hours/days/months and maybe years
o Another is social conjuncture
▪ Emergence of new institution
▪ These type of changes can happen over centuries and
maybe even millennia
o Alvin Toffler, Third Wave
o David Christian (quoted by Strayer, p. 826)
▪ Find new ways to harness en ergy (fossil fuels)
▪ Threshold – new ways of harnessing energy
• Collective learning, global web of connections
o Strayer, page 826/827
o Why has industrialization not become universal, practiced in
every country, unlike agriculture
▪ Capitalist globalization, property rights, and control of
technology
• Why Europe
o The problem of Eurocentrism
▪ Form of the broad term, ethnocentrism
▪ Europeans are distinct and superior to other societies
o Strayer 827-832 and 771-775
Factors that Led to the IR in England
• Innovations in agriculture, good harvests
o Developing better use of fertilizers etc
o Small innovations that are key components of this story
o More food/better variety/better diet
• Growing populations (lots of laborers)
o Fewer children die
o Adults live longer
o More laborers
• Demand for consumer goods by nobility & middle class
o Build bigger homes
o Furnish big homes
o Spending more on home decor etc, which means there’s more
of a need for laborers
• Stable political-legal system (ex, property rights)

o Government couldn’t take property/raise taxes
o People can invest in new technologies
• Capital for investment (partly from New World)
o European exploitation for resources in the new world
o In the growing economy, it also explains why there’s money
available in new technology
• Natural resources and markets in Britain’s colonies
o Need people to sell them to
o If you have colonies, it adds to the potential customer base
o Colonies can also provide natural resource stuff
• New banking and investment institutions
o Lead Europe and the world in new kinds of banking and
investment institutions
▪ Stock brokers/stock markets
• Science, technology & technique
• Coal (fossil fuels)
o Key new fossil fuel that helps jump-start industrial revolution
• Transportation (canals, RR)
o Carrying on backs of horses, wagons and stuff won’t be
enough
o When in winter, not all canals will freeze over
o In the 1820s, 30s, 40s and 50s, they start developing
railroads
▪ Cheaper than canals – not dependent on water
▪ Can operate through winter
Textile Manufacturing
• Growing demand first met by “putting out” system and “cottage”
manufacturing
o Cottage – modest home that a rural person would live
o Most textile manufacturing until the late 1700s would be done
in the home
▪ Would have a hand-powered spinning wheel or loom in
the house
o Putting out system—give someone wool to spin, then have it
given back (pay them for it)
▪ Afford to have large quantities of thread/wool and have
someone turn it into something
o