The Industrial Revolution
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Transcript The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution
18th Century Population Growth
1701-1751: 14%
1751-1801: 50%
1801-1851: 100%
Reasons for Growth?
Younger age of marriage
Decreased death rate
End of “gin mania”?
Better food?
Use of soap?
Improved medicine?
William Hogarth,
“Gin Lane,” 1750
Gin, cursed Fiend with Fury fraught,
Makes human Race a prey;
It enters by a deadly Draught,
And steals our Life away.
Virtue and Truth, driv’n to Despair,
It’s Rage compells to fly,
But cherishes, with hellish Care,
Theft, murder, perjury.
Damn’d Cup! That on the vitals preys,
That liquid fire contains
Which Madness to the Heart conveys
And rolls it thro’ the veins.
William Hogarth
1751
Beer, happy produce of our Isle
Can sinewy Strength impart,
And wearied with fatigue and Toil
Can cheer each manly Heart.
Labour and Art upheld by Thee
Successfully advance,
We quaff Thy balmy Juice with Glee
And water leave to France.
Genius of Health, thy Grateful Taste
Rivals the Cup of Jove,
And warms each English generous
Breast
With Liberty and Love.
William Hogarth
1751
Reality of Growth
Introduction of better food, particularly the potato:
Adam Smith characterized it as “being peculiarly suitable to the health of the
human constitution”
Stimulates population growth most significantly in Ireland, but Scotland and
England as well
Widespread inoculation against smallpox
Absence of widespread epidemics
Birth of Industry
Necessary Components:
A supply of natural
resources: coal and iron
A system of agriculture
flexible enough to feed
growing numbers of
workers: Enclosures
between 1750 and 1780
A Berkshire Enclosure Map
Birth of Industry
A large and accessible market: overseas trade to the colonies
Capital for new industries, roads, and waterways: Joint-Stock
Companies
A flexible social structure
Demand for mass consumer goods
An environment favorable to innovation and technology
The Process
Cottage Industry
Centralization of Labor: The Factory
New Technology
Cotton and Textiles
New raw materials from
colonial spaces
Cotton versus wool
John Kay improves looms
in 1733 with the flying
shuttle
James Hargreaves 1764
Spinning Jenny
Arkwright creates the 1771
Water Frame
Energy Demands
Steam power and mining
Social Consequences
Rapid growth of Manchester, Liverpool, and
Birmingham, lack of sufficient infrastructure
Creation of the institutional work day
Mill whistle and the factory clock
Replacement of the artisan with the unskilled worker
Division of Labor, rise of class consciousness
Child Labor
In 1835 40% of mill workers were under the age of 18
New Social Figures: The Bourgeoisie
Industrialization created not only factory owners and
management, but also created increased need for
lawyers, bankers, accountants, and merchants
These individuals began to intermarry with the
struggling landed gentry, accumulating capital and
credibility
As a dominant source of progress, this class demands
more political power in Britain
New Ideologies
Liberalism
Liberty and equality
Bentham and utilitarianism
Socialism
Economic planning, greater economic
equality, state regulation of property
Utopianism: burden falls on middle class to
help the poor
Marxism: middle class and working class
interests opposed to each other
Nationalism
Each people had its own genius and its own
cultural unity
Turn cultural unity into political reality
The Romantic Movement
Individualistic
the full development of one’s unique potential the supreme
goal of life
Reject materialism
Seek spirituality through art
See history as the art of change over time
Nature is awesome and inspirational: “Nature is Spirit
Visible”—John Constable
Human beings should accept the natural laws in place
Flee from industry’s attack on nature
Caspar David
Friedrich,
Wanderer Looking
over a Sea of Fog
(1815)
John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from Bishop’s
Grounds (1823)
William Wordsworth, “Daffodils”
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
-1815
Industrial Impact
Politics and Reform
Outline
New Popular Platforms
Push for political reform from the
bottom up
Franchise Reform
Fear of Revolution in England
Efforts at Reform in the 1820s
Reaction to Peterloo
Introduction of Liberal Reform
1832 Reform Bill
Post-Reform Bill Politics
Paternalism
Anti-Slavery
Working-Class Reforms
Work-hour reforms
Safety reforms
Child labor reforms
Industrial Reform
Poor Law (Welfare) Reform
The New Popular Platform, ca. 1815
More frequent Parliamentary elections
Lower taxes
End to political corruption
Less concern for landowners than for urban merchants and
shopkeepers
New Organizing
Petitioning
Pamphleteering
Symbols (badges, medals, rings)
fundraising
Broad appeal: London and beyond
The New Popular Platform: Franchise
New Political Demands
Abolition of all rotten boroughs (municipal districts)
Old Sarum in Wiltshire had 3 houses, and a population of 15
Dunwich in Suffolk had nearly eroded into the sea, and only had a population of 32
voters
Broader franchise
More frequent elections
Members of Parliament sworn to serve the interest of their constituents
Protection of the individual against executive or legislative persecution
Fear of Revolution
United States, 1776
France, 1789
France, 1830
The 1820s
Peterloo Massacres
Manchester, 1819
60,000-80,000 people
Eleven killed, 400 injured (100 women)
Moves toward reform
Partial repeal of Combination Acts (unions)
Simplified Criminal code
Lower tariffs on imports
Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts
Catholics can sit in Parliament and hold offices
Liberal Reform: The Bill, 1832
Borough Reform
Redistribution of parliamentary seats: who gets what?
Franchise Reform
Urban, male, £10 freeholders
Key missing reform?
Post-Reform Politics
After the 1832 Reform Bill, the newly enfranchised take a
paternalistic attitude to the new “working class”
In the 1840s Factories employed a small minority of workers
England: 5%
France: 3%
Prussia: 2%
Increased state focus on the condition of the workers
Living conditions
Working conditions
Sanitary conditions: cities with over 50,000 people had twice the death
rates of the countryside
Post-Reform Politics
Liberal Reform
1833: Abolition of slavery
Slave trade ended in 1807
1833: Factory Act
Sets minimum age requirement
9-Hour limits for the youngest workers (ages 9 to 13)
Minimum schooling requirements
Adolescents only work 12 hours/day
Post-Reform Politics
1834: New Poor Law
Poor Law introduced in Elizabethan times: outdoor relief
no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law
authorities except in a workhouse
conditions in workhouses made very harsh to discourage people from
wanting to receive help
Workhouses built in every parish
ratepayers in each parish or union had to elect a Board of Guardians to
supervise the workhouse, to collect the Poor Rate and to send reports
to the Central Poor Law Commission
the three man Central Poor Law Commission would be appointed by
the government
Reaction to the
Bill
The Workhouse
Post-Reform Politics
1842: Mines Act
How does this act limit the workforce in
the mines?
1847: 10-hour work day
How the urban workers live