The Industrial Revolution
Much of the laboring population, previously largely employed in agriculture, moved to the industrial towns and cities, where they were housed and employed in often miserable and squalid conditions.
James Hargreaves's spinning jenny (1770) and Edmund Cartwright's power loom (1783) fostered the textiles industry (a key industry of the Industrial Revolution). Coal and steel were used in ever more efficient steam engines.
Vastly improved transport -- canals, roads, railroads, steamships -- allowed quick importation of raw materials and export of finished goods to markets all over the world.
The Industrial Revolution came to other countries (France, Germany, United States, Japan) a little later than to Britain.
The poor conditions of workers led to the rise of socialism and Marxism. Later the free-for-all (laissez faire) capitalism was replaced in Britain and elsewhere by the welfare state.
The Industrial Revolution saw large population increases, the rise of the professions, and, later, improvements to the living standards (due to the cheaper costs of machine-made goods).
Industrial Revolution (video)
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830 (OPUS)
Amazon Price: $31.35 (as of 01/01/2010)
The Industrial Revolution has sometimes been regarded as a catastrophe which desecrated the English landscape and brought social opporession and appalling physical hardship to the workers. In this book, however, it is presented as an important and beneficial mark of progress. In spite of destructive wars and a rapid growth of population, the material living standards of most of the British people improved, and the technical innovations not only brought economic rewards but also provoked greater intellectual ingenuity. Innovation is therefore seen by Ashton not just as an economic course but as a social and cultural process influenced by factors such as war and peace and the framework of law and institutions. Lucidly argued and authoritative, this bookplaces the phenomenon of the Industrial Revolution in a stimulating perpsective. A new Preface by Professor Pat Hudson outlines the results of recent research precipitated by Ashton's themes: the true causes of population growth in the eighteenth century, the nature of the supply of capital, and the new approaches to labour studies amongst others. This Preface places The Industrial Revolution in its contemporary context, and a new thoroughly updated bibliography means that fifty years on, Ashton's work can continue to be of value to modern readers.
The Steam Engine
Good Websites on the Industrial Revolution
- Industrial Revolution
- Industrial Revolution: the key people, places, documents, and events important to the Industrial Revolution .
- Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century
- The most far-reaching, influential transformation of human culture since the advent of agriculture eight or ten thousand years ago, was the industrial revolution of eighteenth century Europe
- The Railways (Railroads)
- Speedy, powerful rail transport was an important part of the Industrial Revolution. Trains brought in raw materials to the factories and took the finished goods to distant markets.
Children of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution (article)
In the later part of the 1700s the manual labour-based economy of the Kingdom of Great Britain began to be replaced by one dominated by industry and the manufacture of machinery. It started with the mechanisation of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal. Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. The introduction of steam power (fuelled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity.The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world. The impact of this change on society was enormous.
The First Industrial Revolution merged into the Second Industrial Revolution around 1850, when technological and economic progress gained momentum with the development of steam-powered ships, railways, and later in the nineteenth century with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation.
The period of time covered by the Industrial Revolution varies with different historians. Eric Hobsbawm held that it 'broke out' in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.
Some twentieth century historians such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts have argued that the process of economic and social change took place gradually and the term revolution is not a true description of what took place. This is still a subject of debate amongst historians.
GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy.
The Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies.
Source: Wapedia
Arkwright's Spinning Machine
The First Machine to Enable Spinning to be Done by Machine
Technology and the Industrial Revolution
Technology In The Industrial Revolution
An AP United States History project that I had to make. It was about the Industrial Revolution and how the technology played an important role in it. It's simply a documentary-style film with voiceovered pictures.
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Have something to say about this lens or about the Industrial Revolution?
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- JoyfulPamela JoyfulPamela Oct 19, 2009 @ 6:07 pm
- So many things happened during this important time of history! Thank you for teaching this knowledge.
Pamela :)
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- TheWhistler TheWhistler Oct 21, 2008 @ 10:07 pm
- Being a Scot I was always proud of James Watt starting the whole thing off, so to speak. I still am, but as always with change comes even bigger CHANGE and not always for the better.
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