unit 9

• Industrialization


  The process through which agrarian and handicraft-centred economies are transformed into economies characterized by industry and machine manufacture
• Industrialization


  • Principal features: technological and organizational changes
  • Ultimate objective: increased productivity
• Mid-18th c., especially in Europe (Great Britain first) but also along the Yangzi River and in Japan: increased agricultural yields = population growth = concentration in cities and towns = more people specialize their occupation outside agriculture
• Navigable rivers and networks of canals facilitate trade and transport + banking and financial institutions support entrepreneurs and investors
• Great Britain faces ecological obstacles, especially soil depletion and deforestation
• From Wood to Coal


  Until the 18th c., wood has been the primary source of fuel for iron production, home heating, and cooking = deforestation and soil depletion BUT natural coal deposits are easy to reach (exposed or barely buried) and close to transport networks (rivers and canals), centres of commerce, and pools of labourers
• European colonies support population and economic growth of their European parent states by providing primary resources
• Slave-based plantations provide sugar and cotton, impossible to grow in Europe
• Access to primary resources in the colonies + coal at home = industrial outbreak
• Textile Industry and Industrial Expansion of Great Britain

  • British cotton industry is at the origins of industrial expansion
  • 17th c.: English consumers discover the advantages of Indian calicoes and muslins, brightly printed cotton textiles lighter and easier to wash than wool (the principal fabric in Europe)
  • Britain soon begins to produce calicoes + mid-18th c. the demand for cotton is so strong that producers have to speed up spinning and weaving = human and animal powers are no longer enough = need for mechanization
• Inventions rapidly mechanize the cotton textile industry


  1. 1733, John Kay, a Manchester mechanic invents the flying shuttle for weaving

  2. In the following decades, inventors introduce several mechanical spinning devices, the most important being Samuel Crompton's spinning "mule" in 1779

  3. 1785, Edmund Cartwright patents a water-driven power loom (for thread) + 20 years later, the loom is adapted for steam power

  4. 1790, Crompton's "mule" is adapted for steam power
• New spinning machines necessitate new weaving machines and vice versa, so workers can keep up with the production of thread and textiles
• Steam Power


  • Steam engines already exist since the early 18th c. (they power water pumps to draw water out of coal mines), but they are not that powerful + they consume too much wood
  • 1765: the birth of the general-purpose steam engine, invented by James Watt
  • Watt's invention: steam forces a piston to turn a wheel = rotary motion of the engine
  • Within 35 years, more than 1,000 Watt's steam engines are in use in Great Britain
  • Adapted to the textile industry = increased productivity + cheaper prices
• Iron and Steel Industries


  • High-quality iron and steel facilitate the conversion to mechanization
  • After 1709, coke replaces charcoal as the fuel to produce iron
  • Coke: made by burning coal in heaps = only the outer layer burns, leaving the interior of the pile in a carbonized state = low impurity and high content of carbon
  • Coke produces higher temperatures in blast furnaces = cast iron and steel
  • Coke allows blast furnaces to become taller and larger = more and larger pieces
  • Consequence: during 18th c., British iron production increases rapidly + prices fall
  • Mechanization benefits inexpensive production of iron fittings and parts = industrial machinery becomes stronger + iron appears in bridges, buildings, ships
  • Before mid-19th c., steel is expensive to produce, until Henry Bessemer builds a refined blast furnace = cheap production of large quantities of steel
  • Mid-19th c. onward: steel progressively replaces iron in tools, machines, structures
• Transportation: Combination of Fuel, Steam Power, and Steel


  1. 1815: George Stephenson builds the first steam-powered locomotive + 1829, his Rocket reaches 45 km/h + mid-19th c., steam engines power steamships

  2. Steam engines can produce power for speed but its main purpose is to produce power to carry huge cargoes or set mechanisms in motion

  3. Moving huge cargoes = decreasing transportation costs

  4. Transportation networks by land and sea link remote regions

  5. 1830 – 1870: British entrepreneurs lay about 20,000 km of railroads + steamships advance rivers upstream better than any sailboat
• Fuel, Steam Power, and Steel in the Factory

  • The factory emerges in the late 18th c. and becomes the characteristic method of production in industrialization, first with the British cotton textile industry
  • Factory: a wide open space ideal for industrial machines too large and expensive for home use = factories must be located in centralized places with labor and resources
  • Factory = more specialized workers transforming primary resources from the colonies
• Working Conditions: Rational Division of Labour


  • New production process: each worker performs a single task, not the entire job
  • Managers operate a rational organization of job functions = improved productivity
  • Owners VS. workers: owners have the capital to finance equipment and machinery, too expensive for workers = workers become dependent on employers for their livelihood
  • Alienation = repetitive and boring nature of many industrial jobs because workers only use a narrow range of skills that make them disconnect from the traditional and demanding tasks and the required skills = disappearance of challenge and satisfaction
• Work Discipline and Pace of Work: Coping with the Machines

  • Clocks, whistles, machines, and shop rules establish new rhythms of work
  • Men, women, and children can work in factories
  • Work schedule: six (6) days per week, 12-14 hours per day
  • Workers must keep pace with the movements of the machines = pressure by floor managers + punishments if necessary = dangerous work conditions
• British entrepreneurs and politicians are aware of their head start and monopoly on industrialization = laws forbid the export of machinery, manufacturing techniques, and skilled workers to other lands
• In order to make even more profits, some British entrepreneurs ignore government regulations and go abroad to sell machinery and technical know-how
• Other British entrepreneurs smuggle advanced machinery out of the British Isles in exchange for large amounts of money and shares in companies
• Some British engineers become targets of bribes or kidnapping
• Early 19th c.: Belgium develops its industrialization through the use and production of coal, iron, textiles, glass, and armaments
• By mid-19th c., industrialization progressively reaches France, Germany, and the USA
• Mid-19th c.: French engineers and inventors devise refinements and innovations leading to greater efficiency, especially in metallurgical industries
• 1840s onward: German industrialization rises + heavy industry after 1871
• 1820s: American entrepreneurs attract British crafts workers to New England and over time, they build a profitable cotton textile industry
• Mid-19th c.: over 1,000 mills + cotton from the southern states
• New England emerges as a site of industrial production of shoes, tools, and handguns
• 1870s: Pennsylvania emerges as a region of heavy iron and steel industries
• Coal and iron ore come from western Pennsylvania and central Alabama (= need for miners)
• By 1900, the USA has become an economic powerhouse + extension of industrialization in southern Canada around the Great Lakes and along the St. Lawrence River
• The Evolution and Growth of the Factory System

  • Industrialization begins with cotton textiles, but rapidly extends to other industries
  • Eli Whitney (1765 – 1825), an American inventor, designs the cotton gin (1793) but his major invention remains the use of machine tools to produce interchangeable parts in the making of firearms
  • Unskilled workers make only a particular part that fits muskets of the same model
  • Soon, other entrepreneurs apply Whitney's method to the manufacture of everything, from tools and objects of everyday life (clocks, sewing machines), to uniforms and shoes = mass production of standardized articles
  • 1913: Henri Ford replaces the assembly stations (workers assemble a car from start to finish using standardized parts) by the assembly line
  • Consequence: each worker performs a specialized task at a fixed point of the assembly line, using standardized parts
  • Consequence: the assembly line is more performant = car prices drop = millions of ordinary people can afford a car
• Industrialization


  Begins with cotton textiles, but rapidly extends to other industries
• Eli Whitney


  American inventor, designs the cotton gin (1793) but his major invention remains the use of machine tools to produce interchangeable parts in the making of firearms
• Unskilled workers


  Make only a particular part that fits muskets of the same model
• Mass production of standardized articles

  1. Other entrepreneurs apply Whitney's method to the manufacture of everything, from tools and objects of everyday life (clocks, sewing machines), to uniforms and shoes

  2. Henri Ford replaces the assembly stations (workers assemble a car from start to finish using standardized parts) by the assembly line

  3. Each worker performs a specialized task at a fixed point of the assembly line, using standardized parts
• Assembly line is more performant

  Car prices drop = millions of ordinary people can afford a car
• Industrial Capitalism


  Eli Whitney's Gin 1793, Engraving, Late 18th c.
• Corporation


  A private business owned by many investors who finance the business through the purchase of stocks representing shares in the company + investors-owners purchase the expensive industrial machinery and factories