pg 30

• Period 3: The Industrial Revolution


  1750 CE – 1900 CE
• China and India had for centuries dominated manufacturing all through the 19th century
• It wasn't until the 18th century that any other region would begin to challenge them, starting in Great Britain
• Europeans had long been producing woolen with the putting out system (a system in which companies paid peasants to weave textiles)—but Chinese and India production was far superior
• Britain, and other Europeans, would not surpass China and India until they began to mechanize—meaning, replacing human workers with machines
• Spinning Jenny


  Inventor: James Hargreaves - 1764
• Water Frame


  Inventor: Richard Arkwright- 1769
• Textile production is actually what accelerated industrial revolution, as these machines required greater and greater sources of power
• While many were initially powered by water and wind mill, production was limited to windy areas and fast-flowing rivers
• James Watts steam engine (1775)


  Changed through the use of coal – something that was abundant in Great Britain, as a source of power
• How steam engines work

  As steam entered and cooled, it created a vacuum that drove a piston, thus creating a mechanized force that could be used in many different ways
• This also provided a high-power source for larger, iron machinery and manufactured products, optimal for Britain which had large iron and coal deposits
• As Britain (and the Netherlands) showcased a Parliamentary government that included the urban gentry, most limitations, such as guilds and tariffs were removed
• This allowed people and labor to move freely, working or investing on whatever they were good at or passionate about
• Additionally, governments began to provide monetary incentives, rewards, and awards to inventors such as the later Nobel Prize, as well as legally-enforced patents to protect inventor profits/rights
• As a result, the available resources and supportive gov. of Britain allowed it to lead the way in industrialization, and it VASTLY increased manufacturing
• This was most evident at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, where British inventions and manufacturing goods FAR outnumbered all other countries at the fair
• Advances in steel production and the steam engine revolutionized transportation with the invention and cheap spread of the railroad
• Railroads


  • Made transportation costs lower, and boosted economic efficiency, as well as reduced travel speed for cargo and passengers
• This revolutionized society and travel, and additionally required governments to standardize time—something that previously varied from region to region
• Railroads were incredibly efficient, but also required a large amount of labor and capital (money) to lay, which also required a complex and stable banking system
• The Bank of England provided a massive advantage for British railroads, as Britain, and later Germany, would lay far more track than the rest of Europe
• Industrialization on the continent was far slower—slowed by govs. less friendly to the urban gentry (i.e., a lack of rep. assemblies), as well as many conflicts
• The multiple revolutions and wars on the continent from 1789 to 1848 also made countries too unstable to foster industrialization, and agriculture remained the focus of economies
• In Eastern Europe, serfdom (peasant slavery) was still the dominant economic force, remaining even in Russia until tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs in 1861 in an attempt to catch up to the West
• Additionally, areas like France and Eastern Europe lacked high-quality iron and coal deposits, something Britain, Belgium, and Germany had in high amounts
• France and Eastern Europe also lacked the advanced and consistent banking system that allowed for the expansion of railroads, resulting in slow railroad expansion—this is not the case, however, in countries like the Netherlands & the German territories
• Germany, like Britain, had a ready source of coal and iron to launch itself into the industrial revolution, as well as an established banking system
• It's biggest advantage was the Zollverein (1834)—a free trade union in the German area among all German states before Germany's union in 1871
• This allowed the German states to trade, loan, and industrialize freely with each other, and railroad track and factories to develop easily, as they had in Britain
• While France lacked the resources and banking system to match Britain and Germany, it did make attempts to reform, industrialize, and lay railroad
• In 1860, it formed the Anglo-French free-trade agreement to boost its trade, economy, and expand its small railway system
• France would never expand its railways like those of the British and Germans, settling for a large amount of canal transportation instead