The Industrial Revolution

Question 1

What is the IR?

Answer 1

Shift from humans working in homes to machines working in factories beginning in 1775ish Britain

Question 2

What is now more important that human capital?

Answer 2

money and resources for machines

Question 3

Why did the IR start in the West and not China?

Answer 3

China was ahead, but Confucianism favored rural work over merchants and artisans

Question 4

Why Britain?

Answer 4

Money from 2 centuries of trade and enormous colonial empire
Great respect for merchants and artisans
Stable politics
Low taxes
Abundant resources

Question 5

What caused the IR?

Answer 5

Growing population

Question 6

What changed in the Agricultural Rev?

Answer 6

better tools, convertible husbandry, large farms

Question 7

What is Convertible husbandry?

Answer 7

Use land for crops or animals, whichever is more profitable at the time

Question 8

What is the result of large profit farms?

Answer 8

Good become cheaper, but small farms can’t compete

Question 9

What new things helped the population grow?

Answer 9

First accurate censuses
General peace–people not dying and land/farms not destroyed in wars
Transportation and sanitation
Antiseptics, anesthetics, and vaccinations–people living longer

Question 10

What is cottage industry?

Answer 10

clothing and textiles make in rural, supplied with urban technology (cheaper)–diminishing

Question 11

What inventions helped textile industry go faster?

Answer 11

Bottleneck in flying shuttle fixed with spinning jenny in 1768 by James Hargreaves

Question 12

What significant invention helped drive textile machines?

Answer 12

James Watt’s steam engine in 1760s

Question 13

What new fuel became common to drive machines?

Answer 13

Fossil fuels

Question 14

Why had cottage industry disappeared by the 1820s?

Answer 14

Power looms made more textiles with fewer workers

Question 15

What water transport innovation was made?

Answer 15

Robert Fulton’s steamship in 1807

Question 16

What transport innovation made moving things and people faster?

Answer 16

Stephenson’s “the rocket” in 1830–locomotive

Question 17

What upgrade came to the steam engine?

Answer 17

1860s internal combustion engine

Question 18

What electric innovations happened?

Answer 18

Electric generator in 1870

Edison’s lightbulb

Question 19

What were the social consequences of the IR?

Answer 19

Proletariat–hard poor laborer
Harsh working environment where owner cares about profit and competition, not health
Dangerous cities and no concern for natural world
Women work long and hard in household and childcare, or work in factory and neglect household
Children, immigrants, and US paid less since they won’t do anything about it
Wasn’t until late 1800s until workers could protest for rights
Giant class gap emerges

Question 20

What famous writer wrote about poor urban conditions?

Answer 20

Charles Dickens

Question 21

What happened to education?

Answer 21

Most are illiterate at start, but by WWI most are literate.

Question 22

Who pushed for primary schools and why?

Answer 22

Francois Guizot making movements for the obedience and discipline of primary school