The Revolution in Energy and Industry (c. 1780-1850)

Question 1

Spinning Jenny

Answer 1

invented c. 1765 by James Hargreaves. a simple, inexpensive, hand-powered spinning machine.

Question 2

Water frame

Answer 2

created in 1769 by Richard Arkwright. A spinning machine that had a capacity of several hundred spindles and used waterpower. it required a larger and more specialized mill (a factory).

Question 3

Industrial revolution and Population boom in Britain

Answer 3

c. 1780-1850. industrial revolution is a term first coined in 1799 to describe the burst of major inventions and economic expansions that began in Britain in the late 18th century

Question 4

Combination Act

Answer 4

passed in 1799 in England. it outlawed unions, favoring capitalist business people over skilled artisans. it was bitterly resented and widely disregarded by many craft guilds.

Question 5

Series of Factory Acts passed in Britain

Answer 5

passed between 1802-1833. They aimed to limit the workday of child laborers and set minimum hygiene and safety requirements.

Question 6

modernization in Egypt

Answer 6

begins in 1805. economic developments was quite limited and fell back on sugar and cotton exports

Question 7

Strike of Manchester Cotton Spinners

Answer 7

in 1810.

Question 8

Western Europe starts to use British industrial methods

Answer 8

c. 1815.

Question 9

Combinations Acts repealed

Answer 9

in 1824.

Question 10

Rocket

Answer 10

an early locomotive, built by George Stephenson that was first tested in 1829.

Question 11

Industrial Banks in Belgium

Answer 11

in the 1830s.

Question 12

Zollverein

Answer 12

erected in most German states in 1834. allowed movement of products between the members states without tariffs while imposing a uniform tariff against other nations.

Question 13

Britain’s Mines Act

Answer 13

passed in 1842. it prohibited work underground for females and boys under 10 years old

Question 14

“The Condition of the Working Class in England”

Answer 14

written by Friedrich Engels in 1844. was quite pessimistic of the industrialization process.

Question 15

Japan adopts western technologies, development gap between the west and the rest widens

Answer 15

in 1850s.

Question 16

Great Exhibition in London

Answer 16

held in 1851 in the Crystal Palace.

Question 17

German and US rapid industrialization

Answer 17

in 1860s.

Question 18

Why Britain?

Answer 18

abundant coal, high wages, peaceful and centralized government, well-developed financial systems, innovative culture, highly-skilled craftsmen, strong position in empire and global trade.
more a matter of circumstance than a planned strategy.

Question 19

Technological innovations and early factories

Answer 19

first machine-powered factories in cotton textile industry. work was organized around the highly productive machines. working conditions were quite awful and children were used as manpower.

Question 20

the steam engine breakthrough

Answer 20

wood (and thus charcoal) was scarce and at some point the British started looking towards coal as an alternative. Thomas Savery in 1698 and Thomas Newcomen in 1705 invented the first primitive steam engines. they burned coal to produce steam, which was then used to operate a pumpin 1769 James Watt’s more efficient steam engines superseded the early models. this innovation originally helped in mining but soon spread to cotton factories and helped to transform the iron industry.

Question 21

steam-powered transportation

Answer 21

in 1816 the rail was developed and different experiments started. first locomotive built by Richard Trevithick. this invention reduced the cost and uncertainty of shipping over land. markets became larger and nationwide. railroad construction demanded unskilled labor.
first steamship created by the French in 1770s. first commercial steamships was used in US several decades later.

Question 22

industry and population

Answer 22

the GNP grew but so did the population that meant that the growing numbers of people consumed much of the increase in total production.

Question 23

iron law of wages

Answer 23

a theory proposed by an English economist David Ricardo that suggested that the pressure of population growth prevents wages from rising above the subsistence level.

Question 24

national and international variations

Answer 24

China and India dominant up until 1800 and then Britain takes the lead and the gap widens.
Western countries began to emulate the British model successfully but with significant variations in the timing and extent of industrailization.

Question 25

industrialization in continental Europe

Answer 25

from 1793-1815 Europe experienced tremendous political and social upheaval that temporarily halted economic development.

challenges: British dominated and their production was economic. few engineers outside of England understood the technology they used. steam power was quite expensive. workers opposed the move to factories.
advantages: traditions of putting out enterprise, merchant capitalists, skilled urban artisans. they borrowed the new methods instead of inventing. strong independent governments.

Question 26

agents of industrialization

Answer 26

illegal emigrants slipped out of the country to introduce the new methods on European mainland. skilled workers, technicians and also enterpreneurs were the ones who moved. William Cockerill and his sons worked in Belgium and made it a hotspot for information but also for industrial production. Fritz Harkot set up in Ruhr Valley to build steam engines.
national governments helped, too. they employed tariff protection to help along local businesses and factories. governments also helped to build the infrastructure.
banks that were reformed helped to attract investors and move industrialization on.

Question 27

the global picture

Answer 27

prior to the 1860s the Industrial revolution had no transformative impact outside of Europe (US and Japan excepted). Russia became the provider of raw materials, Egypt started modernizing quite late. Similar failures happened in the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. this happened largely because the areas were controlled by imperial powers.
many regions actually went through deindustrailization and became economically dependent.

Question 28

work in early factories

Answer 28

machines dictated the work tempo so workers were reluctant to get a job in the factories even when the pay was high. punishments were also common to keep discipline. early factories resembled the English poorhouses. pauper children were the majority of the workforce.

Question 29

working families and children

Answer 29

by 1790s the use of pauper apprentices was in decline and in 1802 it was forbidden. wage laborers came to be known as the working class. originally people came to work in family units. those ties of kinship were important to newcomers. the early 19th century saw a decline in the tradition of working with a family as a group. it was largely caused by the Factory Acts.

Question 30

the new sexual division of labor

Answer 30

by 1850 the man was the main wage earner. married women had limited job opportunities. this was a pattern of separate spheres (wife was the caretaker of the home (private sphere) and the husband earned the money (public sphere)).
this patterns emerged because the hard factory work was not in line with caring for a child, running a household was also a job on its own, and factory work provided no parental supervision and it allowed for young boys and girls to mix freely.
the domestic ideal of middle class women was passed down to the working class and they division of labor by sex was actually accepted and preferred.

Question 31

living standards for the working class

Answer 31

standards were often abysmal. the earliest signs for better living conditions emerge in the 1840s at the earliest. households had less total income than before; increase in productivity did not lead to the increase of purchasing power of the British working classes.
work was harder and demanded longer hours. it was also more dangerous. holidays and days off happened less. in the early stages of urbanization the new cities were awful. people had to live in expensive, hastily constructed, overcrowded apartments and had to deal with inadequate sanitary systems. people could also not have expensive produce.
from 1840s onward matters improved as wages rose and prices of many goods dropped.

Question 32

the new class of factory owners

Answer 32

manufacturers aimed to cut their productions costs and stay afloat in the harsh business world. early industrialist drew on their families and friends for labor and capital. many of the new industrialists were newly rich, produ, and self-satisfied.
in well-developed industries opportunities declined as time went on. formal education became more important. leading industrialists in the 1830s/’60s had most likely inherited the enterprises.
a strong sense of class-consciousness was present.

Question 33

responses to industrailization

Answer 33

critics: romantic poets (William Blake, William Wordsworth), handicraft workers (Luddites), doctors and reformers, Malthus, Ricardo, F. Engels.
supporters: Andrew Ure, Edwin Chadwick

Question 34

Luddites

Answer 34

group of handicraft workers who attacked factories in England in 1811 and later, smashing the new machines that they believed were putting them out of work.

Question 35

class-consciousness

Answer 35

awareness of belonging to a distinct social and economic class whose interests might conflict with those of other classes.

Question 36

the early British labor movement

Answer 36

not every industry was mechanized but even in those trades unemployment and stagnant wages contributed to class awareness. in defiance of the Combination Acts craftsmen still took collective action. some unions also still striked. there was an attempt to create a single large national union (movement led by social reformers). Robert Owen was involved with Grand National Consolidated Trades Union (which didn't last). due to the failure there was a move back to craft unions (Amalgamated Society of Engineers). 
Chartist movement, which sought political democracy, was popular.

Question 37

the impact of slavery

Answer 37

profits from colonial plantations and slave trading were a small portion of British national income.
however, it still helped to stimulate demand for British manufactured goods in the colonies. slave trade also made sure that early industrialists had capital for their businesses. colonial trade made the provision of raw material easier.