MOST OF HISTORY: THE FIRST HUMANS

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Berrien ISD World History Seminar Series
Session III Tuesday November 11th 2008
Dr. Craig Benjamin History Department, Grand
Valley State University
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Welcome

• To this final day of our three-day workshop on
  the new Michigan World History Content
  Expectations for High School teachers
• We covered a lot of ground already, mainly
  through a series of illustrated lectures on the
  content of the new CEs
• Each of todays lectures on PowerPoint is also
  available for your use in the classroom, or in
  preparing your own lessons

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Workshop Program Day Three

• 8.30 9.30 Session 1 - Era 6 An Age of
  Global Revolutions, 18th Century-1914 Four
  Lectures on the Industrial Revolution
• 9.40-10.30 Session 2 Era 6 Organizing CEs for
  Instruction Lecture The Industrial Revolution
  as a Global Event
• 10.35-11.00 Instructional Applications Table
  Conversation and Planning ahead Report out
• 11.10-11.30 Session 3 Era 7 Global Crisis
  and Achievement, 1900-1945 First Lecture on the
  20th Century
• 11.30-12.10 Lunch
• 12.10 12.30 Second Lect on 20th C
• 12.40-1.30 Session 4 Era 7 Global Crisis and
  Achievement, 1900-1945 Two Lectures on the 20th
  Century world wars
• 1.40-2.30 Session 5 Era 8 The Cold War and
  Its Aftermath The 20th Century Since 1945
  Overview of four lectures on cold war,
  decolonization, 20th C E Asia
• 2.35-3.00 Instructional Applications on one
  lecture Table Conversation and Planning ahead
  Report out

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ERA 6 ORIGINS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
What was the Industrial Revolution?
Day 3, Session 1A Craig Benjamin
How can we explain it?
Why did it first occur in W. Europe?
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Pt. 1 The Industrial RevolutionAn Overview

• Fear of Statistics
• To understand the Industrial Revolution, we have
  to make use of statistics
• Take time over statistics, tables and charts and
  you will find they contain a lot of useful
  information

• Statistics on production show a sharp increase
  during the last two centuries
• According to Table 13.1 (p. 407), global
  industrial potential rose about 85 times between
  1750 and 1980
• You can find some of these statistics in the
  text, on pp.407-412

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The Industrial Revolution An Overview

• Economic power shifts from the old tributary
  empires of Afro-Eurasia to the Atlantic world
• The Old Economic Heartlands decline
• The Atlantic Region becomes the most
• productive region in the world

www.fas.harvard.edu/ atlantic/britatpg.html
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A shift in the Geography of Economic Power
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The Industrial Revolution An Overview
college.hmco.com/.../ chapter14/map_24_02.html

• 3. As the economic balance of power changed, so
  did the military political balance
• By 1800 States of the N. Atlantic region
  controlled c. 35 of the earths surface
• By 1914 States of the N. Atlantic region
  controlled c. 84 of the earths surface

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The Industrial Revolution An Overview
www.paulmackey.co.uk/

• 4. Within the Industrialized world, leadership
  shifted from
• Britain to W. Europe and then to the USA during
  the 19th century

www.amerika-live.de
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The Industrial Revolution An Overview

• 5. The Industrial Revolution spread throughout
  the world during 5 waves of innovation
• From Britain, in the late 18th century
• 2./3. To Europe and Eastern N. America, in the
  early and mid 19th century
• 4. To Russia, Japan, and more of N. America in
  the late 19th century
• 5. To much of the rest of the world in the late
  20th century

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The Spread of Industrialization 1st Wave Late
18th Century
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The Spread of Industrialization 2nd 3rd Waves
Early-Mid 19th Century
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The Spread of Industrialization 4th Wave Late
19th-early 20th Century
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The Spread of Industrialization 5th Wave Late
20th Century
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Pt. 2 The British Industrial Revolution

• The Industrial Revolution did NOT begin just in
  Britain
• Many crucial innovations occurred elsewhere
• Early designs for steam engines (France)
• Cotton gin (US)
• Automatic control of machinery (France)
• Manufacture of porcelain (Germany)
• First controlled flight (France Montgolfier
  brothers)

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Flight
The first ever controlled flight. At Versailles,
in 1783, the Montgolfier brothers demonstrated
the possibilities of flight to King Louis XVI, by
sending a duck, a rooster and a sheep up in a
balloon. Two months later, their balloons
carried the first human passengers.
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The Cotton Gin
Invented in 1793, by Eli Whitney to clean seeds
and other materials from cotton fibres. Now
one person could do what had taken 50 people
previously The cotton industry was
revolutionized.
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So why start with Britain?

• Contemporaries first noticed the change in
  Britain
• Britain is where innovation first began to have a
  fundamental impactIn 1837, the French
  Revolutionary, Blanqui, described changes in
  Britain as an Industrial Revolution
• The origins of the Industrial Revolution have
  been studied most carefully in Britain

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Three interconnected revolutions 1. In
Society 2. In Agriculture 3. In Industry
British Industrial Revolution Three Revolutions
in One
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Pt. 3 A Social Revolution British Society
after 1700

• Gregory King The first real statistician?
• We know a surprising amount about English society
  just before 1700 because of Kings pioneering
  work
• British social structure
• King showed that in many ways, British society
  remained quite traditional
• At least half of its population was engaged in
  agriculture
• Agriculture remained by far the most important
  sector of the economy
• Most aristocrats did not think of themselves as
  entrepreneurs

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But in many ways, British society in 1700 was
very capitalistic

• Peasants
• Losing land Enclosures-gt50 of people had too
  little land to support themselves?earned wages,
  often moving to towns
• Urbanization
• 10 of Britains population lived in London alone
• Incomes
• Half of all incomes from industry, commerce,
  rents and services
• Elite groups
• Most landlords treated their estates as
  businesses
• Governments
• Drew most revenues from commerce, actively
  protected commerce and colonies, if necessary
  with navies and armies

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A surprisingly capitalistic class structure

• Most ordinary people dependent on wages
• Elite groups engaged in commerce
• Governments that support commercial activity
• PLUS
• Britain lay at the
• center of the
• largest, most
• dynamic, systems
• of exchange that
• had ever existed

British Empire
home.12move.nl/ sh829487/London/hop.htm
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Exchange networks before Columbus
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Exchange networks after Columbus
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Pt. 4 An Agricultural Revolution

• Changes in Britains social structure
  revolutionized agriculture
• As in all traditional economies, agriculture was
• The most important economic sector
• The key to economic change

English agricultural heartland
www.focus-cornwall.co.uk/ environment.htm
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Two approaches to Agriculture

• Traditional Farming A Cartoon-gt 90 on land
• Most farms were small
• Self-sufficiency peasants produce own food, do
  not buy
• Elite groups skimmed off their surpluses
• Farming was not treated as a business The goal
  was to produce enough to eat and pay taxes. It
  was not worth producing more.
• Capitalist farming A Cartoon-gt 10 on land
• Farms large Landlords lease to farmers to work
  land profitably
• Farmers work the land using wage labor
• They sell most of what they produce
• The goal is to make profits, not to eat what they
  grow they must produce as much as possible and
  sell cheaply
• I.e. they must produce efficiently INNOVATION is
  vital

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Peasant Agriculture

• Small-scale
• Based on household labor
• Aimed mainly at subsistence
• A variety of crops grown
• Little investment
• Little incentive to innovate

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Commercial Agriculture

• Large-scale
• Based on wage labor
• Aimed mainly at making profits, not at feeding
  the farmer
• Often based on a single crop
• Investment in equipment
• Innovation is vital to success

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British farming was rapidly becoming capitalistic

• Between 1700 and 1800 the average size of farms
  rose rapidly, and the number fell. Why
• Enclosures Most traditional peasants squeezed
  out
• They had to become wage-earners and
• They had to buy the food they used to produce for
  themselves
• Their former landlords controlled more and more
  land
• They began to farm the land commercially
• Hiring former peasants as wage laborers
• Selling food to the growing numbers who could no
  longer produce it themselves because they had no
  land
• Similar changes are occurring in many developing
  world countries today

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The impact of commercial agriculture on
productivity?

• Techniques for raising productivity
• had been around for a long time
• Breeding superior livestock
• Planting special fallow crops such as legumes or
  turnips
• Improved forms of irrigation or drainage
• Introducing improved machinery
• But only commercial farmers had the incentive and
  the capital to implement more productive methods

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Turnip Townshend, 2nd Viscount of Raynham
(1675-1738)
A typical entrepreneurial aristocrat, he
advocated the planting of turnips to increase
productivity.
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The Results of Innovation? Agricultural
Productivity Soared

• 1700-1850
• Total production of British agriculture rose 3.5
  times
• Yet the numbers employed fell from 61 to 29 of
  the populationi.e. 30 of the population was now
  feeding the other 70
• Increasing numbers of wage earner provided a
  rapidly growing market for agricultural produce
• By 1840, British agriculture was extraordinarily
  efficient

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Pt. 5 Industrial RevolutionTwo types of
industry

• Traditional
• Most industrial production took place within
  households or in small workshops
• Production was small scale
• Innovation was unusual (and sometimes frowned
  upon)
• Capitalist
• Most industrial production takes place in large
  factories
• Production is large-scale
• Innovation is vital to success

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A traditional industrial workplace
Pinturicchio, The Return of Ulysses (1509), set
in Siena, in Italy. It portrays a typical
traditional workshop based in a domestic household
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Domestic manufactures in 17th C Britain

• Maxine Berg There were wood turning, carpentry
  and tanning in the Needlewood Forest, coal in
  south Staffordshire, as well as iron and metal
  goods including locks, handles, buttons, saddlery
  and nails, coal and iron in Cannock Chase.
  Kinver Forest in the southwest had scythesmiths
  and makers of edge tools, and there were
  glassworkers on the Staffordshire-Worcestershire
  border at Stourbridge. Bursham in the northwest
  had a pottery industry, and there was ironstone
  mining in the northeast. Leather working and
  textile weaving in hemp, flax and wool were
  scattered throughout the country.

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Preserving ancient craftsA modern Blacksmith
Bristol, Rhode Island
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Traditional and Modern
www.wearfiberart.com/ about.html

• Traditional forms of production had changed
  little since the time of Sumer
• Modern methods of production were
• On a larger scale
• Depended mainly on wage labor
• Produced in large amounts
• Depended on innovation to survive

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A 19th century steel factory
Modern industrial workplaces are more often large
scale, depend on large-scale production, and
technological innovation
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Entrepreneurs began to invest in industry Why?

• Agricultural Revolution ?
• More people seeking wage work
• More people needed to buy food and produce
• Food was becoming cheaper
• Government support?
• Protected markets in the colonies
• Efficient banking system based on the Bank of
  England (above 1890)
• Geography? Europe at the hub of new ideas
• Results? An Ideal situation for entrepreneurs
• Labor costs falling
• Demand rising
• Capital cheap
• New ideas abundant

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Two crucial sectors of manufacturing

• Coal
• Coal was vital because Britain was running out of
  wood, the main fuel in pre-modern societies
• Textiles
• After agriculture, the second largest sector in
  most pre-industrial societies

www2002.stoke.gov.uk/. ../pages/coal.htm
Coal mine, Derbeyshire
www.staffs.ac.uk/.../ boxing/textile.htm
Textiles mill, Staffordshire
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Innovations appeared in both sectors

• Textiles
• Fewer people make their own clothes, demand
  expands, entrepreneurs begin to innovate
• Productivity increases
• Traditional Indian hand-spinners took about
  50,000 hours to spin 100 lb of cotton
• In Britain by the 1790s, it took 300 hours
• By the 1830s, with the addition of steam power,
  it took c. 135 hours

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Hand Spinning
The traditional hand spinning wheel was probably
invented in India, c. 500 BCE.
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The Flyer Spinning Machine
First introduced in 1769 by Richard
Arkwright. The machine is powered by the drive
wheel at the bottom, which can be driven by water
power or steam power.
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Coal and Steam

• Coal
• Early steam engines were used to drain coalmines
  from early in the 18th century
• James Watt invented a more efficient version in
  the 1760s that could be used as a prime mover
  in other industries, such as textiles

www.150.si.edu/ chap4/4gin.htm
A new energy source For the first time, it was
commercially feasible to exploit the energy of
fossil fuels
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Todays dead white male is
James Watt (1736-1819) Inventor of the modern
coal-fired steam engine, key to the fossil fuels
revolution.
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The Watt Steam Engine
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Factories also raised productivity
Early British factory, 19th Century
www.rain.org/.../ literature/images/

• By bringing many workers together in large
  factories ..
• Labor Discipline could be increased
• More efficient methods could be introduced
• All machines could be powered by a single prime
  mover (e.g. a watermill or steam engine)

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As Adam Smith argued, dividing up tasks can raise
productivity
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An early American textile factory, using steam
engines
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Innovation in other sectors Iron
Completed 1779. The first large structure made
from cast iron.
Ironbridge, Shropshire, England
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Wedgewood Pottery
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95), established the first
industrial potteries, at Stoke-on-Trent in
Britain. His goods were sold to middle class
consumers as well as to the wealthy. (Wedgwood
was the grandfather of Charles Darwin.)
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Steam engines on wheels transformed land
communications
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Increasing production 1770-1830
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Unprecedented Rates of Growth!

• These are rates of growth that were completely
  novel
• TAKE OFF!
• We have entered the modern era!