The Industrial Revolution

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The Industrial Revolution

• Defined
• Britain first
• Early tech changes
• Production increases
• Railways self-sustaining IR
• British supremacy
• Spread of IR

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This lithograph by Currier Ives depicts four of
the major inventions of the nineteenth century
the lightning steam press, the electric
telegraph, the locomotive, and the steamboat, all
of which were developed during the Industrial
Revolution.
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Revolutionary?

• Farming lost its place as largest employer
• New ways of organizing human labor (factories)
• Urbanization
• New social classessocial relations
• Search for raw materials new markets
• Changed relationship with nature

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Britain first

• Agricultural transformation
• Population increase
• Entrepreneurial experience
• Markets
• Key raw materials
• Transportation
• Steam
• Religion

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Max Weber The Protestant Work Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism

• Protestant thinking world affirming
• Idea of calling
• Rectitude and diligence
• Thrift and saving

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• Calvinism fostered a new conception of economic
  life. In place of the old ideal of social and
  economic stability, of knowing and keeping ones
  place, it brought responsibility to an ideal of
  struggle, of material improvement, of economic
  growth.
• --Robert Heilbroner

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Cartwrights Power Loom
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Watts Steam Engine
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British Importation of Raw Cotton

• Year Pounds (millions)
• 1760 2.5
• 1787 22
• 1840 366

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British Iron Production

• 1740 17,000 tons
• 1840 2 million
• 1852 3 million (more than rest of world
  combined)