The industrial revolution

a major turning point in human history – a profound transformation of the economy, social organization, cultural conditions, everyday life
a shift from an economy based on farming and handicrafts to an economy based on manufacturing by machines in factories
revolution in agriculture (since the first half of the 18th c.)
revolution in technology - esp. the steam engine (improved 1760s, James Watt)
revolution in the organization of production: the factory as a radically new unit of production
began in Great Britain in the 1770s
Definition and essence

1) Geography and natural resources
2) Enclosure of common land – the Enclosure Acts of the 18th c.
3) Demographic boom
4) Stable political situation; a non-interventionist government
5) Availability of financial resources
6) The colonial empire
7) Religious, cultural and intellectual climate
WHY BRITAIN?

Max Weber,The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1904
the emergence of Western capitalist societies – linked to the internalization of a new set of values
rooted in Calvinism:
worldly success and the accumulation of wealth – a sign of being God’s elect
work as a duty which benefits both the individual and society as a whole
working hard and making money – part of being a responsible, spiritually elevated person
Calvin: “Hard work wins success only so far as God blesses our labour… No sacrifice is more pleasing to God than when every man applies himself diligently to his own calling, and endeavours to live in such a manner as to contribute to the general advantage.”
Protestantism and the Protestant work ethic

18th–19th centuries: Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill
The laissez-faire doctrine: government should intervene as little as possible in the economic system so that the economic order can operate according to its own inherent laws (laissez faire: French, literally – ‘leave alone’);
‘The Invisible Hand’ (A. Smith) – when individuals pursue their own economic interest, that benefits society more than direct intervention with the intention of doing good
Utilitarianism: the ethical doctrine that virtue is based on utility (usefulness), and that conduct should be directed toward promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number of persons
Liberalism and Utilitarianism

Cotton production
the key early industry
technological advances in the 18th c. (The Flying Shuttle; The Spinning Jenny; the power loom; James Watt’s steam engine)
imported raw material; massively exported finished goods (1840 - about half the entire value of British export)
the first industry to be organized in factories
Coal mining
The iron and steel industries
coke [a solid fuel made by heating coal in the absence of air]; efficient furnaces; by the 1850s – the world’s largest producer of iron
Machine building
Transportation: steam ships; the railway
Britain – the “Workshop of the world”

(1750s iron furnaces using coke as fuel; powered by a water-wheel which used water pumped from the river by a steam engine)
Philip de Loutherberg, 'Coalbrookdale by Night' (1801)

Isambard
Kingdom Brunel, 1857
(in front of the giant iron chains of the SS Great Eastern during her construction at Millwall)

1830: first steam passenger service, Liverpool-Manchester; 32 miles. Locomotive: The Rocket (George Stephenson),16 mph
By 1850: a national rail system; 6,000 miles of track
1841: Thomas Cook - the first rail excursion from Leicester to Loughborough. In 1851 he organized huge rail excursions to the Great Exhibition -> rise of holiday travel
The Railway

The Remains of Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’, 1829. National Railway Museum

J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed (1844)
The Great Western Railway
(engineered by I. K. Brunel, opened 1838)

William Powell Frith, “The Railway station” (1862)
London, Paddington Station
A Great Western Railway train

New labour organisation (read Stearns – self-study text, pp. 17-18)
Urbanization
Transformation of social structure: the industrial middle class and the industrial working class (read Stearns – self-study text, pp. 21-23)
Child labour and factory acts
Political reform
Impact on family life and gender roles (read Stearns – self-study text, pp.18-21)
The Mid-Victorian Boom and the confidence of the nation; the rise of consumerism
SOCIAL IMPACT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

Britain’s population before and after the Industrial Revolution
(1701-1911)

“Trapper” and “Drawer”
Child labour in coal-mines

1833:
children younger than 9 not allowed to work
children not permitted to work at night
young people under 18 could work no more than 12 hours a day
1844:
children 9–13 years could work for 9 hours a day with a lunch break
women and young people work the same number of hours
1847: the “Ten Hour Act”
Factory Acts – a move away from strict laissez-faire

The Reform Acts: 1832, 1867, 1884
Chartism: a working-class movement for political reform in Britain, 1838-1858
enfranchisement: giving the right to vote
(the suffrage) to the middle and part of the working class
POLITICAL REFORM

The Great Exhibition of 1851– cartoons by George Cruikshank, 1851

The Mid-Victorian Boom and the peak of Britain’s confidence
The Great Exhibition of 1851: Crystal Palace

Hard work, personal success
Individualism: self-reliance, self-help, self-improvement
“Respectability”: financial independence, propriety, modesty, sobriety
Enterprise, initiative, competition
Thrift, moderation
Belief in progress and social mobility
Social responsibility, duty towards society
DOMINANT VICTORIAN VALUES