Industrial Revolution Essay - 1,698 words

Industrial Revolution The European scene at the beginning of the eighteenth century is much different than it is today. Densely populated cities in countries such as England and France were merely farm towns two hundred years ago. What caused what used to be cultivated open fields to turn into populous towns? These questions can all be answered and explained by the Industrial Revolution. The word revolution implies a suddenness of change that is not, in fact, characteristic of economic processes. But the phrase Industrial Revolution has long been used by historians and has become embedded in common speech (Ashton 2). A revolution implied by historians is just a change of the old way, not necessarily a fast change, or a violent overthrow. Englands Industrial Revolution does not have set dates.


It is said that Englands Industrial Revolution began around 1780 with Britains prosperous colonies and expanding Atlantic economy. Some critics claim that there wasnt an industrial revolution, and some challenge the naming of the period. In Phyllis Deanes book, The First Industrial Revolution, she outlines three main points in which an economy which experienced an industrial revolution differs from its pre-industrialized counterpart. This essay will use Deanes three main points and prove that there was a revolution and the timing and naming are all appropriate. In Deanes book, the first point is industrial and social structure. In spite of the urban development associated with commerce and industry, the population of Europe was still predominantly rural in 1750.


Agriculture was the chief occupation of the overwhelming majority of the people. Each family raised their own food and the materials for their clothing, such as wool, linen, and leather, and secured materials for building, furniture, and fuel from the communal waste or forest (Dietz 12). By 1850, Britain was certainly industrialized in that more of the people were engaged in manufacturing industry than agriculture (Deane 255). One major point that allowed Britain to become industrial was the increasing number of workers and population of England. The rate of growth of population, of course, depends basically on the rate of natural increase, that is, on the difference between birth rates and death rates; and there are certain biological and physical limits to the extent to which these are likely to vary (Deane 20). The rate of growth in England before the revolution was so slow, that an English statistician at the beginning of the eighteenth century estimated that the number of people would not reach the population of eleven million until the year 2300 (Dietz 3).


Since 1780, the growth England substantially increased. England went up by 52 percent to over nine million inhabitants from 1750 to 1801 and reached thirty-six million in 1910 (Dietz 15). The invention of the steam engine was the Industrial Revolutions most fundamental advance in technology. For the first time in history, humanity had unlimited power at its disposal. Inventors and engineers could devise and implement all kinds of power equipment to aid people in their work (McKay 730). The steam engine promoted important breakthroughs in other industries.


The steam-power began to replace waterpower in the cotton-spinning mills. The economic consequence of these technical innovations was a great boom in the British iron industry. Iron production nearly tripled between 1740 and 1788. Inventions and surplus of supply allowed England to become industrialized. In one industry, the invention of the spinning jenny allowed cotton to be produced faster and cheaper for both consumers and producers. The spinning jenny which was invented in 1771 by James Hargreaves revolutionized the making of yarn and the weaving of cloth.


The spinning wheel allowed producers to build the first large scale factories. The other industry that was revolutionized was the iron industry. Whereas the cotton industry achieved its spectacular economies largely by saving labor, the iron industry did so by using materials that were abundant and cheap in place of materials that were scarce and dear (Deane 101). It provided cheaply and abundantly the commodity on which, more than on any other single material except coal, modern industry was to depend for its essential equipment. Industry supply was kept abreast of demand by a remarkable series of technical improvements in manufacturing processes, and by fundamental changes in types of industrial organization, such as those in the cotton and iron trade (Dietz 57). Even in the early twentieth centuries, underdeveloped countries seeking a means of escape from economic stagnation are inclined to see the establishment of a steel industry as a first step (Deane 114). The second major step in an industrial revolution is the increase in standards of living and productivity.


In industries like transport, textiles and iron manufacture, output per worker increased beyond all previous experience, though wages per worker rose quite modestly, and prices, particularly the prices of exports, fell steeply (Deane 266). During this time there was the first law that regulated the number of hours that a person can work. The Ten Hours Act of 1847 had made the first real impact on hours of work in the textile factories, where ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...................You are reading a preview................... Visit our Blog and Unlock Full Access to this essay

Continue READING the FULL Essay by clicking HERE

Essay Tags: industrial revolution, revolution, england, steam engine, standard of living

This is an Essay sample / Research paper, you can use it for your research of: Industrial Revolution