The Industrial Revolution

1. Introduction. Caesar (49 B.C.) Castlereagh (1814), Woodrow Wilson (1918)
2. "The Old Labor" (W-R-W, Ch. 6. Documents 1-5)
   1. Manufacture since the Middle Ages had been organized by the Guild System ---Doc. #4
      1. For whom did they work?
   2. Who initiated the work?
   3. What did they do?
   4. What determined their pay? How was this done?
   5. Is it likely this pay was adequate?
   2. Agriculture
      1. Open field system had evolved out the old manorial agriculture of the feudal age. See McKay, 630-631 ..
         1. In the West.
            1. Most peasants were free and some owned their own land. See McKay, 633.
            2. Others were like the the Manoeuvriers --- See -- W-R-W. Doc.#1
            • For whom did they work?
            • Who initiated the work?
            • What did they do?
            • What determined their pay? How many days a year. --- what accounts for the low number relative to modern labor? See also Doc. #3.
            • Was their pay adequate to maintain a family?
            • What was the role of the wife of a manoeuvrier? What kind of work did she perform? See, W-R-W., p. 152
         2. In central and Eastern Europe and Russia. See McKay, 632
2. Proto-industrialization--- putting-out --cottage industry: See McKay, 640-644 and W-R-W, Documents 5&6.
   1. Putting-out in Rouen
      1. For whom did they work?
      2. Who initiated the work?
      3. What determined their pay?
      4. Was it likely that their pay was adequate?
   2. "The Clothier's Delight: See W-R-W, 159-161
   3. Among these traditional workers (guild, putting-out) , which had the most control over their labor, the quality of their production and the quality of their life-styles?
3. The Rostow metaphor: Preparation/Take-off/orbit
   1. From manufacture to industry
   2. From agricultural or manual worker to proletariat
3. "The New Labor" ---The Industrial Revolution in England.
   1. The Time-Table of Industrialization; Why England, for example, rather than Germany?
      1. Factors of Preparation
         1. The experience and consequences of the commercial revolution and liberal modernization.
         2. The "Problem of Energy" and the "Breakthrough" McKay, 728-731
         3. The Agricultural Revolution.
            • Application of Science
            • The Enclosures See McKay, 635-637)
      2. Take-off came in the textile industry.
      1. Significance of the take-over of India by mid-18th century?
      2. Technological factors:
         1. Arkwright's waterframe (1764)
         2. Hargrave's spinning jenny (1765) result and significance?
         3. Cartwright's power loom (1785) ----consequence?
   2. Impact
   1. On workers?
      1. Demographic.
         1. New Class Structure
         2. Urbanization
      2. "New Labor" in contrast with Old. (Read: W-R-W, Docs. 7-11)
         1. For whom did they work?
         2. Who initiated the work and determined their conditions of labor? What kind of conditions were they?
         3. What kind of work did they do, what was the length of the labor-day, how many days a year were they likely to work?
         4. Compare the role of women in the new labor with the old labor. (E.g. Mrs. Britton in W-R-W, Doc. 2.)
   2. On family life.
      1. Family as a laboring unit.
      2. Female and child labor as the stimulus for reform.
         1. Stadler Committee, 1832 (Read W-R-W, # 9)
         2. Parliamentary Report on the Employment of Children in the Mines, 1841-1842 (Read W-R-W, # 11). Click Patience Kershaw, for a sketch of girl hurriers
      3. Impact of the reform movement.
         1. Factory Act of 1833.
         2. Ashley's Mine Act of 1842.
   3. Values: the Victorian "Cult of Domesticity." (Read McKay, 747-748 )
      1. Victorian value system: "woman's place is in the home."
      2. When women worked ... (Read W-R-W, # 8 (Silk Mill in France), #10 (Textile Factory in Germany in 1880's-90's)).
         1. E.g. Patience Kershaw, Read: W-R-W, p. 176
         2. Protectionist legislation led to division of labor by gender, See McKay, 746-747.
   4. Transportation and demographic change
      1. First railroads: Liverpool to Manchester ( 1830), Nürnberg to Fürth (1835).
      2. Steamboats: France, 1783, Fulton in U.S., 1807. First British steam-iron frigate, H.M.S. Warrior.
      3. Urbanization statistics.
   5. Economy.
      1. Production and consumption.
         1. Emphasis on heavy industry ---- fewer consumers' goods during take-off period. Consumption barely increased.
         2. 1820-1850, increased 50%
      2. Lifespan
         1. 1800
         2. 1900
         3. Reasons?
4. The Expansion of Industrialization.
   1. Retardation elsewhere was a product of general and country-specific factors.
      1. Location
      2. Bourgeois experience: economic and political.
      3. Political unity, or lack thereof.
      4. Natural resources (See map in McKay, p. 737)
      5. Population mobility.
   2. When industrialization came, it came increasingly rapidly. Click here for a map.
      1. Belgium, in a few isolated areas after 1750, accelerated after 1815, and generally after 1830.
      2. "Germany" in isolated areas beginning around 1750, but not generally until after 1871.
      3. France, in a few isolated areas beginning around 1750, but not generally until 1830-1870
      4. Italy, in isolated areas beginning around 1750, but not generally until after 1870
      5. Russia, in isolated areas beginning around 1750, but the "take-off" did not begin until the 1890's, but even on the eve of World War I, could still not be considered an industrialized society.
5. The Economic and Social Consequences of Industrialization.
   1. Globalization
      1. The business cycle.
      2. Colonialism into imperialism.
   2. Social Restructuring.
      1. Differentiation of the bourgeoisie
      2. Emergence of the proletariat
      3. The real victims of industrial modernization were the peasants and cottage-workers
   3. Industrialization: progressive or destructive?
      1. The Romantics (Southey) vs. the Realists (McCauley)
      2. Misery or improvement of the human condition?
   4. The Revolutionary potential: Workers vs. capitalists.

    

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