The Industrial Revolution transformed Britain from a largely agricultural society to an industrialized one between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. New technologies like the steam engine and mechanized textile manufacturing led people to move from rural areas to cities where factories were located. This rapid urbanization strained city infrastructure and living conditions, with overcrowded slums and poor sanitation. While factory owners profited, workers faced long hours, dangerous conditions, low pay, and few rights. The Revolution also brought new ideas about economics, politics, and society that still influence the modern world.

1. The Industrial Revolution

2. Dawn of the Industrial Age
(1750-1850)
• In 1750, most people made a living farming the
land, and most goods were produced by hand
in a domestic (home) setting.
• Travel was limited, and few people knew the world
outside their village.
• By the 1850s, many small towns had become
large industrial cities.
• Food and clothing were made by machines in a
factory and were bought in stores in exchange
for wages earned at a job.
• This is referred to as the rise of industry and the demise
of “cottage industries”

3. The Agricultural Roots of the
Industrial Revolution
• 1st Agricultural Revolution
occurred 11,000 years ago
when man first changed from
hunter gathering to
domesticating animals and
farming.
_________________________
• About 300 years ago, a
2nd Agricultural Revolution
occurred that greatly
improved the quality and
quantity of agricultural
products.
-Planting seeds and staying in one place
and open range herding.
_________________________________
-Seed culture, enclosure, fertilizer

4. The Agricultural Roots of the
Industrial Revolution (continued)
• The British (England) (1700s)
– Enclosures-fencing in land-
more productive methods
used to improve yields-
displaced small farmers
– Crop rotation-replaced three
field system
– Jethro Tull- the seed drill
(better than scattering and
wasting seed)
– Improved livestock breeding.

5. Population Explosion!!!
• As food supplies increased and living
conditions improved population grew.
• Increased demand for food & goods.
• Many farmers who lost their land to
enclosure became factory workers.

6. Why England?
• Large population and extensive natural
resources!
• Industrialization-the process of developing
machine production of goods-requires
such resources
• Water power and coal, iron ore, rivers,
harbors

7. Why England?
• Economic Strength and Political Stability
• Capital to invest in new inventions
• Highly developed banking system-loans
• Military & Political success=positive
attitude
• Laws passed to protect business and help
them expand
• Factors of Production=Land, Labor, and
Capital!

8. New Technology Drives
The Industrial Revolution
• Energy Revolution
– James Watt vastly
improves the steam
engine (invented by
Thomas Newcomen) which
was key to the industrial
revolution.

11. New Technology Drives
The Industrial Revolution
• Textile industry first to
be transformed
• Flying shuttle, Spinning
Jenny, Water frame,
spinning mule-ALL
increased production
• Factories-production
moves from homes to
large buildings
• Cotton-Cotton gin
increased cotton
production

12. Textile Mills

13. Why England? (continued)
• Transportation
– Turnpikes privately built roads that charged fees
for use- “macadams”
– Steam powered locomotive invented by George
Stephenson, and the first major railroad was built in
1830.
– The steamboat invented by Robert Fulton (USA)
shipped goods on water at record speeds.
– By the late 1800s, coal powered freighters with
iron hulls were hauling 10 to 20 times the cargo of
wooden ships.

16. The Rest of the World Catches Up
• Many places such as the new nation of
Germany (who united in 1871) and the US had
greater amounts of natural resources than did
England.
-Nickolaus Otto- first car
-Karl Benz – first patent for car (3 wheels)
-Gottleib Daimler- first four wheeled auto
-Sam Morse – telegraph
-Alexander Graham Bell – the phone
• They stole ideas from England and made them
better

17. The New Technology
(late 1800s- early 1900s)
• Alfred Nobel- dynamite
(1866)
• Electricity- dynamo machine
that generates electricity
• Henry Ford- assembly line to
make cars (Model T)
• Wright Brothers –first
airplane

18. Yeah, I blow stuff up.

19. New Economic Systems Flourish
• The spread of industrialism to Europe and the US
accelerated the spread of colonialism and
imperialism.
• New investors (capitalists and investors) invested
money (and received stock) and time to build on
the creative ideas (technology) of others
(entrepreneurs) to make goods (supply) out of
cheap goods (raw materials) obtained from
overseas possessions (colonies in an empire) for
those wage earners (labor) who had money to
spend (demand) on goods they used (thus, they
were consumers).

20. Negative Effects of the
Industrial Revolution

21. • continued demand for slaves in the U.S.
– Eli Whitney’s cotton gin increased the need for people to
pick cotton

22. The Haves =bourgeoisie
• The entrepreneurs
(Individuals who start
a new business and
risk their own $) who
opened factories and
shipping companies
became very rich
during the early
industrial revolution.

23. The Have-Nots=Proletariat
• The people who
worked in the
factories for the
entrepreneurs (the
working class), were
soul-crushingly poor.

24. Urbanization
• Urbanization: The movement of people to
the cities
• The Industrial revolution brought rapid
urbanization.

25. Causes of Urbanization
• Population explosion
• High demand for workers

26. Don’t Forget!
• The enclosure
movement
pushed people
off the farms and
into the cities

29. City Life
• Cities grew around factories
• These cities grew rapidly, without planning
• Working people lived in tenements in
hellish slums
• The lack of planning meant that there was
no sewage, running water, or sanitation
system

32. No sanitation meant the streets were filled
with trash

33. The crowded, filthy slums were a breeding
ground for diseases such as cholera

35. Working Life in Factories
• Factory work was difficult and dangerous
• Typical shifts lasted 12 to 16 hours
• If you complained, you were fired.
• If you got sick, you were fired.
• If you got hurt and could no longer work,
you were fired.

36. Women at Work
• Factory owners hired
women because they
could pay them less
• Women with families
worked 12 hours a
day and were still
expected to cook,
clean, etc. when they
finally got home.

37. Children at Work
• Families needed the income working
children could provide.
• Children could be hired at very low wages
• Children worked in the same dangerous
factories, for the same long hours

39. Child labor in the textile mills
Industrial pollution (London 1840s)
Poverty in the tenements

42. Workers respond to the awful
conditions of their lives
• 1) Workers
protested
their
conditions
• These
protests were
put down
violently by
the British
government

43. Worker Response…continued
• 2) Luddites: skilled
workers rejected the
new machines that
cost them their jobs
by smashing them

44. Worker response…continued
• 3) Methodism: a new
religious movement
founded by John
Wesley. Working
people tried to focus
on a better life to
come rather than their
lives on earth

45. New Ways of Thinking
• The industrial revolution changed the way
people thought about everything from
economics to the way governments should
work.

46. “Iron law of wages”
• English economist David Ricardo
developed idea
• Believed that workers should only be paid
enough to survive
• If they make more, they will only have
more children and therefore become poor
again or die off from starvation
• Leads to the idea that poverty is caused
by character flaws in an individual

47. Rise of Socialism
• Critics of the Industrial Revolution began
advocating for a more even distribution of
the wealth and the benefits of
industrialization
• Many were labeled utopians because
ideas were impractical and impossible to
implement

48. Robert Owen
Rise of Socialism
• Robert Owen set up an
utopian system in his
factories, creating an
ideal working community
– workers worked less,
children were taken care
of while parents worked,
productivity and profit
increased

49. Socialism
• Goals
• Factors of production owned by the
public-operate for the welfare of all.
Protect workers from greedy employers
• Government & Business:
• Government should actively plan the
economy. Equality and end of poverty.
• Major Philosophers:
• Jeremy Bentham & John Stuart Mill
• Big Downside:
• More taxes and less freedom than
capitalism

50. Communism and Capitalism
• Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels witness the
horrors of industrialization
• Together they write the
Communist Manifesto,
the following chart
outlines the major
differences between
communism and
capitalism
Karl Marx

51. Communism
• Major Philosophers:
– Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles (1848) write
the Communist Manifesto and Das
Capital
• Vocabulary:
– Bourgeoisie – upper middle class factory
owners (abusers)
– Proletariat – lower working class, factory
workers (abused)
• Government & Business:
– Government controls all businesses and
provides for everyone.
• Note:
– He believed that in the end the proletariat
would rise up and take the means of
production and set up a “classless” society.

52. Communism and Capitalism
Capitalism Communism
Founders Adam Smith Karl
Marx/Frederick
Engels
Book Wealth of
Nations
The Communist
Manifesto

53. Communism and Capitalism
View on
people
People become
wealthy because
they offer
something – a
product or service,
that others want
Everyone has the
opportunity to
succeed
People should
cooperate to
obtain success,
eliminating
competition
Everyone should
have an equal
share of the
available
wealth/property

54. Communism and Capitalism
Capitalism Communism
View of
government
Government
should not interfere
with economy –
laissez faire
Everything
owned by
government
Government
closely regulates
economy (sets
prices, etc.)

55. Communism and Capitalism
Capitalism Communism
Individual
Freedom
People are free to
choose their own
careers
Freedom of
religion
Freedom is more
important than
security
Government
determines job
placement
Religion
considered a
burden
Sacrifice freedom
for security

56. Communism and Capitalism
Capitalism Communism
Social
Conditions
Through hard
work people can lift
themselves out of
poverty
Government
ownership of the
economy will end
unemployment,
poverty, hunger,
and slave-like
working conditions

57. Communism and Capitalism
Future of the
World
Capitalism is the
only efficient
economic system
Capitalism is self-
destructive
Workers will
eventually rise up
in a violent
revolution and take
power
The future of the
world is
communism

58. Legislation and Reform
• Early attempts to regulate factories lacked any
real enforcement
• Unions-collective bargaining (negotiation
between employers and employees)-strikes if
demands not met.
• Unions were outlawed by the government in the
early stages of industrialization because they
would interfere with the natural order of the
factories. After 1825, unions were “unhappily”
tolerated.

59. Legislation and Reform
• Initial legislation only limited child labor
• Kids could only work twelve-hour days and
it only affected the textile mills (excluded
the mines, shipyards, match factories,
etc.)

60. Legislation and Reform
• Factory Acts of 1833, 1842, and 1847
– limited child labor
– prohibited women and children in the mines
– set the maximum number of hours for women
and children at ten

61. Benefits of Industrialism
• Growing middle class
– Investment
– Higher education and standard of living
• Health benefits
– Longer life expectancy
– Edward Jenner- discovers smallpox vaccination
– Louis Pasteur- discovers bacteria, and how to eliminate it in
food
• Population increase
• Britain and US outlaw slave trade, and eventually
slavery
• Women’s movement (suffrage) begins to gain
momentum

62. Advances in Medicine
Above: smallpox victim
Top Right: Edward Jenner- the man who
found a vaccine for smallpox (1796)
Bottom Right: Louis Pasteur- microbiologist
who found a vaccine for rabies, and
developed the pasteurization process (1865)