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1. UNIT 5
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

2. 1.THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: CONCEPT AND FACTORS
2.THE BIRTH OF INDUSTRY
3.THE CONSOLIDATION OF CAPITALISM
4.THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
5.THE SPREAD OF INDUSTRIALISATION
6.THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
7.THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
8.ART: THE NEW ARQUITECTURE

3. 1. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: CONCEPT AND FACTORS
Process of economic,
social and technological
change
Started in the 18th
century in Great Britain
Expanded throughout
Western Europe and
America
Transition from hand
production methods to
mechanisation.
1. The concept of the Industrial Revolution

4. 18th century
Great Britain: 5,5 million in 1700  7,7 million in 1800  30 million in 1900
Improvements in
medicine
Better living
conditions
POPULATION GREW
More demand for food
and consumer products
More industrial production
More agricultural production
Innovations
Economic activity
2. Factors of the Industrial Revolution: the British model
POSSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP
Lower death
rate

5. England, since the 2nd 1/2 of the 18th century:
1. Agricultural Revolution: increase of production.
a. Changes in the system of land ownership
(Enclosures of open and common lands →
Private hands (large landowners) → More
profitable.
• Many farmers lost their lands, so went to
the cities.
b. Innovations:
• Norfolk crop rotation system (early 19th
century): No fallow land (tulips and clover
regenerate nutrients + food for cattle) →
More productivity.
• Chemical fertilizers, machinery, selection of
seeds, etc.

6. 2. Demographic Revolution: great growth of population. Reduction of catastrophic
mortality (reduction of epidemics, better health care, medical advances, etc.), and high
birth rates.
a. Increased the demand of products.
b. Abundant and cheap labour force.

7. 3. Capital: accumulated from
the colonial trade.
a. England: highest
economic and colonial
power.
b. Promotion of financial
institutions: Bank of
England, London Stock
Exchange, insurance
companies, etc.
c. Entrepreneur vision of
the investors.

8. Industrialisation à From manual to mechanised work.
Mechanisation:
- Increase in productivity.
- Reduction in costs.
- Reduction of prices.
- Increase of profits for the companies.
2. THE BIRTH OF INDUSTRY
1. Machines, steam and factories Changes in all factors of
production:
- Natural resources: raw materials and
sources of energy
- Capital: physical, human and financial
- Tecnology: knowledge, methods and
procedures

9. 1769  STEAM ENGINE (James Watt)
It used coal as fuel à Need of fossil fuels

10. Manufacturing systems: Guilds (workshops) à Domestic system à FACTORIES.
House for machinery, energy sources and workforce.
Division of the work process, with specialised workers in different tasks.
Workshops Domestic system FACTORIES

11. Forerunner industry: Textile industry (cotton).
- Problems → Difficult to pick.
- Very short fibres (and they had to be separated from the seeds).
- Grown in India → Ban on finished cotton products from India.
2. The textile industry

12. Technological advances  More fabric in less time for less money.
• Flying Shuttle (1733) à For weaving.
• Spinning Jenny (Hargreaves, 1764) à For producing yarn.
• Cotton gin à Mechanisation of the processing of cotton (It led to more slavery in USA).
• Application of the steam engine: substituted water as source of energy source. Favoured
the development of new automatic machines (the spinning mule).

13. Coal à Abundant in the north of England  Powerhouse of the
Industrial Revolution.
Required for the steam engines.
Iron ore à Also available (but not great quality  Basque iron
was better).
Innovations.
Invention of steel (Alloy of iron and coal [coke]). Railways.
3. Mining and the iron and steel industries

14. 4. The modernisation of the
means of transport
Agricultural revolution
+
Mechanisation
+
new products
+
demand
GROWTH OF TRANSPORTS

15. Early Industrial Revolution → Use of canals and roads.
Steamboats → From 1807 → Transoceanic trade easier and cheaper → COLONIAL EMPIRES.

17. 1830 - First intercity railway: Manchester-Liverpool
Steam-powered.
By early 1850s → 11 000 kms in England only.
Rapid European expansion.
Cheaper than canals, good for land routes and with
high capacity for transporting goods.

19. Industrial Revolution: Capitalism (economic liberalism) + political liberalism.
Free trade, competition (law of supply and demand), no state intervention in economy.
3. THE CONSOLIDATION OF CAPITALISM
Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776) 
Father of economic liberalism.
Principles:
- Private property à Inalienable right.
- Self-interest (maximum profit)  Drive of
the economy.
- Self-regulation of the market: prices, salaries,
etc. Law of supply and demand.
- Governments: no intervention in economy.
- Freedom of choice, movement, competition
and markets.

20. First half of the 19th century: INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM
• New banking and credit practices because of the industrial expansion.
○ Bank loans à Investment in private enterprises.
• New business practices  Corporations
○ Traditionally: single owner à All investment (personal savings + credits) 
Management + profits.
○ Corporations: for raising the necessary capital for the initial investment and expansion.
§ Different people buy shares of the company (investment)
§ Board of directors (named by the shareholders)  Management. With salary.
§ Profit à Dividends  Divided among the shareholders depending on the
percentage they own.
This process increased the value of finance and economic institutions, such as state and
private banks, credit institutions, stock markets or financial corporations, as well as new
economic concepts, such as public debt. This process moved finally this system to a new
stage known as financial capitalism.

22. 1870-1914  Second Industrial Revolution
Spread to Germany, USA and Japan
Coal (steam engine) Textiles and metallurgy
FIRST INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
Electricity
Oil
Combustion engines
Chemicals
Electrical devices
SECOND INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
4. THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

23. 1. New sources of energy: electricity and oil.
Electricity à from scientific curiosity to everyday appliances.
Oil à fuel for internal combustion engines.
1. New sources of energy and new industries

24. 2. New industries: electrical devices, cars, chemicals, metallurgy, etc
• New inventions in all fields of life from the telegraph, the lightbulb (Edison), the
telephone (Graham Bell), the radio (Marconi), domestic appliances, etc.
• Chemical industry: activated other sectors textile industries (new materials, dyes,
etc.), weaponry and mining, agriculture (fertilisers), construction, etc.
• Metallurgy: other metals in use, such as copper and aluminium.

25. 3. New means of transport:
a. New collective transports in cities: electric trams, subway, etc.
b. Ships: iron structures, propellers and turbines  able to cover transatlantic
distances.
c. Motor car: thanks to the invention of combustion engines in Germany (Carl Benz)
and in the USA (Henry Ford).
d. 1907: the Wright brothers invented the airplane.

26. 4. Quicker expansion of the industrialisation: all over Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy and
Austria-Hungary), reached Russia and began in Japan (Meiji Revolution).

27. − Chain production (assembly line) à Work is divided into simple small actions or tasks.
Less specialisation of workers.
− Henry Ford à Early user. Cheaper cars  Larger sales.
2. A new industrial organisation: production and capital
Organisation of production:
Taylorism
Mass and
standarised
production
Increase of
production
Reduction of
costs
Reduction in
working hours
Chain
production
AKA
‘Scientific management’

29. New organisation of the capital à
Industrial concentration.
• Cartel: agreements among companies
for fixing production and prices.
• Trusts: merging of companies of the
same field into one.
• Holdings: financial groups formed by
banks and companies that invest in
different types of industries.
• Monopoly: one company that has
exclusivity over a product, with no
competition.

30. Until 1850s à
Industrialisation only in
England.
5. THE SPREAD OF INDUSTRIALISATION

31. From 1830s àTextile sector.
1850 à Trains: accelerated the
process.
State-driven industrialisation.
1. The French industrialisation

32. 2. The German industrialisation
Positive factors:
− Long manufacture tradition
− Good land and river
communications
− Advanced technical education
system.
Problems: political division, which
implied several law codes, borders
and customs duties.
1834: Zollverein (customs union of
39 German regions)
1870: unification. Development of
the Industrial Revolution.

33. 3. The United States of America
Late industrialisation. Causes
1) Former colonial character
2) Huge expansion (and ongoing exploration of the west) and its difficult connections.
3) Scarce markets
4) Small population.
More important from the Second
Industrial Revolution onwards.

34. 6. THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

35. 1. The social class system
POLITICAL LIBERALISM ECONOMY INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
SOCIAL CHANGES
From CLASS SOCIETY
Bourgeoisie and proletariat.
Social mobility
Objective factors: based on economic power and
productive function, not inherited privileges
Subjective factors: shared values, aspirations and
interests  Class consciousness

36. "[Classes are] large groups of people differing from each other by the place they
occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in
most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in
the social organization of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share
of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it."
Vladimir Lenin
A Great Beginning - June, 1919

37. • NOBILITY:
• Lost privileges, but it was able to hold part of its
social, political and economic influence.
• They maintained their lands (now private
properties), had political experience in
important charges.
• Allegiances with bourgeoisie: economic
ventures and marriages.
• CLERGY: it begun to lose economic and political
influence due to the reduction of taxes, the
improvement of the administration and the
disentailment of their properties.

38. • BOURGEOISIE: Owners of the capital, factories and/or land  Became the ruling class.
• Gained political power, cultural elite and controlled the means of production.
• Characterized by its economic activity: promotion of trade, creation of private companies
and investment of their wealth.
High bourgeoisie: former high nobility and the
industrial bourgeoisie.
• Profits from their businesses and investments.
• They imitated the nobility (even mixed by
marriage): lived in palaces, bought luxurious
products, etc.
• They became the social model (values,
aspirations, etc.).
• Access to political institutions, promoted the
creation of liberal and conservative political
parties, constitutional regimes and limited male
suffrages.

39. Petite bourgeoisie (middle class): civil servants, liberal
professions, senior officials, landowners, merchants and
small industrialists.
• Shared the political values of the bourgeoisie (liberalism and
capitalism) and tried to imitate its lifestyle.
• Economic situation closer to the labour class.
Petty bourgeoisie: employees, shopkeepers, artisans, etc.
Same conditions as proletarians.

40. PROLETARIAT (Industrial working classes)
• Wage-earners.
• Factory and workshop workers.
• Hard working conditions: long hours, low wages,
lack of insurance and security, occupational
instability…
• Women exploitation à Lower salaries, less
conflictive.
• Child labour (ie. Ten Hours Bill of 1847, which
limited working hours to 10 for children and
women)
• No labour rights, no legislation protecting the
workers  Dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
• Neighbourhoods: no sewage, running water, etc.
• Houses: several families per house, cold, small, etc.
Unhealthy.

41. The history of the proletariat in England begins with the second half of the last century, with the invention of the
steam-engine and of machinery for working cotton. These inventions gave rise, as is well known, to an industrial
revolution, a revolution which altered the whole civil society. […] Only in England can the proletariat be studied
in all its relations and from all sides.
Since the human being, the worker, is regarded in manufacture simply as a piece of capital for the use of which
the manufacturer pays interest under the name of wages. [...] Since capital, the direct or indirect control of the
means of subsistence and production, is the weapon with which this social warfare is carried on, it is clear that
all the disadvantages of such a state must fall upon the poor.
[…] Every great city has one or more slums, where the working-class is crowded together. True, poverty often
dwells in hidden alleys close to the palaces of the rich; but, in general, a separate territory has been assigned to
it, where, removed from the sight of the happier classes, it may struggle along as it can. These slums are pretty
equally arranged in all the great towns of England, the worst houses in the worst quarters of the towns; usually
one- or two-storied cottages in long rows, perhaps with cellars used as dwellings, almost always irregularly built.
These houses of three or four rooms and a kitchens form, throughout England, some parts of London excepted,
the general dwellings of the working-class. The streets are generally unpaved, rough, dirty, filled with vegetable
and animal refuse, without sewers or gutters, but supplied with foul, stagnant pools instead.
Fiedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845)

42. PEASANTS: Industrialisation and new technological advances in agriculture (machinery,
fertilizers, irrigation systems, crop rotation…) reduced the number of peasant families in
advanced countries  Rural exodus.

43. 2. The industrial city

44. Industrialised cities à Great changes.
• Huge population
• New infrastructures: large factories, subways, trams, train stations, electric power lines…

45. • Expansion beyond the historical city (walls were torn down). New resildential areas.
• Bourgeoisie: historical city and expansions (ensanches). Also, suburban developments.
• Working classes: unstructured neighbourhoods placed on the outskirts and near the
factories, very polluted and without public services (lighting, running water, waste
collection…).

46. Many thinkers denounced the injustices of capitalism  New models of social organisation
7. THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

47. 1. The birth of the proletatian movement and the first labour associations
Early Industrial Revolution: lack of defense. The elimination of guilds and the lack of
associations and legislations left the working classes exposed to abuses and exploitation.
Fist decades 19th century à Luddites: Opposition to mechanisation (low salaries,
unemployment)  Destruction of machinery

48. UNIONISM
Began in the 1820s.
1834 à Great Trade Union.
Objectives:
• Pourpose: improve working conditions (hours,
salaries, conditions, child labour, etc.).
• Promoted stability and protection to workers
(their members paid a fee and received aid in
cases of accidents of job loss)
• Demanded better labour conditions: shorter
working days, increasing wages, security at work,
etc.
• Negotiating power with the employers through
conciliation and common decisions.
• When ignored, collective action (protests and
strikes).

49. Also, politicisation of the labour classes  CHARTISM (from
1838)
Demands to the Parliament for democratic reforms: universal
male suffrage, secret ballot, creation of left-wing political
parties, yearly election and egalitarian political districts.

50. First half 19th century
• Some bourgeois and middle class
thinkers (economists, philosophers,
entrepreneurs, etc.) denounced the
situation of the industrial working
class, analised scientifically their
causes and proposed viable solutions.
• Reformists, not revolutionaries:
believed in the continuous progress
and shared the need of improving the
labour conditions from inside the
capitalist system.
Saint- Simon, Charles Fourier, Louis
Blanqui or Robert Owen
2. Marxism and socialism
PRE-MARXIST SOCIALISTS (UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS)

51. Marxism à Radical
form of socialism
“A spectre is haunting Europe – the
spectre of communism. All the
powers of old Europe have entered
into a holy alliance to exorcise this
spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich
and Guizot, French Radicals and
German police-spies.
[…] To this end, Communists of
various nationalities have assembled
in London and sketched the
following manifesto, to be published
in the English, French, German,
Italian, Flemish and Danish
languages.”
K. Marx and F. Engels, The
Communist Party Manifesto
(1848)

52. Principles of Marxism:
1. Historical materialism: the ultimate cause and moving power of historical events are to be found in the
economic development of society and the social and political upheavals formed by changes to the mode of
production. Several productive models: slavery, feudalism and capitalism.
History → Determined by the opposition of classes. New ruling classes substitute old ruling classes, but inequality
persists.

53. 2. Socioeconomic relationship of industrial capitalism à
Enriched the bourgeoisie (controlled the means of production)
and impoverished the proletariat (without property, exchanged
their labour). Workers are allieated from their work, and the
capitalists create surpluses from this allienation.
3. The class struggle: confrontation between exploiters and
exploited worker as cause of change of productive model. Class
consciousness.
4. Socialist productive model: collective property of the means
of production.
5. Objective: the dictatorship of the proletariat: replacement
of the capitalist system by the socialist model and therefore
the implementation of a social and full democracy.
Workers’ revolution  Destruction of capitalism  Classless
society.

54. End 19th century à Unions and political parties (Communist, Socialists, Labour) 
Parliamentary representation for promoting better living and working conditions of the
working classes.

55. Communes: social
communities with collective
property, common work and
wealth. Organised with
assemblies.
Different sectors:
-Advocacy of direct action.
-Anarchist Unions (anarcho-
syndicalism) →
Improvement of social
conditions + foster
revolution.
3. Anarchism
Freedom
of the
individual
No private
property →
Collective
property
Classless
society
Stateless
society
Solidarity
Rejection of
authority
and
institutions
Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin à Main
anarchist thinkers.
Revolutionary political theory.

56. Internationalisation of the labour movement.
1864 à First International Workingmen’s Association
Union of Marxists, anarchists and unionists  Proletarian internationalism  Fight
capitalism.
1876 à Ended  Differences between anarchists and marxists (anarchists expelled).
4. The International Workingmen’s Association (IWA)

57. 1889 à Socialist leaders  Second International (International Socialist)
Created symbols à The International (anthem) and Worker’s Day.
Coordination of socialist parties of Europe.
Two proposals: orthodox Marxists (revolutionary) and revisionist Marxists (goals through
democratic participation).
Ended with the First World War (1914-18): stop to international solidarity.

58. Late appearance.
1830 à First labour associations (Cataluña,
Weavers’ Association)
1860 àFreedom of Association  Extension of the
labour movement to the mining, iron and steel, and
railway sectors.
After the Glorious Revoltion: Fanelli (anarchist) and
Paul Lafargue (Marxist) in Spain.
1879: foundation of the PSOE.
1888: UGT
1910: CNT (Anarchism more extended in
Cataluña, Aragón, Valencia and Andalucía). Joined
many anarchist unions and associations.
5. The labour movement in Spain

59. 8. ART: THE NEW ARCHITECTURE
Technological advances and inventions, applied to architecture:
− Cast-iron, steel, concrete and glass employed.
− Used in bridges, railway stations, markets, exhibition pavilions, greenhouses and libraries.

60. Universal Exhibitions: Crystal Palace (1851), Eiffel Tower (1889), etc.

62. Chicago School (late 19th century) à Combined concrete, steel and glass. Higher buildings.
Louis Sullivan: first skyscrapers. The Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building, Guaranty
Building, and the Auditorium building.

63. Modernism (Art Nouveau) (1890-1920)
Very imaginative: the whole building forms part of a single design (stairs, furniture, details,
etc.). Curves, wavy lines and organic motifs (flowers, leaves, etc.) as decoration
Variety of constructions, from metro entrances (Hector Guimard in Paris) to private houses
(Victor Horta in Belgium).

64. Antoni Gaudí: Park Güell, Casa Batlló, Sagrada Familia, etc.