notice again that historians disagree on their
interpretations of what happened
what does it mean to say the industrial revolution
vastly increased human-kind's productive capacity?
Using sources of
energy you can produced many more goods per person
How much labor does
it take to make a yard of cloth—much less starting
in the industrial revolution
Cloth is cheaper
People come to
expect to own more
not only why did rapid economic growth begin
but also why did it not come to an end
Is there no consensus about the industrial revolution?
• Did the industrial revolution in the
moderately short run, make the lives of working class people worse
or better
• What caused the industrial revolution to
start?
the medieval technological revolution
approx. 800-1300 AD
the age of exploration and the scientific
revolution approx. 1400-1700
the British Industrial Revolution approx.
1750-1830
Mass production of metal goods (American
system, assembly line) approx. 1840-1920
The computer 1946-
An industrial revolution is a fundamental economic
change:
between 1770 and 1850 the economy of England
changed from mostly agricultural to mostly industrial
this was the result not of one key invention
but of technological progress in different fields coming
together
its center is the development of factories
(which hadn't really existed before this time)
large scale production
mass production--produce lots of the same thing quickly
division of labor--workers doing different parts of the
job rather than one craftsman doing the whole job
multiple machines and workers in one place using some
power source—eg. Water power, steam engine, electricity
factories couldn't have developed without
better transportation creating larger markets and better
transportation couldn't have existed without the growth of the
iron industry, which couldn't have grown without steam engines
society had a hard time adjusting to the new
economic system
why didn't people at the time realize they were living in a
revolutionary time?
• Day to day lives of the people writing
didn’t change that much
• The economic theory of the time led
economists to not think it was a big deal
• Hard to have perspective on what changes
meant
