Allen ch. 2the
          blanket-makers guild hall in Whitney


example of the town of Whitney, which made wool blankets for export
picture shows the guild hall where the weavers met before the factory system came in
when blanket-making industrialized the situation of the workers got much worse

For example, before the industrial revolution woolen (and some cotton) cloth was made by the putting out system:
working at home
What changed?
E
mpire: the spark was overseas trade with British colonies, which increased very rapidly
  • markets--you can't have large scale manufacturing without large scale markets
  • cotton textiles (initially from India) were often what was traded for slaves in Africa
  • capital (particularly from the slave trade)
map of British empire
Agricultural changes
  • Note that Allen argues that increasing demand for British manufacturing mean more demand for food (higher prices) so farmers found ways to grow more
  • enclosure =the abolishment of the old system of communal farming and its replacement with family farms. Rich people still owned most of the land, but the way it was divided up for the actual farming changed
    • What had been land for common use (pasture, gathering firewood) was also divided up
    • Supposedly everyone had the same share of land as before, but the smallest farmers didn't have enough to survive as an independent farm and they went out of business and went looking for work. 
    • Took place 16th century to about 1820.
  • Four field crop rotation replaced the medieval three field system--wheat, turnips, barley, clover or alfalfa (turnips and hay crops make it possible to keep more livecoal miningstock over the winter)
  • New scientific approaches to farming (one of the pioneer scientific investigators of agriculture was an Englishman named Jethro Tull)
  • average agricultural surplus per worker doubled from about 25% to about 50%
  • workers no longer needed in agriculture were available for industrial jobs (details on this argument)

Background technologies
some key technologies developed before the industrial revolution took off:

1. Use of coal instead of wood for heat

  • Britain was running out of wood to burn for fuel, so coal was used for stoves and fireplaces in the home.
  • Coal mining became profitable and technology for improving mining grew
  • Once the industry was established Britain had very cheap energy
  • we will talk about the steam engine with the railroad but it grew out of the need to pump water out of coal mines
  • 1712 Thomas Newcomen invented the first practical steam engine (at least it was practical for pumping water out of coal mines).  
2. Iron:photo of iron bridge
  • in the 17th century iron production in England was limited because iron was smelted with charcoal and England was running out of wood
  • another invention key to the beginning of the industrial revolution: 1709 Abraham Darby was the first to practically smelt iron with coal 
    • The brewing industry had already started to experiment with coke (partially burned coal)
    • like brewing, ironmaking requires a very pure carbon fuel because contaminants make the iron brittle (or make the beer taste bad)
    • Abraham Darby was a Quaker, part of a community where people shared technological expertise
    • Darby was making large cast iron cooking pots, which didn't require the highest quality iron
  • the iron industry took off after 1760 since iron ore and coal were both very plentiful in England
the first iron bridge, Coalbrookdale
Population, Wages and standard of living:graph of population vs. real wage

  • When the Black Death caused population to fall wages went up, but then when population increased wages went down
  • but after 1600 the demand for workers grew faster than the population, so wages and population went up
  • what was unique about the British industrial revolution was it could keep going:
    • plentiful coal meant they didnt run out of energy
    • as manufacturers made more and more things, people kept buying more and more things
  • that meant workers could buy more goods, creating a growing domestic market
  • we see they ate better because they were taller
  • more children learned to read because it was more useful for jobs in commercial cities
  • people began to marry earlier and have more children
  • people begin to work more hours--industrious revolution
    • farms are getting bigger
    • better nutrition makes it possible to work longer hours
    • families are getting bigger
    • there's more to buy so people work more because they see things they want
    • market
    • more competition, people want to get ahead, the economy is becoming more capitalist
    • consumer revolution: what you can buy becomes more important
  • the industrial revolution is also a revolution in how hard people work and what they want to buy
  • change in attitude of the people who build factories and the people who do the farm and factory work













this page written and copyright ©  Pamela E. Mack
last updated 8/30/2023