| medieval |
age of exploration |
mid 1600s to mid 1700s lead-up to the industrial revolution |
| at the end of the middle ages
the plague significantly reduced population, resulting in
higher wages |
Women in England married late
so population grew slowly relative to food supply |
population began to grow faster in the 1730s, and the food supply also increased |
| most people spun and wove
wool to make their own clothing, fulling (shrinking and
compacting) was done by water power |
the process of making cloth
was slowly divided up into more specialized steps |
Fad for India textiles such
as calicos,
new machines and kinds of cloth developed in England |
| farmers sold their surplus in
market towns, guilds organized craftspeople |
more specialized production
for sale, both in English towns and on colonial
plantations |
merchants organized English
cloth-making into the putting out system where merchants
carried material to different homes for different steps in
the process. |
| Crusades brought more exposure to imported goods from the east such as spices, luxury cloth begins to be imported but only the upper class is allowed to wear it | Europeans sent ships around
the world, expanding trade that had previously gone by
land. Seeking to control trade led to colonies and empire.
|
Cloth from India was key to
the slave trade which expanded after the 1720s. Indian and
British cloth sold worldwide |
| extensive use of water power
for grinding grain, sawing wood and fulling cloth |
use of water power continues |
some experiments with water
powered textile machines |
| the guild system set
prices and limited who could practice a particular
craft |
the British government came
to see trade as essential to national wealth and supported
trade companies with monopolies |
the government was willing to
protect English businesses from foreign competition, for
example with the Calico Acts and later the Corn Laws |