The Industrial Revolution By Cynthia Stokes-Brown (for BHP) Abundant fossil fuels like coal led to innovative machines, like engines. These inventions launched an era of accelerated change that continues to transform human society. 1050L The Industrial Revolution Cynthia Stokes-Brown (for BHP)

The transformation of the world Make a list of the machines around your house, from bicycles to cell phones to microwaves. You might be surprised how many there are. Now imagine young people who grew up before such machines were invented. How did they travel from place to place? How did they communicate? Where did their food come from and how did they prepare it?

At one time, humans used their arms, legs, and bodies to provide most of the physical energy needed to feed and house their families. They burned wood for warmth and cooking and used domestic animals for help with chores. Windmills and waterwheels powered simple machines, but their uses were limited.

However, the early 1700s saw the first developments of what became the Industrial Revolution. Now, people found an extra source of energy that could work for them. That source was fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. These fuels had been forming from the remains of plants and animals from much earlier geologic times. When burned, these fuels released much more energy than burning wood, becoming the power sources for a revolutionary change in society and civilization.

Early steam engines The story of the Industrial Revolution begins in Great Britain and its coalfields and coal mines. By the early eighteenth century, coal was being used more and more to heat homes and workshops. The mines that produced this coal, though, would fill with water, slowing the work of miners. In 1712, Englishman Thomas Newcomen created a coal-powered steam engine capable of pumping water from the mines. More than fifty years later, James Watt, a Scottish instrument maker, designed a better version. It was soon adapted for other industrial uses, including milling and weaving. Other inventors and engineers continued to fine-tune Watts’ design, making it more efficient and versatile. By 1900, engines burned 10 times more efficiently than they had a hundred years before.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, British colonies in North America were producing a lot of cotton. Machines were usually powered by hardworking people in their homes, but also by waterwheels and windmills situated near rivers. They were used to spin the cotton thread on spindles (rods) and to weave it into cloth on looms. Attaching a steam engine to these machines was like trading a bicycle for a jumbo jet. The work went much, much faster. One steam engine could power many spindles and looms. But you can’t park a jumbo jet in a bike rack. Now people had to leave their homes for work Engraving of Boulton and Watt’s steam engine, 1781, from Robert Henry Thurston’s A History of the Growth of the Steam because the steam engines were so large and expensive. Engine. New York: D. Appleton, 1878, p. 104. By Robert Henry As a result, textile work shifted from a primarily home- Thurston, public domain. based occupation to factories.

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Early in the nineteenth century, the British also invented steam locomotives and steamships, which revolutionized travel. In 1851, they held the first world’s fair. They exhibited telegraphs, sewing machines, revolvers, reaping machines, and steam hammers to show that they were the world’s leading manufacturer of machinery. By this time, the characteristics of industrial society—smoke rising from factories, bigger cities and denser populations, railroads—loomed large in many parts of Britain.

Why Britain? Britain wasn’t the only place that had deposits of coal. So why didn’t the Industrial Revolution begin somewhere else, like China, that had similar fuel resources? Did it start in isolation in Britain, or were there global forces at work that shaped it? Did geography or cultural institutions play a part? Historians continue to investigate these questions.

Possible reasons industrialization began in Britain include:

• An abundance of accessible coal deposits and shortage of wood • A wealthy ruling class interested in economic development • A capitalist economic system, with little government interference • A strong navy to protect commercial shipping • Profits from the transatlantic slave trade that provided Britain with capital to invest in industrialization • Relative safety of Britain as an island nation • British colonies in India, Africa, and the Americas which provided land, natural resources, labor, and markets

Possible reasons industrialization did not begin in China include:

• Location of China’s coal—the north—while most economic activities were in the south • Coal resources deeper underground and less accessible than Britain’s • A large population that made human labor cheap • Cultural ideals that discouraged experimentation and change • China’s focus on threats from nomadic tribes in the north and west

Global forces influencing the development of industrialization in Britain include:

• Britain’s location on the Atlantic Ocean • British colonies in North America, which provided land, labor, and markets • Silver from the Americas, used in trade with China • New thoughts about the economy encouraged an entrepreneurial spirit

The spread of the Industrial Revolution Industrial technologies, practices, and ideas gradually spread out from Britain. The European nations of Belgium, Switzerland, France, and the states that became Germany established their own factories and railroads in the first half of the 1800s. Building a national railroad system was an essential part of industrialization, wherever it took hold. Trains could transport materials and products to and from factories faster and more cheaply.

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Children working in a mill in Macon, Georgia, 1909. By Lewis Hine, public domain.

Industrialization took a major step in the United States in 1789. That year Samuel Slater left Britain for Rhode Island, where he set up the first textile factory on U.S. soil. Once factories were built, railroad construction in America boomed from the 1830s to the 1870s. The U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) was the first truly industrial war as factories mass-produced supplies and weapons for the war effort. Troops were transported by rail and the telegraph, a recent invention, was used to send remarkably fast communications. The more urbanized and factory-based North used its industrial superiority to defeat the agriculture-based South.

After the war, industrialization experienced explosive growth worldwide. Both Russia and Japan gave up their feudal systems to compete in the industrializing world. By 1900, the United States had overtaken Britain in manufacturing, producing 24 percent of the world’s output. You’ll read more about industrialization in other parts of the world later in this era and in Era 7.

Consequences of the Industrial Revolution As industrialization took off in Europe and the Americas, nations began to use their strong armies and navies to colonize less-industrialized lands. They exploited these colonies for their natural resources and labor in what became the age of imperialism. The negative consequences of these activities would be felt for generations and they continue to affect international relations today. These topics will be covered extensively in the remaining lessons of Era 6.

Industrialization also had remarkable effects on the global population. In 1700, before fossil fuels were used widely, the world’s population was 670 million. By 2011, it was 6.7 billion, a tenfold increase in only 300 years. Industrial

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output revolutionized almost every aspect of society. In the twentieth century alone, the world’s economy grew fourteen times larger, energy use expanded accordingly, and per capita income grew almost quadrupled. In turn, people migrated in numbers never seen before in search of work. Millions of people shifted from rural to urban areas, and from old to new countries.

Region 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 World 5% 5% 7% 16% 47% Western Europe 12% 13% 21% 41% 75% North America 1% 2% 7% 38.5% 79% Africa .5% 1.25% 3% 8.5% 39% China 7% 6% 6% 7% 37%

Table 1: Percentage of urban population growth, 1600 to 2000 CE Source: Population data adapted from Goldewijk, K.K., A. Beusen, and P. Janssen. “Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1.” The Holocene 20, no. 4 (2010): 568.

Today, many people around the world have benefited from industrialization. Machines continue to reduce the amount of physical labor required. Child mortality rates have decreased, as more people are able to feed their children and get medical care, while life expectancy has increased. Large numbers of people enjoy levels of wealth, health, and education unimagined before industrialization.

The benefits of industrialization, however, have come at a cost. It has led to new social problems as communities have been disrupted by rapid social changes. In addition, the natural resources that industrialization depends on are being overused and in some cases exhausted. The continued use of fossil fuels has also caused environmental impacts that will affect people for generations to come. Balancing industrialization’s negative and positive effects is an ongoing challenge.

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Cynthia Stokes-Brown Cynthia Stokes-Brown was an American educator-historian. Stokes Brown wrote Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present. Using the term big history, coined by David Christian at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, Stokes Brown told the whole story from the Big Bang to the present in simple, non-academic language to convey our common humanity and our connection to every other part of the natural world

Image credits Cover: Industrial Revolution : pollution from copper factories in Cornwall, England. Engraving from History of England by Rollins, 1887, private collection © Photo by Leemage / Corbis via Getty Images Engraving of Boulton and Watt’s steam engine, 1781, from Robert Henry Thurston’s A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine. New York: D. Appleton, 1878, p. 104. By Robert Henry Thurston, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:SteamEngine_Boulton%26Watt_1784.png#/media/File:SteamEngine_Boulton&Watt_1784.png Children working in a mill in Macon, Georgia, 1909. By Lewis Hine, public domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Mill_Children_in_Macon_2.jpg#/media/File:Mill_Children_in_Macon_2.jpg

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