The latter part of the Industrial Revolution also saw key advances in communication methods, as people increasingly saw the need to communicate efficiently over long distances. In , British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first commercial telegraphy system, even as Samuel Morse and other inventors worked on their own versions in the United States. Banks and industrial financiers rose to new prominent during the period, as well as a factory system dependent on owners and managers.
A stock exchange was established in London in the s; the New York Stock Exchange was founded in the early s.
In , Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith , who is regarded as the founder of modern economics, published The Wealth of Nations. In it, Smith promoted an economic system based on free enterprise, the private ownership of means of production, and lack of government interference. Though many people in Britain had begun moving to the cities from rural areas before the Industrial Revolution, this process accelerated dramatically with industrialization, as the rise of large factories turned smaller towns into major cities over the span of decades.
This rapid urbanization brought significant challenges, as overcrowded cities suffered from pollution, inadequate sanitation and a lack of clean drinking water. Meanwhile, even as industrialization increased economic output overall and improved the standard of living for the middle and upper classes, poor and working class people continued to struggle.
The mechanization of labor created by technological innovation had made working in factories increasingly tedious and sometimes dangerous , and many workers were forced to work long hours for pitifully low wages. In the decades to come, outrage over substandard working and living conditions would fuel the formation of labor unions , as well as the passage of new child labor laws and public health regulations in both Britain and the United States, all aimed at improving life for working class and poor citizens who had been negatively impacted by industrialization.
The beginning of industrialization in the United States is usually pegged to the opening of a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in by the recent English immigrant Samuel Slater. By the end of the 19th century, with the so-called Second Industrial Revolution underway, the United States would also transition from a largely agrarian society to an increasingly urbanized one, with all the attendant problems. By the early 20th century, the U.
Historians continue to debate many aspects of industrialization, including its exact timeline, why it began in Britain as opposed to other parts of the world and the idea that it was actually more of a gradual evolution than a revolution.
The positives and negatives of the Industrial Revolution are complex. On one hand, unsafe working conditions were rife and pollution from coal and gas are legacies we still struggle with today.
On the other, the move to cities and inventions that made clothing, communication and transportation more affordable and accessible to the masses changed the course of world history. The burning of coal also caused severe air pollution. Canals were built in the rivers of Britain from to allow ships to transport goods and for a quicker rate. Britain had access to local and international economies because of their powerful Navy and other ships.
The first public railway opened in and ran from Stockton to Darlington. Built by George Stephenson, the Newcastle based father of the railways, this was the precursor of the Liverpool to Manchester railway and ultimately the national rail network. All of these changes occurring in Britain were held together by its stable government.
Regular meetings of Parliament, and longer legislative sessions, allowed time to deal with local issues. Fewer bills failed, and promoters grew in confidence so that the number of petitions and bills increased rapidly. The pound sterling was the national currency during the entire pre-industrial and Industrial Revolution time period time, and it is still the currency used to today in Britain.
The creation of new inventions sparked the change of many industries in Britain. The Steam Engine, invented in by James Watt, created a huge boost in production. From the years , an engineer, John Farey , visited every steam-powered establishment in London, from calico printers to iron foundries and breweries.
While he was there, he counted steam engines at work, which were producing 1, horsepower. He then compared that to the 32 steam engines in Manchester, which was producing less than a third of that energy. In , on the cusp of the railway era and the massive expansion of the Lancashire textiles industry, there were about steam engines in London, compared with in Manchester, in Leeds, and 80 to 90 in Glasgow.
This machine was powered by a combination of coal and steam power. With this device, Stephenson set a new speed record of 28 mph. This was an astounding achievement for the time that awed spectators. Never before had they seen something manmade move so fast. The Iron Bridge Across the Severn. William Wiliams, Ironbridge Gorge Museum. The world's first iron bridge was completed about It spanned across the Severn River in Britain.
Abraham Darby is credited for spearheading this project that allowed for easy access across the river. Therefore, they fell into the hands of government officials, so at that point their lives as young children turned into those of slaves or victims with no one or nothing to stand up for them. So what was it exactly that ended this horror?
Investments in machinery soon led to an increase in wages for adults, making it possible for child labor to end, along with some of the poverty that existed.
Video on child labor during the Industrial Revolution. The most intellectual scholars and authors of England expressed an early interest in the rationality and preciseness of science. This quickly changed, however, when Romantics came to view this evolution of machine as a threat to the individual Gale. Works Cited: Hine, Lewis. Forrest, Frank Chapters in the Life of a Dundee Factory Boy.
Britain also provided a large market for manufactured products. The result was that it made sense to invest in the spinning jenny in England, while it did not in France. However, this picture is too simplistic. While British workers were paid more than their French counterparts, even at lower French wages, adopting the jenny would still have been profitable albeit less so.
Similarly, American workers were paid more than their British counterparts, but industrialisation did not take off there. Joel Mokyr in The Enlightened Economy: an Economic History of Britain posits that the Enlightenment meant that Britain was best positioned to take advantage of the ideas and equipment of the age. While many European states benefited from the Enlightenment, Britain was alone in possessing an adequate supply of skilled craftsmen who were afforded the freedom to be entrepreneurial.
Nevertheless his work is somewhat light on evidence. For every piece of effective government legislation of the period, such as the repealing of the Corn Laws, there is a counterpoint of deleterious action, such as the failure to effectively regulate the railways. Similarly, for every Baconian experimenter such as Josiah Wedgwood who would have encountered Enlightenment ideas, there many, such as Richard Arkwright, who were less likely to have been raised on Enlightenment teaching.
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