Discussion 8

Most products people in the industrialized nations

use today are turned out swiftly by the process of

mass production, by people (and sometimes, robots)

working on assembly lines using power-driven

machines. People of ancient and medieval times had

no such products. They had to spend long, tedious

hours of hand labor even on simple objects. The

energy, or power, they employed in work came

almost wholly from their own and animals' muscles.

The Industrial Revolution is the name given the

movement in which machines changed people's way

of life as well as their methods of manufacture.

About the time of the American Revolution, the

people of England began to use machines to make

cloth and steam engines to run the machines. A little

later they invented locomotives. Productivity began a

spectacular climb. By 1850 most Englishmen were

laboring in industrial towns and Great Britain had

become the workshop of the world. From Britain the

Industrial Revolution spread gradually throughout

Europe and to the United States.

Changes That Led to the Revolution

The most important of the changes that brought

about the Industrial Revolution were (1) the

invention of machines to do the work of hand tools;

(2) the use of steam, and later of other kinds of

power, in place of the muscles of human beings and

of animals; and (3) the adoption of the factory

system.

It is almost impossible to imagine what the world

would be like if the effects of the Industrial

Revolution were swept away. Electric lights would go

out. Automobiles and airplanes would vanish.

Telephones, radios, and television would disappear

Most of the abundant stocks on the shelves of

department stores would be gone. The children of

the poor would have little or no schooling and would

work from dawn to dark on the farm or in the home.

Before machines were invented, work by children as

well as by adults was needed in order to provide

enough food, clothing, and shelter for all.

The Industrial Revolution came gradually. It

happened in a short span of time, however, when

measured against the centuries people had worked

entirely by hand. Until John Kay invented the flying

shuttle in 1733 and James Hargreaves the spinning

jenny 31 years later, the making of yarn and the

weaving of cloth had been much the same for

thousands of years. By 1800 a host of new and faster

processes were in use in both manufacture and

transportation.

This relatively sudden change in the way people live

deserves to be called a revolution. It differs from a

political revolution in its greater effects on the lives

of people and in not coming to an end, as, for

example, did the French Revolution.

Instead, the Industrial Revolution grew more

powerful each year as new inventions and

manufacturing processes added to the efficiency of

machines and increased productivity. Indeed, since

World War I the mechanization of industry has

increased so enormously that another revolution in

production is taking place

Expanding Commerce Affects Industry

Commerce and industry have always been closely

related. Sometimes one is ahead and sometimes the

other, but the one behind is always trying to catch

up. Beginning in about 1400, world commerce grew

and changed so greatly that writers sometimes use

the term "commercial revolution" to describe the

economic progress of the next three and a half

centuries.

Many factors helped bring about this revolution in

trade. The Crusades opened up the riches of the East

to Western Europe. America was discovered, and

European nations began to acquire rich colonies

there and elsewhere. New trade routes were opened.

The strong central governments which replaced the

feudal system began to protect and help their

merchants. Trading firms, such as the British East

India Company, were chartered by governments.

Larger ships were built, and flourishing cities grew

up.

With the expansion of trade, more money was

needed. Large-scale commerce could not be carried

on by barter, as much of the earlier trade had been.

Gold and silver from the New World helped meet this

need. Banks and credit systems developed. By the

end of the 17th century Europe had a large

accumulation of capital. Money had to be available

before machinery and steam engines could come into

wide use for they were costly to manufacture and

install.

By 1750 large quantities of goods were being

exchanged among the European nations, and there

was a demand for more goods than were being

produced. England was the leading commercial

nation, and the manufacture of cloth was its leading

industry.

Organizing Production

Several systems of making goods had grown up by

the time of the Industrial Revolution. In country

districts families produced most of the food, clothing,

and other articles they used, as they had done for

centuries. In the cities merchandise was made in

shops much like those of the medieval craftsmen,

and manufacturing was strictly regulated by the

guilds and by the government. The goods made in

these shops, though of high quality, were limited and

costly.

The merchants needed cheaper items, as well as

larger quantities, for their growing trade. As early as

the 15th century they already had begun to go

outside the cities, beyond the reach of the hampering

regulations, and to establish another system of

producing goods.

From Cottage Industry to Factory

Cloth merchants, for instance, would buy raw wool

from the sheep owners, have it spun into yarn by

farmers' wives, and take it to country weavers to be

made into textiles. These country weavers could

manufacture the cloth more cheaply than city

craftsmen could because they got part of their living

from their gardens or small farms.

The merchants would then collect the cloth and give

it out again to finishers and dyers. Thus they

controlled clothmaking from start to finish. Similar

methods of organizing and controlling the process of

manufacture came to prevail in other industries, such

as the nail, cutlery, and leather goods.

Some writers call this the putting-out system. Others

call it the domestic system because the work was

done in the home ("domestic" comes from the Latin

word for home). Another term is cottage industry, for

most of the workers belonged to the class of farm

laborers known as cotters and carried on the work in

their cottages.

This system of industry had several advantages over

older systems. It gave the merchant a large supply of

manufactured articles at a low price. It also enabled

him to order the particular kinds of items that he

needed for his markets. It provided employment for

every member of a craft worker's family and gave

jobs to skilled workers who had no capital to start

businesses for themselves. A few merchants who had

enough capital had gone a step further. They brought

workers together under one roof and supplied them

with spinning wheels and looms or with the

implements of other trades. These establishments

were factories, though they bear slight resemblance

to the factories of today.

Why the Revolution Began in England

English merchants were leaders in developing a

commerce which increased the demand for more

goods. The expansion in trade had made it possible

to accumulate capital to use in industry. A cheaper

system of production had grown up which was largely

free from regulation.

There also were new ideas in England which aided

the movement. One of these was the growing

interest in scientific investigation and invention.

Another was the doctrine of laissez-faire, or letting

business alone. This doctrine had been growing in

favor throughout the 18th century. It was especially

popular after the British economist Adam Smith

argued powerfully for it in his great work 'The Wealth

of Nations' (1776).

For centuries the craft guilds and the government

had controlled commerce and industry down to the

smallest detail. Now many Englishmen had come to

believe that it was better to let business be

regulated by the free play of supply and demand

rather than by laws. Thus the English government for

the most part kept its hands off and left business

free to adopt the new inventions and the methods of

production which were best suited to them.

The most important of the machines that ushered in

the Industrial Revolution were invented in the last

third of the 18th century. Earlier in the century,

however, three inventions had been made which

opened the way for the later machines. One was the

crude, slow-moving steam engine built by Thomas

Newcomen (1705), which was used to pump water

out of mines. The second was John Kay's flying

shuttle (1733). It enabled one person to handle a

wide loom more rapidly than two persons could

operate it before. The third was a frame for spinning

cotton thread with rollers, first set up by Lewis Paul

and John Wyatt (1741). Their invention was not

commercially practical, but it was the first step

toward solving the problem of machine spinning.

Inventions in Textile Industry

As the flying shuttle sped up weaving, the demand

for cotton yarn increased. Many inventors set to work

to improve the spinning wheel. James Hargreaves, a

weaver who was also a carpenter, patented his

spinning jenny in 1770. It enabled one worker to run

eight spindles instead of one.

About the same time Richard Arkwright developed

his water frame, a machine for spinning with rollers

operated by water power. In 1779 Samuel Crompton,

a spinner, combined Hargreaves' jenny and

Arkwright's roller frame into a spinning machine,

called a mule. It produced thread of greater fineness

and strength than the jenny or the roller frame. Since

the roller frame and the mule were large and heavy,

it became the practice to install them in mills, where

they could be run by water power. They were tended

by women and children.

These improvements in spinning machinery called for

further improvements in weaving. In 1785 Edmund

Cartwright patented a power loom. In spite of the

need for it, weaving machinery came into use very

slowly. First, many improvements had to be made

before the loom was satisfactory. Second, the hand

weavers violently opposed its adoption because it

threw many of them out of work. Those who got jobs

in the factories were obliged to take the same pay as

unskilled workers. Thus they rioted, smashed the

machines, and tried to prevent their use. The power

loom was only coming into wide operation in the

cotton industry by 1813. It did not completely

replace the hand loom in weaving cotton until 1850.

It was not well adapted to the making of some

woolens. As late as 1880 many hand looms were still

in use for weaving woolen cloth.

Many other machines contributed to the progress of

the textile industry. In 1785 Thomas Bell of Glasgow

invented cylinder printing of cotton goods. This was a

great improvement on block printing. It made

successive impressions of a design "join up" and did

the work more rapidly and more cheaply. In 1793 the

available supply of cotton was increased by Eli

Whitney's invention of the cotton gin. In 1804 J.M.

Jacquard, a Frenchman, perfected a loom on which

patterns might be woven in fabrics by mechanical

means. This loom was later adapted to the making of

lace, which became available to everyone

Watt's Steam Engine

While textile machinery was developing, progress

was being made in other directions. In 1763 James

Watt, a Scottish mechanic, was asked to repair a

model of a Newcomen steam engine. He saw how

crude and inefficient it was and by a series of

improvements made it a practical device for running

machinery.

Wheels turned by running water had been the chief

source of power for the early factories. These were

necessarily situated on swift-running streams. When

the steam engine became efficient, it was possible to

locate factories in more convenient places.

Coal and Iron

The first users of steam engines were the coal and

iron industries. They were destined to be basic

industries in the new age of machinery. As early as

1720 many steam engines were in operation. In coal

mines they pumped out the water which usually

flooded the deep shafts. In the iron industry they

pumped water to create the draft in blast furnaces.

The iron industry benefited also from other early

inventions of the 18th century. Iron was scarce and

costly, and production was falling off because

England's forests could not supply enough charcoal

for smelting the ore. Ironmasters had long been

experimenting with coal as a fuel for smelting.

Finally the Darby family, after three generations of

effort, succeeded with coal that had been

transformed into coke. This created a new demand

for coal and laid the foundation for the British coal

industry. The next great steps were taken in the

1780s, when Henry Cort developed the processes of

puddling and rolling. Puddling produced nearly pure

malleable iron. Hand in hand with the adoption of the

new inventions went the rapid development of the

factory system of manufacture.

Changing Conditions in England

The new methods increased the amount of goods

produced and decreased the cost. The worker at a

machine with 100 spindles on it could spin 100

threads of cotton more rapidly than 100 workers

could on the old spinning wheels. Southern planters

in the United States were able to meet the increased

demand for raw cotton because they were using the

cotton gin. This machine could do the job of 50 men

in cleaning cotton. Similar improvements were being

made in other lines of industry. British merchants no

longer found it a problem to obtain enough goods to

supply their markets. On the contrary, at times the

markets were glutted with more goods than could be

sold. Then mills were closed and workers were

thrown out of employment.

With English factories calling for supplies, such as

American cotton, and sending goods to all parts of

the world, better transportation was needed. The

roads of England were wretchedly poor and often

impassable. Packhorses and wagons crawled along

them, carrying small loads. Such slow and

inadequate transportation kept the cost of goods

high. Here again the need produced the invention.

Thomas Telford and John MacAdam each developed a

method of road construction better than any that had

been known since the ancient Romans built their

famous roads.

Building Canals and Railways

Many canals were dug. They connected the main

rivers and so furnished a network of waterways for

transporting coal and other heavy goods. A canalboat

held much more than a wagon. It moved smoothly if

slowly over the water, with a single horse hitched to

the towline. In some places, where it was impossible

to dig canals and where heavy loads of coal had to be

hauled, mine owners laid down wooden or iron rails.

On these early railroads one horse could haul as

much coal as 20 horses could on ordinary roads.

Early in the 19th century came George Stephenson's

locomotive and Robert Fulton's steamboat, an

American invention. They marked the beginning of

modern transportation on land and sea. Railroads

called for the production of more goods, for they put

factory-made products within reach of many more

people at prices they could afford to pay.

The Condition of Labor

As conditions in industry changed, social and political

conditions changed with them. Farm laborers and

artisans flocked to the manufacturing centers and

became industrial workers. Cities grew rapidly, and

the percentage of farmers in the total population

declined.

The population of England as a whole began to

increase rapidly after the middle of the 18th century.

Because of progress in medical knowledge and

sanitation, fewer people died in infancy or childhood

and the average length of life increased.

Far-reaching changes were gradually brought about

in the life of the industrial workers. For one thing,

machines took a great burden of hard work from the

muscles of human beings. Some of the other

changes, however, were not so welcome.

The change from domestic industry to the factory

system meant a loss of independence to the worker.

The home laborer could work whenever he pleased.

Although the need for money often drove him to toil

long hours, he could vary the monotony of his task by

digging or planting his garden patch. When he

became a factory employee, he not only had to work

long hours, but he had to leave his little farm. He

lived near the factory, often in a crowded slum

district. He was forced to work continuously at the

pace set by the machine. The long hours and the

monotonous toil were an especially great hardship

for the women and children. The vast majority of the

jobs were held by them by 1816.

The change was particularly hard on the weavers and

the other skilled workers who sank to the position of

factory workers. They had been independent

masters, capitalists in a small way, and managers of

their own businesses. They had pride in their skill.

When they saw themselves being forced into

factories to do other men's bidding for the same pay

as unskilled workers, it is no wonder that they rioted

and broke up looms.

Problems of Capital and Labor

A person had to have a lot of capital to buy machines

and open a factory. Those who were successful made

huge profits with which to buy more machines, put

up larger buildings, and purchase supplies in greater

quantities at enormous savings. Thus capital

increased far more rapidly than it ever had before.

Much of it was invested in building canals, railroads,

and steamships and in developing foreign trade. The

men who controlled these enterprises formed a

powerful new class in England--the industrial

capitalists.

The capitalists had a struggle to obtain a voice in the

government. They needed a better system of

banking, currency, and credit. They had to find and

hold markets for their products. They had many

difficulties in organizing their factories to run

efficiently. They also had to make a profit on their

investments in the face of intense competition.

Laissez-faire was the rule in England. This meant that

the government had accepted the doctrine that it

should keep hands off business. Factory owners could

therefore arrange working conditions in whatever

way they pleased. Grave problems arose for the

workers--problems of working hours, wages,

unemployment, accidents, employment of women

and children, and housing conditions.

Children could tend most of the machines as well as

older persons could, and they could be hired for less

pay. Great numbers of them were worked form 12 to

14 hours a day under terrible conditions. Many were

apprenticed to the factory owners and housed in

miserable dormitories. Ill-fed and ill-clothed, they

were sometimes driven under the lash of the

overseer. The high death rate of these child slaves

eventually roused Parliament to pass laws limiting

the daily toil for apprentices.

Rise of Labor Unions

Workers sought to win improved conditions and

wages through labor unions. These unions often

started as "friendly societies" that collected dues

from workers and extended aid during illness or

unemployment. Soon, however, they became

organizations for winning improvements by collective

bargaining and strikes.

Industrial workers also sought to benefit themselves

by political action. They fought such legislation as

the English laws of 1799 and 1800 forbidding labor

organizations. They campaigned to secure laws which

would help them. The struggle by workers to win the

right to vote and to extend their political power was

one of the major factors in the spread of democracy

during the 19th century.

Revolution Spreads to the United States

Until 1815 France was busy with the Napoleonic

wars. It had little opportunity to introduce

machinery. When peace came France began to follow

England. It followed slowly, however, and has never

devoted itself as exclusively to manufacturing as

England has. Belgium was ahead of France in

adopting the new methods. The other European

countries made little progress until the second half

of the 19th century.

The United States too was slow in adopting machine

methods of manufacture. Farming and trading were

its chief interests until the Civil War. The new nation

had little capital with which to buy the machinery

and put up the buildings required. Such capital as

existed was largely invested in shipping and

commerce. Labor was scarce because men continued

to push westward, clearing the forests and

establishing themselves on the land.

A start in manufacturing, however, was made in New

England in 1790 by Samuel Slater. An employee of

Arkwright's spinning mills, Slater came to the United

States in 1789. He was hired by Moses Brown of

Providence, R. I., to build a mill on the Pawtucket, or

Seekonk, River. English laws forbade export of either

the new machinery or plans for making it. Slater

designed the machine from memory and built a mill

which started operation in 1790. When the

Napoleonic wars and the War of 1812 upset

commerce and made English products difficult to

obtain, more American investors began to build

factories.

Pioneer Industries and Inventions

New England soon developed an important textile

industry. It had swift streams for power and a humid

climate, which kept cotton and wool fibers in

condition for spinning and weaving. In Pennsylvania

iron for machines, tools, and guns was smelted in

stone furnaces. They burned charcoal, plentiful in

this forested land. Spinning machines driven by

steam were operating in New York by 1810. The first

practical power loom was installed at Waltham,

Mass., by Francis Cabot Lowell in 1814. Shoemaking

was organized into a factory system of production in

Massachusetts in the early 19th century. New

England was the first area in the United States to

industrialize.

American inventors produced many new machines

that could be applied to industry as well as to

agriculture. Oliver Evans designed a steam engine

more powerful than that of James Watt. Engineers

quickly adopted the new engine and used it to power

locomotives and steamboats.

Cyrus McCormick invented several machines used to

mechanize farming. His mechanical reaper, patented

in 1834, revolutionized harvesting, making it quicker

and easier. Elias Howe's sewing machine eased the

life of the housewife and made the manufacture of

clothing less expensive.

Techniques of factory production were refined in

American workshops. Eli Whitney led the movement

to standardize parts used in manufacture. They

became interchangeable, enabling unskilled workers

to assemble products from boxes of parts quickly.

American factories used machine tools to make parts.

These machines were arranged in lines for more

efficient production. This was called the "American

system of manufacturing," and it was admired by all

other industrial nations. It was first applied to the

manufacture of firearms and later spread to other

industries like clock and lock making.

Second Industrial Revolution

The machines of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th

and early 19th centuries were simple, mechanical

devices compared with the industrial technology that

followed. Many new products were devised, and

important advances were made in the system of

mass production. Changes in industry were so great

that the period after 1860 has been called the

Second Industrial Revolution. New scientific

knowledge was applied to industry as scientists and

engineers unlocked the secrets of physics and

chemistry. Great new industries were founded on this

scientific advance: steel, chemicals, and petroleum

benefited from new understandings of chemistry;

breakthroughs in the study of electricity and

magnetism provided the basis for a large electrical

industry. These new industries were larger and more

productive than any industries existing before.

Germany and the United States became the leaders,

and by the end of the 19th century they were

challenging Great Britain in the world market for

industrial goods.

The age of electricity began in 1882 when Thomas A.

Edison introduced a system of electric lighting in

New York City. Electricity was later applied to driving

all kinds of machinery as well as powering

locomotives and streetcars. Electric lighting quickly

spread across the United States and was soon

adopted in Europe. The electrical industry was

dominated by large companies that developed new

products and then manufactured and marketed them.

These companies were based in Germany and the

United States but sold their goods all over the world.

They were the first multinational companies.

Companies like Westinghouse and General Electric

helped to electrify cities in Europe, Africa, and South

America.

The steel and chemical industries used new

technology that greatly increased production. The

size of factories increased rapidly, employing more

workers and using more machinery. These industries

integrated all stages of production under a single

corporate structure. They bought out competitors

and acquired sources of raw materials and retail

outlets. Corporations such as U.S. Steel and Standard

Oil controlled all stages of manufacturing the

product, from mining and drilling to delivering it to

the customer. This gave them great economic power,

and the United States government took measures to

limit their monopolies in steel and petroleum.

The larger size of business presented great

challenges to managers who administered enormous

organizations with many branches and subsidiaries.

Advances in communications and transportation

helped decision makers to maintain control. The

electric telegraph was invented by Samuel Morse in

1844 and was used to relay commercial information

about prices and markets. It was used in the stock

exchanges and on the railway systems. Alexander

Graham Bell patented his telephone in 1876, and

networks of telephone lines were built quickly across

the United States.

The telephone became a useful tool for managers to

keep in contact with the widely dispersed parts of

their businesses. New methods of management were

devised that stressed central control, planning, and

efficient production methods. One of the leading

advocates of "scientific management" was Frederick

Winslow Taylor.

The Second Industrial Revolution marked great

progress in the methods of mass production. More

and more industries used interchangeable parts and

machine tools. Electric power replaced steam power

in factories; it was cheaper, faster, and more flexible.

It allowed machine tools to be arranged more

efficiently. Human power was replaced by machine

power. In 1913 Henry Ford introduced the assembly

line in the manufacture of his Model T Ford. Parts

were assembled on a moving conveyor belt, and the

Model T took shape as it moved from one work

station to the next. The assembly line greatly

increased the speed of manufacture and soon was

used in many industries.

By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, only a small

number of industries in the most industrialized

nations of the world had adopted advanced

production methods and organization. Much of the

world had not yet begun a first industrial revolution.

Russia, Canada, Italy, and Japan were just beginning

to industrialize.

Only Great Britain, the United States, Germany,

France, and some parts of the Scandinavian countries

had successfully completed an industrial revolution.

Most of the world's population still worked in

primitive agricultural economies. China, India, and

Spain did not begin to industrialize until well into the

20th century.