Roots of Industrialization

Questions to Consider How much did the Industrial Revolution change society? Did the Industrial Revolution improve life for most people? What has the Industrial Revolution done for today’s societies?

Slow progress…. For starters, the pace of change in preindustrial society was extremely slow. In contrast, over the past few decades, people have witnessed and grown accustomed to high tech inventions that have transformed our lives. We might then assume that other eras in history experienced a similarly rapid pace in technological progress. And yet, for almost all of human history, quite the opposite is true. One scholar even observed that an average Roman from the 1st century CE would find much in common with the technology and daily life of English people in the 17th century.

Daily Live of Pre-Industrial Europe. Almost all people within Europe lived and worked in the countryside – Rural type setting. Most people were illiterate. Little knowledge about healthcare – God’s divine way of purifying the soul. Population growth was stagnant, meaning it was sluggish and slow moving. Wealth was centralized in a few hands.

Roots of industrializations in Society 1400-1760

A Gradual Change Out of this traditional and apparently unchanging pre-industrial life grew, surprisingly, the seeds of modern industry and society. Although most people lived in the countryside, cities started to flourish as early as the 13th century in Northern Italy, and later in Holland, Belgium, and England. The new towns were set apart from the old system in the countryside. No longer tied to the land and feudal obligations, merchants and craftspeople in the towns and cities found a new livelihood in producing handcrafted goods in workshops and trading their labor for money. Most of these crafts—such as cloth weaving, masonry, and furniture making—were very labor intensive, so production was low and slow by today’s standards. Still, cities began to thrive as markets for crafts and agricultural goods.

Pre-Industrial Cities Pre-industrial cities such as Florence, Venice, and London all became hubs of learning, craft production, mechanical work and bold new engineering and innovation. Innovations in sailing and navigating allowed Europeans to sail across the ocean in the late 15th century and onwards. Advancing in learning also led European nations to surpass China in technological military prowess.

Pre-Industrial Financial Innovations With growing oversea expansion, trade became a financial add for many towns, cities and countries. Globalization of markets stretched from Asia to the Americas. Invention of centralized banks and stock market exchange further produced wealth across nations and individuals.

Agricultural Revolution Food production increased significantly starting the late 1600s and accelerated through the 1700s. “New World” crops from the Americas began to come into use in Europe. Crop innovation, such as the crop rotation system. Innovation in machinery, such as the seed drill which efficiently placed seeds into soil at just the right depth. Agricultural Revolution

These incremental innovations in agriculture, finance, trade, mechanical inventions started to intersect with all of Europe. By the middle of the 18th Century, Europe, and England in particular, was on the tip of a profound and sweeping transformation.