First Industrialization 1750-1850

Intro Music by Pink Floyd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCfVFxRsKQc

Industrialization The onset of fundamental change in the structure of an economy…and the redeployment of resources away from agriculture towards manufacturing and services

Industrial revolution In our modern world, we make daily use of the products of an industrialised era. These products include a wide variety of goods manufactured for our consumption. It has not always been like this. There was a time when almost all products were hand-made and the factory system did not exist. The transition from a world of artisan (skilled trade) manufacture to a factory system, and all its attendant benefits with which we are familiar, is known as the Industrial Revolution. It began in Britain in the early years of the 18th century.

The Search for New Power Source At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution there were very few forms of power, other than human or animal power. The only two other power sources available were wind and water. Of the two, water was the older power source. Water wheels had been in use since the Roman period. Windmills had only came into general use in Europe around the 12th century.

1. Textile Manufacturing

James Hargreaves' "spinning jenny" In 1764, James Hargreaves invented the "spinning jenny," a device which allowed one person to spin many threads at once, further increasing the amount of finished cotton that a worker could produce. By turning a single wheel, one could now spin eight threads at once, a number that was later increased to eighty. The thread, unfortunately, was usually coarse and lacked strength. Despite this shortcoming, over 20 000 of the machines were in use in Britain by 1778

Richard Arkwright The youngest of thirteen children was born in Preston in 1732. Richard's parents were very poor and could not afford to send him to school and instead arranged for him to be taught to read and write by his cousin Ellen. Richard became a barber's apprentice. However, he was an ambitious young man and had a strong desire to run his own company. In 1762 Arkwright started a wig-making business. This involved him travelling the country collecting people's discarded hair.

While on his travels, Arkwright heard about the attempts being made to produce new machines for the textile industry. Arkwright also met John Kay, a clockmaker from Warrington, who had been busy for some time trying to produce a new spinning-machine with another man, Thomas Highs of Leigh. Kay and Highs had run out of money and had been forced to abandon the project. Arkwright was impressed by Kay and offered to employ him to make a new machine. Arkwright also recruited other local craftsman to help, and it was not long before the team produced the Spinning Frame

Spinning Frame Machine involved three sets of paired rollers that turned at different speeds. While these rollers produced yarn of the correct thickness, a set of spindles twisted the fibres firmly together. The Spinning-Frame was too large to be operated by hand Spinning-Frame was renamed to Water Frame-as hydro energy was used to power the spinning wheel.

Samuel Crompton's "Crompton's mule" In 1779, Samuel Crompton combined both the spinning jenny and the water frame to create a machine known as "Crompton's mule," which produced large amounts of fine, strong yarn

Water Wheel

Water Wheel Con’t A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface.

Results of the Water Frame Allowed for faster and easier cotton spinning. More can be produced in a shorter period of time and does not require as much human labour. With each new invention a machine replaces human labour and adds efficiency This hurt a lot of the people who used to do this kind of work by hand. Very similar to large companies crushing small production.

Problems with the cotton mills The factories tended to be in remote mountain areas, next to the water supply. This meant that it was difficult to find a sufficient number of people to work the mills and it created transport problems. advertise in national newspapers for orphans to be sent to them. These children, from seven years upwards, would be together housed in barrack-like buildings and made to work between 12 to 18 hour days.