The Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution is the period from Machines replaced the work of manual labor and increased production ten fold. The impact of the revolution was large. Thousands of peasants left the fields to work in the new factories of the cities. This would bring crime, disease, and starvation.

Why England? England was perfect for the revolution. They were the leading colonial power and they could trade all over the world. England had deep navigable rivers for early transportation of materials. Because England was small they could not produce a lot of food and raw materials. This forced them into manufacturing goods to sell at a higher profit.

Textile Industry There was so much demand for English cloth the weavers couldn’t keep up. John Kay invented a flying shuttle that could do the work of two men. The problem was that they could not spin thread fast enough to keep up with the flying shuttle.

James Hargraves In 1768 James Hargraves solved the thread shortage. He created the spinning jenny which allowed him to spin 8 times the amount of thread. The only problem was that it was a heavy coarse thread.

Richard Arkwright He is considered the father of the modern factory. He created a spinning jenny so large that it needed a power source. That source would be water and his device was known as the waterframe. He could produce thread at a much faster pace and could spin it finer. This meant that fabric could be made of pure cotton.

Early factories He was able to keep up with the weavers demands and sell his product at low prices. Arkwright became one of the worlds first millionaires for this reason. His factories would require people to come to a place of work.

A new power source. The down side to water power required factories to be located on rivers. When water was low so was production. James Watts took an earlier invention that was used to pump water out of mines. He made it more efficient and increased its power. This invention was the Steam Engine.

The Steam Engine would revolutionize life. This invention would be used to power boats and trains. Now factories could be built anywhere. It also created a demand for coal. England just happened to have a wealth of coal in the north. England became the work shop of the world; exporting not only their manufactured goods but their know how as well. People had a belief that there was no limit to what they could produce.