1. Era 7: Revolutions and Empires

2. Background Info. The Industrial Revolution occurred in England from about 1760 to 1850 At this point in time, England was prime for change:  Improving medical technologies meant that there were…  Lower infant mortality rates  Generally longer lifespans  This led to a huge increase in population  Advances in agriculture made food and raw materials easier to produce

3. Basic Technology - 1775 - James Watt perfects his replicating steam engine - Originally used to remove coal from mines - By 1780 the steam engine was applied to factories -Watt’s invention revolutionized the textile industry, and led to the creation of the modern factory.

4. Transportation The creations of canals linked cities by water transport Road travel was still very basic. Carrier carts, stage coaches, and pack carts transported common people, the rich, and large hauls of goods. The greatest innovation in transportation during the Industrial Revolution was the locomotive the locomotive made it easy to get from industrialized city to industrialized city and also helped spread English innovation s across Europe.

7. The Working Class For the first time, there was a working class  Prior to this, there had been an upper class, and a lower class, and, in some cases, a bourgeoisie. QUESTION: QUESTION: How is a factory worker different from an agrarian (farm) worker?

8. Working Conditions Prior to 1760, most people worked at family farms, or worked a trade from their homes  However, factories were cheaper, more efficient, and produced higher quality materials  By 1800, the vast majority of people, both adults and children, men and women, were employed at a factory.  Factories provided jobs, and created a way for the “peasant farmer” to save money.

10. Working Conditions Cont..  The conditions in the factories were not well regulated and factories were highly dangerous.  In the metropolitan cities, the average age of death, which had gone down because of medical advances, suddenly went up.  In England, the average age of death was 18!  Even if you survived, many workers became disfigured because of the conditions  By 1830, it was taken for granted that the “average” industrial worker’s growth was stunted.  Other common ailments were back hunches, bent fingers, bald patches, and, in extreme cases, missing limbs.

11. Child Labor In the factories, children worked alongside their parents. They were expected to work the same amount of hours as an adult worker Factories were especially dangerous for children Children as young as four were put to work crawling under looms, picking up lint

12. The Factory The Commercial Revolution introduced the ideas of Capitalism to the working class.  For the first time, individuals could control how things were produced.  This was the start of the entrepreneur.  Individuals could borrow from banks and re-pay them later. This meant that they could start companies and open businesses.

13. Before the Industrial Revolution, you needed to be skilled in the whole process of making an item. DIDN’T NEED THIS ANYMORE! DIDN’T NEED THIS ANYMORE!  Instead, division of labor divided the manufacturing process into a series of easy steps.  Because a large amount of items could be produced very quickly, with little labor, the cost of these items dropped.

14. Eli Whitney created a system of interchangeable parts to make the production of the muskets standardized. This meant that Whitney’s muskets were produced very quickly, and in large numbers. These guns could also be easily repaired. Factories Continued

15. Eli Whitney’s most famous invention was not the use of interchangeable parts, but rather, the cotton gin. The cotton gin is a machine that cleans seeds from raw cotton. Before this point, processing cotton was tedious. People had to individually pick out all of the seeds.  Thanks to this invention, cotton became the US’s main export.

16. Cotton Gin Controversy The Cotton gin helped bring America into the industrialized world. It increased trade with Europe and made America a trade power. However, it also helped boost the slave trade in America, and the use of slave labor in general. Cotton could be cleaned faster, but not picked faster, and so slave labor increased in the southern US.

17. Other Advancements Other advancements to the factory system continued to make things faster, cheaper, and easier. Key to the advancements in the factories was mass production - being able to produce large amounts of identical items. The Assembly Line was introduced in the late 1800s. Before this point, each part was produced individually, then assembled piece by piece, one complete item at a time. An Assembly Line, in contrast, had the pieces fitted together as they were produced. This again made production faster and easier!

18. Ford used to say: “You can get the Model T in any color you like, as long as it’s black!” Henry Ford The Assembly Line was made popular by Henry Ford - an American entrepreneur. Ford saw the potential of the assembly line in building automobiles. On Ford’s assembly line, the metal frame of the car would travel down a conveyor belt. Each worker it passed added one of the thousands of small parts that the car needed. This mass production made it so that average families could have cars!

19. Types of Business Before the Industrial Revolution there were two major types of businesses:  A sole proprietorship is owned by one person.  A partnership is a business owned by 2 or 3 people.  In both cases, the owners were responsible for business debts (even if they were very large).  These businesses usually had only a few employees, and so could not produce things as fast as large companies. The Industrial Revolution created the Corporation.  By the 1800s, corporations were growing.

20. Types of Business: Corporations A Corporation is a business where shareholder buy stock in the company.  Because shareholders “own” part of the company, they also get representation in the organization - sometimes a member on the board.  Shareholders receive dividends according to how well the company does. Dividends = $  Unlike a proprietorship, each investor is limited to the amount they invest.  If something goes wrong with the company, no one will go bankrupt!  This made corporations really popular for investors.

21. Corporations Cont… -Because of the issue of flooding the market, smaller businesses started losing money. Often the owners had to sell the businesses to larger corporations. -The size of corporations were growing, however, there were also fewer corporations because of this competition. -This led to monopolies in certain industries. -J. P. Morgan’s company became one of the first monopolies. -If different organizations combined to create a monopoly, with varied goods, it was called a cartel.