1. The Industrial Revolution began in England for several reasons. First, England’s

enclosure acts had created a large class of landless proletariats, which provided an

ample source of labor for Industry. Second, Britain had a large Atlantic economy.

They could export to any number of the colonies they still possessed (they had

recently lost, or were in the process of losing, the American colonies). The

colonies had a large demand for imports as many of them were still in the process

of establishing their own industry, and therefore had to rely on Britain’s. Third,

England’s credit markets and central bank were both firmly established and

prospering, unlike France or Germany. This was important as it helped stabilize

the government, which was run jointly by both the monarchy and parliament,

which consisted of the nobility and the bourgeoisie (wealthy MERCHANTS of

the peasant class). Fourth, English agriculture was among the best in Europe,

second only to that of the Dutch. England had more food available, which meant

that the food was cheaper. People were making the same sum of money, but

spent a lot less of it on food, so they could spend more of it on manufactured

goods.

2. Richard Arkwright of Britain invented a more efficient spinning machine. The

machine however, required more energy than human beings themselves could

input. The machine consisted of hundreds of spinners that produced coarse cloth

which then needed to be refined, requiring more energy. This energy deficiency

was solved by creating new, specialized water mills. These were beneficial in

that the mills could provide the energy needed for Arkwright’s machine, and in

that they could employ 1,000 workers; there were more jobs for the landless

proletariat that had been created by the enclosure movements.

Also, England depended on wood to heat homes and iron, and for many

other purposes. After so many years of dependence on wood, there was no longer

a sufficient supply of it. England then turned to coal as a source of power. They

had a lot of it, and it was a good source of heat. The only problem was that the

coal mines would get too deep and become flooded. In 1698 and 1705 Thomas

Savery and Thomas Newcomen, respectively, invented steam engines. They were

very inefficient, and therefore not widely used (the steam engine would not

become a big success until the 1780s). James Watt, a Scotsman, was repairing a

Newcomen steam engine when he realized that he could make it more efficient by

adding a separate condenser. In 1769, his idea was patented and by the 1780s the

improved steam engine was widely used, thereby solving the energy crisis that

England had been experiencing.

3. The steam engine was used as a pump to keep the coal mines from flooding. The

coal mines, in turn, were used mine the coal that would power the locomotive

used to transport goods on the railroad.

4. The railroad created a larger market as goods could be transported more quickly

and to further distances (on land). The larger market provided more competition

for the factories. Also, the railroad impacted the working class by providing more

jobs, and also by helping to create the new urban working class. Peasants were

used to needing to move around in order to find work, so the men would move

around to keep working on the railroad. The workers found this work exciting,

but their lives in the villages they had come from weren’t when the two were

compared. In response to this realization, many of the railroad workers moved to

the towns for work, which was, for them, more exciting. When they had

established themselves there, they brought their wives or loved ones to live with

them. These former rural people became part of the urban working class.

The railroad also changed society’s outlook by becoming a new source of

entertainment and fun. Engineers like Isambard Brunel and Thomas Brassey

became celebrities and new colloquial phrases like “getting off track” were

adopted. The Industrial Revolution, of which the railroad was a part, became

more than just a scientific or intellectual advance. It became a fundamental part

of social life.

5. James Watt improved the steam engine by adding a separate condenser, which

could better absorb the energy the engine produced.

6. Because of the new spinning techniques, textiles were being produced faster. The

water mills, which produced the thread for the cloth, could employ up to 1,000

workers. Also, as the output of thread was greater, the number of weavers needed

to weave the thread into cloth increased as well, at least until 1800 (when the

power looms of factories really took off). This affected mainly adults however;

children were affected via the new factories. The factories contained power

looms that were not powered by human energy; this does not mean that the

factories did not need human hands to keep functioning. They did, but because

conditions in factories were so poor, the factory owners had to turn to employing

abandoned children. The children were often abused, and received terrible care

for up to fourteen years, the length of time they were “apprenticed” in the

factories.

7. The French Revolution and the wars of 1792 to 1815 delayed the onset of the

Industrial Revolution in continental Europe. During this time, factories were not

being created in this area, and so laborers were not learning how to work them.

Also, most of the financial resources of the countries involved with the wars were

being put towards the war effort. Many of the countries pulled out because they

ran out of money, or they had lost to much valuable land. The economies of these

countries then suffered because there was a smaller labor source, and the putting

out system suffered because it had lost some of the sources of raw materials that it

depended upon. These sources may have been regained with the fall of Napoleon,

but until then, the sources were absent and no country other than France could

really benefit from them. Also, taxes were harsh because the countries needed a

source of income to pay for the wars. This meant that the population had less

money to spend on manufactured goods.

8. Continental Europe’s Industrial Revolution was delayed because it was the site of

the wars with Napoleon. Nothing much could, or would, be built while armies

were constantly on the move and using up, or destroying, the resources needed.

This put the countries that industrialized after Britain at a disadvantage in that

Britain had become so advanced that few people outside of Britain could

understand the information needed for an Industrial Revolution. Also, by this

point the coal industry required enormous amounts of money to enter and to

proliferate. Finally, because so many people had been drafted and killed during

the war, continental Europe’s labor force did not consist of many people who

understood or were able to work in factories. On the other hand, these countries

did have some advantages.

First and foremost, the technology needed for an Industrial revolution

already existed in England. Continental Europe could get the engineers,

information, and, since England was prospering and had a stable national bank

and credit sources, even the money needed for this Revolution. Second, the

putting out system in continental Europe was very strong. This meant that a

thorough system of depositing raw materials, producing goods from those raw

materials, and then distributing those goods was routine. The framework for the

industrial revolution already existed; continental governments simply had to

gather the resources in their own countries in order to build upon it, which they

did with the help of special economic policies.

9. Cockerill, Harkort, and Lists’ careers tell us how much continental Europe wanted

to catch up with Britain. The Cockerill family had emigrated from England and

made their living by selling goods that they manufactured using English

technology. John Cockerill eventually made enough to by a summer palace that

had formerly belonged to some bishops of Liege and turn it into a manufacturing

facility. Harkort was able to import expensive English mechanics and iron

boilers, and then, for sixteen years, work to create an empire. He was eventually

forced out of his own company by investors because he was overly ambitious and

overspent. But the fact that he had investors who supported his very ambitious

effort for sixteen years shows people’s belief in enterprises such as Harkourt’s.

List, a journalist, supported the creation of a customs union in Germany (the

Zollverein) which posted high tariffs on imports from outside Germany, but no

tariffs on goods transported inside Germany; he created the idea of economic

nationalism in which the mother county benefits at the expense of other countries.

Harkourt’s story shows the problems involved with importing items to

Continental Europe from England for the Industrial Revolution (it was too

expensive), while the Cockerills’ showed that it was cheaper to import English

workers who could create English goods on foreign soil, and List showed a

different economic policy that would help stimulate internal growth.

10. The purpose of the Zollverein was to protect Germany’s economy and promote its

industrial revolution while undermining the economies of the rest of Europe. The

purpose of the Credit Mobilier, a private bank protected by limited liability

policies (where the investor can only lose as much as they invested), was to enrich

its investors and extend the railroad system throughout France.

11. No, Britain’s new industrial middle class did not ruthlessly exploit the workers.

They forced the workers to work long hours, and the workers couldn’t choose

when they wanted to work. Also, working in the factory was, for them, very

boring work, and they could no longer work at their own pace. This was a drastic

change for them because in the Cottage industry, from which many of these

workers had come, they could choose when, where, and how long they wanted to

work; they could formulate their own schedule in the cottage industry, that

privilege was revoked once they entered the factory industry. It was an entirely

different way of living, but the conditions, for adults, were not detrimental to their

health.

12. The standard of living between 1790 and 1850 improved. With the Factory Act

of 1833 in England protected children, so they no longer grew up with deformities

caused by working in the factory, and they could get and education up to age nine,

when they were old enough to enter work at a factory. Also, pauper apprenticing

was made illegal in 1802, so orphans were no longer being taken advantage of

either. In regards to diet, according testimony given by Robert Owen, a factory

owner, even in 1801, when forcing pauper children to work in factories was still

legal, the pauper children he visited were “very well fed” and taken care of.

13. The factory system ended up destroying Britain’s former system of family life.

Prior to the factory system, families had worked at cottages together; everyone

was involved with processing the raw materials and producing goods. The

factory system was reformed in 1802 (paupers could no longer be forced to work

in factories) and also with the Factory Act of 1833. The factory act was really the

final straw. It forbid children under the age of nine from working in factories and

made going to an elementary school, established by the factory owner, mandatory.

With this it became illegal for families to work together as they had in the cottage

industry.

14. The subcontractor system had a positive effect on working class life.

Manufacturers paid the subcontractors according to the amount that the

subcontractor and his team produced. Subcontractors could be nice or mean.

Either way, they were much closer to their workers than the managers in factories

were; it more closely resembled the familial relationship that had existed in the

cottage industry and a lot of workers found this arrangement more pleasing than

that of factory life.

15. “Sexual division of Labor” means that men and women are relegated to certain

jobs, socially and even legally, such as the Mines Act of 1842 in which women

were forbidden from working underground. Some scholars think that this

emerged through necessity, that it was more economical to have women tend to

domestic duties rather than let the children run loose and have to pay for someone

else to do it. Some think that it came about because men believed that certain

work could corrupt women, such as mining. The women would often work in the

mines without a shirt on because it was so hot, but the men may have thought this

was demeaning, thus resulting in the Mines Act of 1842.

16. The Chartist movement’s goals were to attain political democracy and universal

male suffrage. They campaigned to limit the workday to ten hours, and also to

allow for the importation of duty-free wheat in order to have a supply of cheap

bread. The chartist movement also helped workers find their own identity, which

they may have lost when they moved from the cottage industry to the factory.