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Chapter 20
The Industrial Revolution and Its Impact on European Society
Outline:
I. The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain
A. Origins of the Industrial Revolution
B. Technological Changes and New Forms of Industrial Organizations
1. The Cotton Industry
2. The Steam Engine
3. The Iron Industry
4. A Revolution on Transportation
5. The Industrial Factory
C. The Great Exhibition: Britain in 1851
II. The Spread of Industrialization
A. Industrialization on the Continent
B. The Industrial Revolution in the United States
C. Limiting the Spread of Industrialization to the Nonindustrialized World
III. The Social Impact of the Industrial Revolution
A. Population Growth
B. The Growth of Cities
1. Urban Conditions in the Early Industrial Era
C. New Social Classes: The Industrial Middle Class
D. New Social Classes: Workers in the Industrial Age
1. Working Conditions for the Industrial Working Class
E. Efforts at Change: The Workers
F. Efforts at Change: Reformers and Government
IV. Conclusion
Key Terms and People:
- James Hargreaves
- Edmund Cartwright
- Steam engine
- Rotary engine
- Indispensable
- Charcoal
- George Stephenson
- Samuel Slater
- Railroad
- Interchangeable parts
- Great Famine
- Edwin Chadwick
- Factory Act of 1833
- Chartism
- Coal Mines Act
Chapter Summary:
The Industrial Revolution that came first to Britain and then to the Continent of Europe changed the political
and social order of Western people fully as much as the religious revolution called the Reformation, the intellectual revolution
of the Enlightenment, or the political revolutions that followed the French Revolution. It changed the lives of the common
worker more than the other revolutions.
The Industrial Revolution started in Britain, where inventions, organizational
skills, and natural resources combined to remake the countryside and the cities. It spread after a generation to the continent,
particularly to places that had the same natural resources and organizational systems as Britain, and by the middle of the
nineteenth century was redefining society throughout the Western world. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London demonstrated
the achievements but did not point out the human suffering that accompanied those achievements.
Historians are still
assessing the social impact of the Industrial Revolution. Growth in city populations, the creation of a new middle class and
an urban working class, an ever increasing gap in earnings and quality of life between owners and workers: all of these made
the modern age what it has been for a century—for better and for worse. While adults suffered from the work they had
to do in the factories, the biggest losers were the children who were literally "used up" to supply labor for factories.
Reaction
came in time. The workers themselves, however limited their powers might be, began calling for more rights to determine their
work and lives; and social reformers made the case of the workers so articulately that at last governments had to respond.
The class struggle of modern times was underway.
Focus Questions:
- What conditions and developmets coalesced in Great Britain to bring
about the first Industrial Revolution?
- What were the basic features of the New Industrial System created
by the Industrial Revolution?
- How did the Industrial Revolution spread from Great Britain to the
Continent and the united States, and how did industrialization in those areas differ from British industrialization?
- What effects did the Industrial Revolution have on urban life, social
class, and familiy life?
- What were working conditions like in the early decade of the Industrial
Revolution, and what efforts were made to improve them?
- What was the role of government in the industrial development of
the Western world?
Chapter 21
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