Technological Advancement, Industrialization, and Urbanization

1
Technological Advancement, Industrialization, and
Urbanization

• The American Industrial Revolution

2
The Industrial Revolution

• Generally speaking, the Industrial Revolution
  refers to the period in the late 18th and early
  19th centuries when changes in manufacturing,
  transportation, and agriculture had a profound
  effect on the socioeconomic and cultural
  conditions in Britain.
• These changes subsequently spread throughout
  Europe and North America (and later the world)
  through a process known as industrialization.

3
Technology

• Technological innovation was at the heart of the
  Industrial Revolution, and the key technological
  advancement was the invention and improvement of
  the steam engine.
• The first practical steam-powered 'engine' was a
  water pump, developed in 1698 by Thomas Savery.
  It proved only to have a limited lift height and
  was prone to boiler explosions, but it still
  received some use for mines and pumping stations.
• The first commercially-successful engine did not
  appear until 1712. Incorporating technologies
  discovered by Savery and Denis Papin, the
  atmospheric engine, invented by Thomas Newcomen,
  paved the way for the Industrial Revolution.

4
The Steam Engine
5
Protestant Work Ethic

• Some scholars believe that the British industrial
  advance was due in part to the presence of a
  entrepreneurial class which believed in progress,
  technology, and hard work.
• The existence of this class is often linked to
  the Protestant work ethic (see Max Weber) and the
  particular status of the dissenting Protestant
  sects.
• Reinforcement of confidence in the rule of law,
  which followed the period of the Glorious
  Revolution, and the emergence of a stable
  financial market in Great Britain were also
  believed to contribute.

6
Impacts - General

• The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a
  major turning point in human society almost
  every aspect of daily life was eventually
  influenced in some way.
• In the later part of the 1700s the manual
  labor-based economy of some parts of Great
  Britain began to be replaced by one dominated by
  manufacture by machinery.
• The introduction of steam power (fuelled
  primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly
  in textile manufacturing) underpinned the
  dramatic increases in production capacity. The
  development of all-metal machine tools in the
  first two decades of the 19th century facilitated
  the manufacture of more production machines for
  manufacturing in other industries. The effects
  spread throughout Western Europe and North
  America during the 19th century, eventually
  affecting most of the world. The impact of this
  change on society was enormous.

7
Impacts The Factory

• Industrialization led to the creation of the
  factory.
• The factory system was largely responsible for
  the rise of the modern city, as large numbers of
  workers migrated into the cities in search of
  employment in the factories.

8
Impacts The City

• The growth of modern industry from the late 18th
  century onward led to massive urbanization and
  the rise of new great cities, first in Europe and
  then in other regions, as new opportunities
  brought huge numbers of migrants from rural
  communities into urban areas. In the United
  States from 1860 to 1910, the invention of
  railroads reduced transportation costs, and large
  manufacturing centers began to emerge, thus
  allowing migration from rural to city areas.
  However, cities during those periods of time were
  deadly places to live in, due to health problems
  resulting from contaminated water and air, and
  communicable diseases.

9
Impacts Labor Practice

• The Industrial Revolution led to a population
  increase, but the chance of surviving childhood
  did not improve throughout the industrial
  revolution (although infant mortality rates were
  improved markedly).
• There was still limited opportunity for
  education, and children were expected to work.
  Employers could pay a child less than an adult
  even though their productivity was comparable
  there was no need for strength to operate an
  industrial machine, and since the industrial
  system was completely new there were no
  experienced adult laborers.
• This made child labor the labor of choice for
  manufacturing in the early phases of the
  Industrial Revolution between the 18th and 19th
  centuries.

10
Political Theory and Industrialization

• Marxism can be understood in part as a reaction
  to the Industrial Revolution. According to Karl
  Marx, industrialization polarized society into
  the bourgeoisie (those who own the means of
  productionthe factories and the land) and the
  proletariat (the working class who actually
  perform the labor necessary to extract something
  valuable from the means or production.
• Romanticism, which we began discussing yesterday,
  can also be understood partially through its
  relation to industrialization. As you might
  imagine, this artistic and philisophical movement
  was hostile towards the new industrialization.
  The movement stressed the importance of nature
  in art and language, in contrast to the
  monstrous machines and factories, the dark
  satanic mills of Blakes poem.