Effects of Industrialization

1
Effects of Industrialization
2
National Economies

• Britain
• until 1815 the IR was mainly in Britain
• Britain was the leading industrial power in the
  first half of the 19th century
• built the great cities of the North and Midlands
• linked cities together (transportation and
  communication)
• linked Britain to the world

3
Crystal Palace

• 1851 in London for the 1st Worlds Fair
• built using prefabricated units
• showed Britain to be technologically and
  economically superior to all other nations
• but just a few miles away

4
Social Effects

• how did each group fare?
• the landed aristocracy
• the middle class
• the working class

5
Social Effects

• the landed aristocracy
• short term benefits
• exploited their ownership of natural resources
• invested in new industries
• long term threat the aristocracy was
  infiltrated by the middle class

6
Social Effects

• the middle class
• split in two
• upper middle class
• became wealthy
• the family firm (e.g. Cadbury chocolate,
  Krupps armaments, Rothschild banking)
• demanded political power
• lower middle class
• people who worked a trade (tailors, ironworkers,
  etc.) couldnt compete with factories and fell
  out of the middle class
• apprenticeships died out
• had to seek factory jobs

7
Social Effects

• the working class
• what was factory work like according to the
  factory rules of the Foundry and Engineering
  Works of the Royal Overseas Trading Company in
  Berlin?
• what was child labor like according to the Sadler
  Commissions report?
• living conditions
• industrial town grew too fast to be planned
• workers lived in tenements (no indoor plumbing,
  few or no windows, overcrowded)
• diet potatoes, stews, tea, and alcohol
• disease typhus, cholera, smallpox

8
A Few Notes

• Change was more gradual that typically assumed
• Britain, France, Prussia factory workers made
  up only 2-5 percent of the population
• agriculture was still primary, but wages were
  falling for landless laborers
• life in the city and life on a farm were equally
  difficult
• BUT general population growth was swift

9
Population growth 1800- 1850
10
Population Changes

• industrial cities grew through immigration, not
  birth
• in about 1850, only half of the residents of
  Paris and London were born there
• this was even more true of more rapidly
  industrializing cities like Manchester, etc.
• in the 1840s mass migration due to famine
• 5 million Europeans sailed across the Atlantic
  beween 1835 and 1850

11
Gender and family -Impact of wage labor

• earlier marriage (though still for economic
  reasons)
• sharp rise in illegitimate births (free unions)
• 33 percent of all births in Paris were
  illegitimate
• increase in prostitution
• sign of moral failure and dangers of modern life
• separation of home and work
• womens work vs. mens work
• textiles, mining, domestic work for women
• iron, mining, building work for men
• about 30 of married women worked outside the home

12
Winners and Losers the Debate

• two possible points of view
• optimistic interpretation industrialization
  made goods cheaper, thus life improved almost
  immediately for ordinary folk
• or
• anti-industrial-capitalism interpretation
  number of people who needed wage labor increased
  faster than the supply of jobs, thus causing
  lifestyles of ordinary folk to deteriorate

13
What Do You Think?

• Who are the winners? Who are the losers?
• In what way did each class benefit from the
  Industrial Revolution? In what way did each class
  suffer?

14
Which ones are positive? Negative? For which
groups?

• increasingly mechanized production initially
  devastated the incomes of many artisans
• wages were volatile
• increased gap between rich and poor
• food prices remained high on the continent
  (Britain fared better)
• improved transportation makes more food available
  to more people
• industrial cities were built hurriedly and were
  quickly dilapidated
• contagious disease deaths were at about 30 in
  cities
• overcrowded foundling homes
• increase in class consciousness
• increase in worker mobility
• increase in opportunities for advancement
• increase in independence for women and children