Industrial Revolution

Rise of Technology

Technological revolutions have punctuated history. In Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries, technological knowledge exploded, bringing about changes in production and labor. Methods of making glass, clocks, and chemicals advanced significantly during the 16th and 17th centuries and by the mid-18th century, the state and guild resistance to industrialization had weakened significantly in England and France. Popular interest in industrialization resembled the enthusiasm that had welcomed experimental agriculture a century earlier.

Originally, the 18th century Industrial Revolution referred to the technological developments between 1750 and 1830 that transformed Great Britain from a largely rural, agricultural population to an urban manufacturing society. This Industrial Revolution started in England because England had led the way in developing social and technological innovations. This wave of industrialization spread to other European countries and America during the 19th century, and others, like Russia and Japan, experienced their Industrial Revolutions during the first half of the 20th century.

The English Parliament inspired much of the 18th century Industrial Revolution by permitting lands, that had been held in common by tenant[Page 423] farmers, to be enclosed into private farms. These enclosure laws increased agricultural production and, at the same time, increased the urban population in England by forcing many landless farmers to move into cities. The English merchant and capitalist interests firmly controlled Parliament, and it passed much legislation favoring mercantile and capitalist interests.

England acquired new overseas territory in every 18th century war that it fought, and during this time, mercantilism thrived in England. Also, England had come to monopolize overseas trade, including trade with its North American colonies. In the 1740s, one half of all British exports went to America, but England also began to control the South American and the Indian trade. All this trade produced the largest merchant marine in the world and a navy to protect this merchant marine fleet, enabling England to dominate the new capitalist economy through its navy.

Inventors also contributed to the English Industrial Revolution. The first factories appeared in 1740, and they concentrated on textile production. James Watt and Thomas Newcomen developed the steam engine, James Hargreaves the spinning jenny, Richard Arkwright the water frame, and John Kay, the flying shuttle and carding machine. From the 1790s to the 1830s, more than 100,000 power looms with 9,330,000 spindles were put into service in England and Scotland. British success with steam locomotion encouraged the building of railroads in most European countries, often with British capital, equipment, and technicians. Britain exported its railroad expertise and after 1842, France began constructing its railroad system. Russia, Canada, and the United States built railroads to link communities and move freight and passengers. In Germany, railroads helped bring about political and economic integration.

...