Before you read this post, let me give some questions relating to the events. These areas are important for the Mains exam and an idea about this happening will definitely shape your total stream of ideas. So go through certain questions and try to answer them.
PLEASE NOTE: These Mains questions are just an attempt to figure out and make some useful questions for your benefit.
The answer to all these may not figure in this article, but will definitely give you an insight how a question can be asked. You will get a good a good angle after reading this post and ultimately it’s you who should think and find answers. The central idea can be picked from this post.
While writing, you can disagree and agree with the statements. After all there is no readymade answers to all this. Use your ideas+ style+ interpretation and write a balanced answer.
MAINS PRACTICE QUESTIONS FROM THIS AREA
1."England became an economic titan and its goal was to supply two-thirds of the globe with cotton spun, dyed, and woven and proudly claim as the 'Workshop of the World' a position that country held until the end of the 19th century when Germany, Japan and United States overtook it." Critically analyse the statement in the light of Industrial Revolution
2."Countless and diverse factors contributed to Britain’s role as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution" Justify
3."Industrial Revolution differs from a political revolution in its greater effects on the lives of people and in not coming to an end, as, for example, did the French Revolution." Critically Examine.
4."The Industrial revolution was something more than just new machines, smoke-belching factories, increased productivity and an increased standard of living. It was a revolution which transformed English, European, and American society down to its very roots." Elucidate.
5. "The English during the 18th and 19th century, like the Dutch of the same period, were a very commercial people. They saw little problem with making money, nor with taking their surplus and reinvesting it and the fact remains that English entrepreneurs had a much wider scope of activities than did their Continental counterparts at the same time." Review
This chapter contains the following important subheads:
v WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
v HOW WERE THINGS BEFORE?
v WHAT/WHO IS A "LUDDITE"?
v WHY IS IT CALLED REVOLUTION?
v SO WAS THIS A REVOLUTION OR A GRADUAL THING?
v ANY PARTICULAR REASON WHY BRITAIN WAS THE BIRTHPLACE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION?
v WHAT WERE THE KEY CHANGES THAT LED TO THE REVOLUTION?
v WHAT WERE THE CHANGES IN AGRICULTURE?
v WHAT WERE THE CHANGES IN COAL MINING?
v WHAT ARE THE CHANGES IN THE OTHER SECTORS?
v THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE DURING THESE TIMES
v COMBINED PROBLEMS OF LABOUR+CAPITAL+ WAGE ISSUES
v IN ENGLAND--THE FARMING PLIGHT-- WHY 'ENCLOSEMENT OF LAND'?
v IS THERE A SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION?
v THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND AMERICA-- THE AMERICAN ANGLE AT LENGTH
v WHAT IS THIS EMBARGO ACT OF 1807?
v THE WAR OF 1812
v THE SECOND INDUSTRIALIZATION LED TO GILDED AGE IN AMERICA
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The Industrial Revolution was a period in which fundamental changes occurred in agriculture, textile and metal manufacture, transportation, economic policies and the social structure in England
Ø It brought a massive change in many realms.
Ø They included areas like Agriculture, Textiles, Coal Mining, Iron, Transportation,Steam and other Human aspects.
The Industrial Revolution in short was a period during which predominantly agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America became industrial and urban.
HOW WERE THINGS BEFORE?
Ø Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the late 1700s, manufacturing was often done in people’s homes, using hand tools or basic machines.
Ø Most people resided in small, rural communities where their daily existences revolved around farming
Ø Average income was low+ malnourishment and disease were common
HOW DID THINGS CHANGE AFTER?
Ø Industrialization marked a shift to powered, special-purpose machinery, factories and mass production.
Ø The iron and textile industries, along with the development of the steam engine, played central roles in the Industrial Revolution, which also saw improved systems of transportation, communication and banking.
NB: While industrialization brought about an increased volume and variety of manufactured goods and an improved standard of living for some, it also resulted in often grim employment and living conditions for the poor and working classes.
HEY!!! IN THIS CONTEXT WHAT/WHO IS A "LUDDITE"?
Ø The word "luddite" refers to a person who is opposed to technological change.
Ø The term is derived from a group of early 19th century English workers who attacked factories and destroyed machinery as a means of protest.
Ø They were supposedly led by a man named Ned Ludd
HEY WHAT ARE THE OTHER CHANGES?
Ø Industrial Revolution can be said to have made the European working-class.
Ø It made the European middle-class as well.
Ø In the wake of the Revolution, new social relationships appeared
Ø The Industrial Revolution implied that man now had not only the opportunity and the knowledge but the physical means to completely subdue nature.
Ø No other revolution in modern times can be said to have accomplished so much in so little time.
WHY IS IT CALLED REVOLUTION?
It thoroughly destroyed the old manner of doing things
Yet the term is simultaneously inappropriate, for it connotes abrupt change.
SO WAS THIS A REVOLUTION OR A GRADUAL THING?
Ø The year 1760 is generally accepted as the eve of the Industrial Revolution.
Ø In reality, this eve began more than two centuries before this date.
Ø The late 18th century and the early l9th century brought to fruition the ideas and discoveries of those who had long passed on, such as, Galileo, Bacon, Descartes and others
ANY PARTICULAR REASON WHY BRITAIN WAS THE BIRTHPLACE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION?
Ø It had great deposits of coal and iron ore, which proved essential for industrialization.
Ø Britain was a politically stable society, as well as the world’s leading colonial power, which meant its colonies could serve as a source for raw materials, as well as a marketplace for manufactured goods.
Ø As demand for British goods increased, merchants needed more cost-effective methods of production, which led to the rise of mechanization and the factory system.
A cheaper system of production had grown up which was largely free from regulation.
Ø The growing interest of Britain in scientific investigation and invention
Ø The golden doctrine of laissez-faire, or letting business alone.
This doctrine had been growing in favor throughout the 18th century. It was especially popular after the British economist Adam Smith argued powerfully for it in his great work 'The Wealth of Nations' (1776).
SO IN SHORT, WHAT WERE THE KEY CHANGES THAT LED TO THE REVOLUTION?
1. The invention of machines to do the work of hand tools
2. The use of steam, and later of other kinds of power, in place of the muscles of human beings and of animals; and
3. The adoption of the factory system
SOME NEW THINGS THAT CAME TO THE FORE AFTER INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION--CAN YOU TELL THEM RANDOMLY
(This will give you an insight of what has drastically changed)
More and more metal implements
Crop Rotation -- Lord Townheand
Stock Breeding-- Robert Bakewell
The writer who popularized agricultural techniques-- Aurthur Young
Some of the Inventions
steam boat
Locomotive
Power loom
Road building etc
WHAT WERE THE CHANGES IN AGRICULTURE?
Ø Agriculture occupied a prominent position in the English way of life of this period
Ø Wool and cotton production for the manufacture of cloth increased in each successive year, as did the yield of food crops.
Ø The massive use of sturdier farm implements fashioned from metal.
Ø Previously until this period most farming implements were made entirely out of wood
In 18th century England, the enclosure of common village fields into individual landholdings, or the division of unproductive land into private property was the first significant change to occur
Ø This concentrated the ownership of the land into the hands of a few, and made it possible to institute improved farming techniques on a wider scale
WHAT WERE THE CHANGES IN COAL MINING?
Ø This industry, even today, provokes thoughts of hazards at every turn
Ø Different methods of mining coal were employed in various locales throughout England.
Ø The movement of coal was accomplished solely by muscle power+ animal+ man+woman and child
Coal was moved along horizontal tunnels by the basketful and hauled up a vertical shaft to the surface.
Ø The underground movement of coal was speeded up by the utilization of ponies and carts on rail.
Ø The production of coal increased steadily
Ø Improvements in coal mining came in the form of improved tunnel ventilation, improved underground and surface transportation, the use of gunpowder to blast away at the coal seams, and improved tunnel illumination through the use of safety lamps.
NOW MOVE TO TEXTILES-- WHAT HAPPENED?
Ø Many inventors set to work to improve the spinning wheel.
Ø James Hargreaves, a weaver who was also a carpenter, patented his spinning jenny in 1770.
Ø Richard Arkwright developed his water frame, a machine for spinning with rollers operated by water power.
Ø In 1779 Samuel Crompton, a spinner, combined Hargreaves' jenny and Arkwright's roller frame into a spinning machine, called a mule.
Ø In 1785 Edmund Cartwright patented a power loom.
Ø In 1785 Thomas Bell of Glasgow invented cylinder printing of cotton goods.
Ø In 1793 the available supply of cotton was increased by Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin.
This was a great improvement on block printing. It made successive impressions of a design "join up" and did the work more rapidly and more cheaply.
CAN YOU TELL US THE CHANGES IN IRON INDUSTRY?
Ø Abraham Darby successfully produced pig iron smelted with coke
Ø Prior to this discovery pig iron was smelted with the use of charcoal.
Ø Charcoal, derived from the charring of wood in a kiln, was an excellent source of energy to smelt the iron; however, its widespread use caused a serious depletion of Englands forests.
TELL US THE CHANGES IN THE TRANSPORTATION SECTOR
Ø The improvement of transportation stimulated the course of the Industrial Revolution
Ø Finished products, raw materials, food and people needed a reliable, quicker and less costly system of transportation.
Ø The construction of trunk lines opened the central industrial districts in the 1770s
Ø Tramways, using cast iron rails, were being employed in a number of mines in England
Ø Between 1804 and 1820 we find a few partially successful attempts at developing a practical means of rail transport
George Stephenson was invited by the Stockton and Darlington Railway to build the railroad between those two towns. The Stockton to Darlington line was the first public railroad to use locomotive traction and carry passengers, as well as freight
Ø Railroads dominated the transportation scene in England for nearly a century
Ø In 1830, England’s Liverpool and Manchester Railway became the first to offer regular, timetabled passenger services
THE STEAM-STEAM ANGLE
Ø The steam engine was also integral to industrialization.
Ø In 1712, Englishman Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) developed the first practical steam engine which was used primarily to pump water out of mines.
Ø By the 1770s, Scottish inventor James Watt (1736-1819) had improved on Newcomen’s work, and the steam engine went on to power machinery, locomotives and ships during the Industrial Revolution.
COMMUNICATION+ OTHER SERVICES
During the Industrial Revolution, with inventions like the telegraph communication was easy
Ø In 1837, two Brits, William Cooke (1806-1879) and Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), patented the first commercial electrical telegraph.
Ø The Industrial Revolution also saw the rise of banks and industrial financiers, as well as a factory system dependent on owners and managers.
A stock exchange was established in London in the 1770s; the New York Stock Exchange was founded in the early 1790s.
Ø In 1776, Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790), who is regarded as the founder of modern economics, published “The Wealth of Nations.”
SO MANY FIELDS--NOW CAN YOU TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE DURING THESE TIMES?
Ø Industrial Revolution brought a greater volume and variety of factory-produced goods
Ø It also raised the standard of living for many people, particularly for the middle and upper classes
Ø The life for the poor and working classes continued to be filled with challenges
Ø Wages for those who laboured in factories were low + working conditions were dangerous and monotonous
Ø Unskilled workers had little job security and were easily replaceable
Ø Children were employed in the highly hazardous tasks as cleaning the machinery
Urban, industrialized areas were unable to keep pace with the flow of arriving workers from the countryside, resulting in inadequate, overcrowded housing and polluted, unsanitary living conditions in which disease was rampant.
Ø The towns that grew in the North were crowded, dirty and unregulated.
Ø In the mid-1800s there were several outbreaks of typhoid and cholera.
Ø Some attention to these conditions was accorded by Parliament in the form of Public Health Acts.
Ø These acts did improve conditions, though they were largely ineffective
THERE WERE COMBINED PROBLEMS OF LABOUR+CAPITAL+ WAGE ISSUES-- TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT IT
Ø Far-reaching changes were gradually brought about in the life of the industrial workers.
Ø For one thing, machines took a great burden of hard work from the muscles of human beings.
The change from domestic industry to the factory system meant a loss of independence to the worker.
Ø People were forced to work continuously at the pace set by the machine.
Ø The long hours and the monotonous toil were an especially great hardship for the women and children.
Ø The payment of wages was not an easily solved problem.
Ø Some paid a portion of their work force early in the day, allowing them to shop for household needs
The root of the problem was the lack.of an adequate banking system in these remote industrial centers.
Ø The Bank of England, established in the late 1690s, did not accommodate the needs of the manufacturers
Ø Children could tend most of the machines as well as older persons could, and they could be hired for less pay.
Ø Great numbers of them were worked form 12 to 14 hours a day under terrible conditions.
Ø Labour Union were often started as "friendly societies" that collected dues from workers and extended aid during illness or unemployment.
Soon, however, they became organizations for winning improvements by collective bargaining and strikes.
IN ENGLAND--THE FARMING PLIGHT-- WHY 'ENCLOSEMENT OF LAND'WAS DONE BY THE ENGLISH GOVT?
Ø In the 17th and 18th century England strongly had the THE THREE FIELD SYSTEM.
Ø Making the most efficient use of the land was of course impossible under the three field system
Ø The three field system had dominated English and European agriculture for centuries
Ø Since farmers, small and large, held their property in long strips, they had to follow the same rules of cultivation.
Ø The local parish or village determined what ought to be planted
WHAT HAPPENED THEN?
Ø The open-field system of crop rotation was an obstacle to increased agricultural productivity.
Ø The solution was to enclose the land, and this meant enclosing entire villages.
Ø Landlords knew that the peasants would not give up their land voluntarily, so they appealed by petition to Parliament
The first enclosure act was passed in 1710 but was not enforced until the 1750s. In the ten years between 1750 and 1760, more than 150 acts were passed and between 1800 and 1810, Parliament passed more than 900 acts of enclosure.
Ø While enclosure ultimately contributed to an increased agricultural surplus, necessary to feed a population that would double in the 18th century, it also brought disaster to the countryside.
IMPORTANT POINT--- Peasants were dispossessed of their land and were now forced to find work in the factories which began springing up in towns and cities.
IS THERE A SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION? NOW WHAT IS THIS? TELL US MORE
Ø The machines of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and early 19th centuries were simple, mechanical devices compared with the industrial technology that followed.
Ø Many new products were devised, and important advances were made in the system of mass production.
Changes in industry were so great that the period after 1860 has been called the Second Industrial Revolution.
Ø New scientific knowledge was applied to industry as scientists and engineers unlocked the secrets of physics and chemistry.
Ø Germany and the United States became the leaders, and by the end of the 19th century they were challenging Great Britain in the world market for industrial goods.
Ø Electric power replaced steam power in factories; it was cheaper, faster, and more flexible.
Ø It allowed machine tools to be arranged more efficiently.
Ø Human power was replaced by machine power.
Ø In 1913 Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in the manufacture of his Model T Ford.
Ø The steel and chemical industries used new technology that greatly increased production
Ø The telephone became a useful tool for managers to keep in contact
The Industrial Revolution that occurred in the 19th century was of great importance to the economic future of the United States.
Three industrial developments led the way to industrialization in America:
Transportation was expanded.
Electricity was effectively harnessed.
Improvements were made to industrial processes.
NB: Only Great Britain, the United States, Germany, France, and some parts of the Scandinavian countries had successfully completed an industrial revolution
A LIST OF INVENTIONS DURING THIS TIME (FROM AMERICA ONLINE)
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND AMERICA-- THE AMERICAN ANGLE AT LENGTH
Ø The first industrial revolution helped increase America’s growth.
Ø It truly changed American society and economy into a modern urban-industrial state.
Ø The real impetus for America entering the Industrial Revolution was the passage of the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812.
NOW WHAT IS THIS EMBARGO ACT OF 1807?
Ø The Embargo Act of 1807 was an attempt by President Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. Congress to punish Britain and France for interfering with American trade while the two major European powers were at war with each other.
By barring American ships from using European ports, it stifled American trade, and wound up doing more damage to American merchants than to European governments.
Ø With the embargo in place, American exports declined by 75 percent, and imports declined by 50 percent.
Ø American merchants, who had been gaining in prosperity, were dealt a severe setback.
TELL US ABOUT THE WAR OF 1812
Ø The War of 1812 is generally thought to have been caused by American outrage over the impressment of American sailors by the British Navy.
Ø British arrogance and hostility went so far as to include a deadly attack by the British frigate HMS Leopard upon USS Chesapeake in 1807
Ø Different things were tried to avoid a war, but failed.
The slogan "Free Trade and Sailor's Rights" became a rallying cry
Ø Following the message sent by President Madison, the United States Senate and the House of Representatives held votes on whether to go to war.
THE SECOND INDUSTRIALIZATION LED TO GILDED AGE IN AMERICA-- NOW WHAT IS THIS GILDED AGE? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY GILDED?
Ø The second Industrial Revolution fueled the Gilded Age
The Gilded Age in United States history is the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900. The term was coined by writer Mark
Ø Twain in The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873), which satirized an era of serious social problems masked by thin gold gilding.
GILDED AGE IS A PERIOD WHICH SIGNIFIES
Ø Great extremes: great wealth and widespread poverty, great expansion and deep depression, new opportunities and greater standardization.
Ø Economic insecurity became a basic way of life as the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s put millions out of work or reduced pay.
Ø Those who remained in the industrial line of work experienced extremely dangerous working conditions, long hours, no compensation for injuries, no pensions, and low wages.
Ø But for a limited minority of workers, the industrial system established new forms of freedom.
Ø Skilled workers received high wages in industrial work and oversaw a great deal of the production process.
It was labeled “progress” by its proponents, but those who worked the floor at the factory, it was devastating
