Industrial Revolution

Changing Work and Workers, 1733-1900

Industrial Revolution

• process of change in modern history from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture.

• Mechanical/scientific means to control nature• Application of inductive method of the

Enlightenment to means of production• Began in England then spread to Europe and the

United States• American System of Manufacture

Industrial Revolution Included:

• 1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel

• (2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine

• (3) the invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy

Industrial Revolution Included:• (4) a new organization of work known as the

factory system, which entailed increased division of labor and specialization of function-- the worker acquired new and distinctive skills, and his relation to his task shifted; instead of being a craftsman working with hand tools, he became a machine operator, subject to factory discipline

• (5) important developments in transportation and communication, including the steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and

• (6) the increasing application of science to industry

Industrial Revolution in England• Good natural resources and, with turnpike trusts in

1730s, 40s, and 50s, better transportation.• Entrepreneurial Culture• Need for coal and clothing drove process• Coal production soared—3 million tons in 1700;

25 million tons in 1830. Made possible by steam powered pumps to get water out of the mines.

• Clothing—Flying shuttle (1733) John Kay; Mule (1762) Samuel Crompton; Waterframe (1785) Richard Arkwright.

• Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin (1793) created raw cotton surplus: 8 million pounds raw cotton in 1770s into Britain; 250 million pounds in 1830

Water Frame

James Watt (1736-1819) and Steam Engine

• Improved Atmospheric Engine of Savery and Newcomen by adding separate condenser for steam.

• Perfected flywheel

• Made double reciprocating engine: steam drives piston in both directions

• 1000 steam engines in England in 1800

Watt’s Steam Engine

Industrial Revolution’s Impact

• Growth of large factory towns like Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool

• Division of Labor, both according to task and increasingly of gender

• Efficiency—F. W. Taylor

• Material quality of life increased among workers as did alienation

Karl Marx—Analysis of capitalismProvides vocabulary forIndustrial Revolution

Marx’s Theory

• Class struggle—bourgeoisie vs. proletariat.

• Surplus Theory of Value

• Inevitable economic crises

• Inevitable violent revolution

• Worker’s state ends the cycle of history

F. W. Taylor—Time and Motion Studies

• First. Find, say, 10 or 15 different men (preferably in as many separate establishments and different parts of the country) who are especially skillful in doing the particular work to be analyzed.

• Second. Study the exact series of elementary operations or motions which each of these men uses in doing the work which is being investigated, as well as the implements each man uses.

• Third. Study with a stop-watch the time required to make each of these elementary movements and then select the quickest way of doing each element of the work.

Time and Motion Studies•Fourth. Eliminate all false movements, slow movements, and useless movements.

•Fifth. After doing away with all unnecessary movements, collect into one series the quickest and best movements as well as the best implements.

Government and IR

• Record is mixed.• Government often sided with owners—

Pullman Strike in U. S. (1894).• Influenced by evolving liberalism (J. S.

Mill), Government sought to create safety nets.

• Bismarck’s Germany—accident, disability, and old age insurance.

Social Implications

• Urbanization

• New demands on city services

• Separation of work from home—home becomes a place to produce children, not goods.

• Clock/calendar regimented life styles

• Child labor