FACTS ABOUT THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

BIRTHPLACE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Great Britain was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.

Primarily a rural, agrarian society up to that point, most

British people grew most of their food and produced most

of their clothes and tools. The Industrial Revolution led to

specialization in which workers would focus on specific tasks

and sell their products for other people’s products.

BRITAIN'S SHADY DEALINGS

Besides its eager-to-work populace, Britain also had the

largest colonial empire in human existence. These colonies

provided raw materials which were shipped to the U.K.,

made into the finished product, then sold back to the

colonies. Sounds like a scam if we’ve ever seen one!

WHY DIDN'T OTHER COUNTRIES INDUSTRIALIZE FIRST?

One of the greatest advantages Britain had above other

countries was political stability. More-unstable countries

would not have been able to effectively organize themselves

into the structured systems needed to make production

and distribution cost-effective.

A YARN-SPINNER CHANGES HISTORY

One of the most-impacted industries was textile (clothes

and garment) production. While a decentralized “cottage industry”

existed prior, it was widely inefficient. In 1764, James

Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny – a machine which

dramatically reduced the amount of time it took to make a spool

of yarn. Though basic, Hargreaves’ invention proved to be

one of the most useful products of the Industrial Revolution.

THE ANTI-INDUSTRIALISTS

Not everyone was happy with the technological changes

happening to British society. The Luddites were citizens

united against change. The name often refers to a group of

workers in the early 1800’s who destroyed factories and

machinery to protest the inevitable industrialization.

METALS CHANGE THE GAME

Cheaper clothes alone wouldn’t drive Britain forward. The

work of Abraham Darby in reducing the cost of making cast

iron and Henry Bessemer in reducing the cost of mass-

producing steel formed a bedrock (of metal) that

British dominance would be built upon.

RISE OF FOSSIL FUELS

Though the machines were built, they couldn’t be powered

without energy. The discovery and rapid adoption of fossil

fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal allowed societies to

move past man-and-beast-power and energize

machines much more efficiently.

STEAM STARTS POWERING THE MACHINES

Though the steam engine was first created by Thomas

Newcomen in 1712, it was mostly used to pump water out of

mines. Scotsman James Watt built on his work and 60 years

later had produced an efficient machine which could power

machinery, train locomotives, and ships. (Beyond the steam

engine, Watt was a massively influential engineer,

formulating the concept of horsepower and the

modern metric system.)

THE FIRST STEAM LOCOMOTIVE

One hundred years after the first steam engine was made by

Newcomen, Brit Richard Trevithick built the first steam

locomotive. Railways in the U.K. first began operating in

1830 with a Liverpool-Manchester line.