AP European History

Crash Course

The Industrial Revolution

I. I. Reasons For British Leadership

• A. The Enclosure Movement
  • 1. This movement, which privatized land formerly available to 6 all for grazing and farming, concentrated land ownership in fewer hands.
  • 2. With no land to work, small farmers were displaced, thus forming a pool of cheap labor.
• B. The Agricultural Revolution
  • 1. Crop rotation replaced the open-field system.
  • 2. Landowners experimented with new crops such as turnips and new inventions such as the seed drill.
• C. The Population Explosion
  • 1. New farming methods produced more food.
  • 2. Medical advances such as Edward Jenner’s discovery of a smallpox vaccine reduced death rates.
  • 3. The combined population of Great Britain and Ireland increased from 10 million in 1750 to 30 million in 1850.
• D. The Commercial Revolution
  • 1. Successful British merchants had capital for investment.
  • 2. Great Britain had the most highly developed banking system in Europe.
• E. The Enlightenment
  • 1. The Royal Society exchanged scientific ideas.
  • 2. British society encouraged and rewarded inventors and entrepreneurs.

II. The Textile Industry

• A. The Incentive
  • 1. The global demand for cotton cloth was enormous.
  • 2. Prompted by huge potential profits, British entrepreneurs financed new ways of spinning and weaving cotton.
• B. The Inventions
  • 1. In 1733, John Kay invented the flying shuttle, enabling a single weaver to work twice as fast.
  • 2. In the mid-1760s, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, a spinning machine that made it possible for a single weaver to work six to eight threads at a time.
  • 3. In 1769, Richard Arkwright invented a water frame that used waterpower from fast-moving streams to drive spinning machines.
  • 4. In 1779, Samuel Crompton invented a spinning machine called the mule that combined the best features of the spinning jenny and the water frame to produce thread that was stronger, finer, and more uniform than earlier spinning machines.
  • 5. In 1785, Edmund Cartwright invented a power loom that used waterpower to dramatically speed up weaving.
  • 6. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, making it possible to efficiently remove seeds from the cotton fiber.
  • 7. As a result of these continuous technological improvements, the output of cotton fiber from British textile factories rose from 40 million yards in 1785 to more than 2 billion yards in 1850.
    NOTE: AP Euro test writers do not focus on the sequence of inventions that revolutionized the textile industry. Instead, you should know that these inventions marked a shift from human and animal power to mechanical power. The mechanization of the spinning and weaving process in the textile industry ushered in the Industrial Revolution.

• C. The Steam Engine
  • 1. James Watt patented the first steam engine in 1769.
  • 2. The steam engine rapidly replaced waterpower in British textile factories.
  • 3. Steam power played a key role in boosting iron production.
• D. The Railroad
  • 1. Steam power enabled inventors to build railroad locomotives.
  • 2. English entrepreneurs wanted a railroad line to connect the port of Liverpool with the inland city of Manchester, the heart of the spinning and weaving industry. The Liverpool-Manchester Railway opened in 1830.
  • 3. By 1850, Britain had over 6,000 miles of railroad track.
  • 4. Railroads had the following far-reaching effects:
    1. Stimulated further industrial growth )
    2. Created regional and national markets for agricultural and industrial goods
    3. Reduced the cost of shipping freight
    4. Promoted leisure travel