AP European History
AP European History
In the late nineteenth century, the English historian Arnold Toynbee began to refer to the period since 1754 as “the Industrial Revolution.” The term was intended to describe a time of transition when machines began to significantly displace human and animal power in methods of producing and distributing goods.
These changes began slowly, almost imperceptibly, gaining momentum with each decade, so that by the midpoint of the nineteenth century, industrialism had swept across Europe west to east, from England to eastern Europe. Few countries avoided industrialization, because of its promise of material improvement and national wealth.
The economic changes that constitute the Industrial Revolution have done more than any other movement in Western civilization to revolutionize life, by imparting to the world’s cultures a uniqueness never before, or perhaps since, matched or duplicated.
Essentially, the Industrial Revolution describes a process of economic change from an agricultural and commercial society into a modern industrial society. This was a gradual process, where economic, social, and political changes nonetheless produced a veritable revolution, which Arnold Toynbee was the first to identify. He placed the origins of this remarkable transition in England.
Roots of the Industrial Revolution could be found in (1) the Commercial Revolution (1500-1700) that spurred the great economic growth of Europe brought about by the Age of Exploration, which in turn helped to solidify the economic doctrines of mercantilism: (2) the effect of the Scientific Revolution, which produced the first wave of mechanical inventions and technological advances; (3) the increase in population in Europe from 140 million people in 1750 to 266 million people by the mid-nineteenth century (more producers, more consumers); and (4) the political and social revolutions of the nineteenth century, which began the rise to power of the middle classes, and provided leadership for the economic revolution.
England began this economic transformation by employing her unique assets:
The revolution, if it may be so called, fed on scarcities, bottleneck frustrations in manufacturing processes, problems in transportation, and other examples that Necessity is indeed the mother of Invention. One early improvement may suffice: Abraham Darby needed to transport coal to his iron mine nine miles away: coal, turned into coke, was the new means to smelt iron. Carts dragged over roads were slow and laborious. He came up with the brilliant idea of laying tracks for the cart’s wheels to glide along. This was 1709. Note that the need to replace wood as an energy source led to the use of coal, and its byproduct, coke, which increased coal mining and resulted in the invention of the steam engine and the locomotive as inventions that sought to solve practical problems.
Other innovations occurred in the cotton and metallurgical industries, because those industries lent themselves most easily to mechanization. Mechanical inventions beginning in) 733, lasting until) 793, enabled the cotton industry to mass-produce quality goods.
The development of steam power allowed the cotton industry to expand and transformed the iron industry. The factory system, created in response to new energy sources and machinery, was perfected to increase the amount of manufactured goods.
A transportation revolution ensued in order to distribute productive machinery as well as deliver raw materials to the eager factories. This led to the growth of canals, the construction of hard-surfaced “macadam” roads, the commercial use of the steamboat demonstrated by Robert Fulton, and the railway locomotive made commercially successful by George Stephenson.
Subsequent revolution in agriculture made it possible for fewer people to feed all, thus freeing people to work in factories or in the many new fields of communications, distribution of goods, or services like teaching, medicine, and entertainment.