The Romantic Age, 1815 - 1848:The Industrial Revolution

“What’s that smell?”

Overview• The Industrial Revolution will be one of

the most important shifts in human history

• It will begin in England, but at first as an Agricultural Revolution

• Topics– Agricultural Revolution– Industrial Revolution

Agricultural Revolution

Technological Innovation

Seed Drill

New plow Thresher

Enclosure• Old feudal land

arrangements now useless

• Parliament passed “enclosure” acts closing off common land

• Led to higher crop yields

Industrial Revolution

Why England?£Colonial Empire (land)

£ Available Capital (money)

£ Available workers (labor)

Textiles

Flying shuttle

Spinning jenny

Cotton Gin Steam Engine

Railroads

Population Shift

Manchester

Social Changes£Landed nobility became less important£“Cotton Lords” & Entrepreneurs dominated society

•Poor, working class

Oliver; "Please, sir, I want some more."

Ned Ludd [a mythical figure supposed to live in

Sherwood Forest]

Attacks on the “frames” [power looms].

The Luddites

Classical Economics

Thomas Malthus

David Ricardo

• “Manchester School”• Ideas

– Free market, little government regulation, & no tariffs

– “iron law of wages”– System is naturally

occurring

Summary£For the lower classes, it was an improvement

¢Exploitation had existed before¢Did allow for an increase in life expectancy

£Upper classes, the bourgeoisie got richer and richer - intermarried with nobility£A new middle class formed

¢Factory managers, skilled labor¢Lawyers, doctors, etc

£Urbanization allowed for the rapid spread of ideas!

¢Newspapers and print culture