The Industrial
Revolution
STARTS IN England
• 1760s - England
• Machines started taking the place of many hand tools
• Power of men and horses - replaced with flowing water,
water wheels, and steam engines
• Three major needs – Food, clothing & shelter
• Improvements in the Textile Industry - Clothing
Factories
• Factory Systems – Bringing workers and the machinery
together in one place.
• Disadvantage of building factories on rivers
• Dry season
• Water/rivers may not be close to a city
• Up-water rights – fighting over control of water
• Women and children used to run factory (Terrible Conditions)
• STEAM POWER
• Factory could now be in city without river/flowing water
• TOP SECRET – Britain tries to guard its industrial secrets
America
• Samuel Slater
• Apprentice of Arkwright
• Memorizes machinery and other details
• Immigrates to America
• Moses Brown
• Wealthy Rhode Island (RI) merchant
• Likes inventions / Has a crude textile mill
• Slater joins Brown – Reconstructs spinning machine (by memory)
• New factory starts creating cotton thread
Industrial Revolution Comes to America
http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/videos/the-industrial-revolition?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false
America
• War of 1812
• British blockades force America to depend on her own
resources. Creates a need for factory system in America.
• IMPROVING the English System
• Francis Cabot Lowell saw English factories
• Returned to American and creates factories
• NEW IDEA! Bring spinning & weaving into one factory
• LOWELL GIRLS
• Wanted improved labor conditions – Not like English factories
• Factories were staffed with young women from nearby farms
• Boarding houses – strict rules in place
• Lectures and libraries – Education
This chart shows the increase number of female and
male textile workers in Lowell from 1820 to 1879.
This chart shows the change in weekly wages for female
and male textile workers from 1824 to 1868.
FACTORY LIFE
• CHILD LABOR
• Textile Factories / Coal Mines / Steel Foundries
• Starting at 7-8 years of age
• No education opportunities
• Very dangerous conditions / many injuries
• 1880 – 1 million children between 10-15 worked for pay
• FACTORY CONDITIONS
• Poorly lighted / little fresh air
• Machines were unsafe – Easy to lose a hand/foot
• No help if you were injured – Let go!
• Workdays – 12-14 hours long
Child labor
"Two children I know got employment in a factory when they were five
years old… the spinning men or women employ children if they can get
a child to do their business... the child is paid one shilling or one
shilling and six pence, and they will take that (five year old) child before
they take an older one who will cost more." George Gould, a
Manchester merchant, written in 1816.
"The smallest child in the factories were scavengers... they go
under the machine, while it is going... it is very dangerous when
they first come, but they become used to it." Charles Aberdeen
worked in a Manchester cotton factory, written in 1832.
"We went to the mill at five in the morning. We worked until
dinner time and then to nine or ten at night; on Saturday it could
be till eleven and often till twelve at night. We were sent to clean
the machinery on the Sunday." Man interviewed in 1849 who had
worked in a mill as a child.
Inventions
PERSON INVENTION DATE
James Watt First reliable steam engine 1775
Eli Whitney Cotton Gin Interchangeable parts for muskets
1793 1798
Robert Fulton Regular Steamboat service on the Hudson River
1807
George Stephenson First Locomotive 1814
Samuel F. B. Morse Telegraph/Morse Code 1836
Elias Howe Sewing Machine 1844
Isaac Singer Improves and markets Howe's Sewing Machine
1851
1. Transportation was expanded.
2. Electricity was effectively harnessed.
3. Improvements were made to industrial processes.