Industrial Revolution a changing System

The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions began in Great Britain because of its unique assets.

Natural Resources-large supplies of coal to power steam engines and iron to build new machines

Through its colonies, Great Britain had an unlimited supply of raw material such as cotton (Egypt)
Labor

Human Resources-large number of workers because of a shift from agricultural production to industrial production.

Industrial workers mined coal and iron.

They built factories and ran the machines.

As a result of the commercial revolution, Great Britain had a large supply of wealth (capital) to invest in enterprises such as shipping, mining, railroads, and factories.

Great Britain was in a great geographic location and she had a large fleet merchant ships.

Strong navy to protect interests

The Industrial Revolution flourished in America for the same reasons it flourished in Britain.

Newbold invented the first cast iron plow. Deere uses Newbold’s design to create the first steel plow. It greatly assists the Great Plains farmer and will make Deere a millionaire.

Invented the first mechanical reaper used to harvest wheat in 1834

His company became the International Harvester Company

The reaper dramatically increased the speed of cutting gram from man operated, hand held scythes.

Characteristics of the Industrial Revolution include:

The development of the steam engine; New inventions and new textiles; New methods of communication
Innovations of the Old Industrial Revolution
Newcomen developed the first practical device to harness the power of steam to produce mechanical work.

James Watts improved the design of the steam engine making it more practical. He developed the concept of horsepower.

Samuel F.B. Morse (1844) was an American inventor who sent an electrical current though a wire causing a machine at the other end to click. The telegraph was accomplished by a system of dots and dashes that were translations of the alphabet called Morse code.

Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the human voice over a long distance through a wire. The invention became the telephone and was patented in 1876.

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  Decrease competition
  
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  Increase efficiency in production methods
  
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  Increase profits
  

The corporation’s best tactic to eliminate competition was the formation of monopolies or trusts.

A trust is different companies that give control to a “Board of Directors” whose purpose is to reduce competition and fix prices at about the same range.

Many early steam engines exploded because the iron used to build them could not withstand the high pressure of steam

The first oil well was drilled in the U.S in Titusville, PA in 1859. Once sold as medicine, John D. Rockefeller would turn his oil company into the largest trust in the United States. His company was called Standard Oil.

The inventions of the steam engine and Bessemer process lent themselves to the transportation industry as other industries.

In 1876 Thomas Edison made the first incandescent light bulb illumination the whole world. Factories began to operate 24 hours a day. He also created the first research laboratory.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. His book argued that all forms of life had evolved into their present state over millions of years.

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  It contradicted the Bible.
  
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  Darwin reduced humans to the level of animals.
  
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  It undermined belief in God and the soul.
  

Herbert Spencer took Darwin’s theories a step further. He applied Darwin’s theories of Natural Selection to society called Social Darwinism. Spencer applied Darwin’s ideas to war and economic competition. Examples of Social Darwinism include

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  Industrial tycoons were more “fit” because they put their competition out of business.
  
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  War brought progress by weeding out weaker nations; victory = superiority.
  
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  Racism or belief that one racial group is superior to another. This lead to global expansion of imperialism, racial discrimination, and segregation.
  

Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the world’s population was rural. The Industrial Revolution caused a dramatic shift from rural living to urban living. People began to urbanize. People moved to the cities to seek jobs, entertainment, parks, sports, schools, free concerts, etc.

Until the 1880s, most immigrants came from Western Europe. These immigrants were known as “Old Immigrants.” They were

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  fair skinned
  
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  Protestant
  
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  very literate
  
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  accustomed to form of representative government
  
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  easily assimilated into American society.
  

However, in the 1880s, the character of the immigrant stream changed drastically. The “New Immigrants” came from southern and eastern Europe.

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  Mostly Italians, Croats, Slovaks, Greeks, and Poles
  
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  Orthodox Christian and Jewish
  
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  Came from countries with little history of democratic government
  
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  Heavily illiterate and impoverished
  
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  Flooded cities instead of moving to farms
  
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  Had difficulty assimilating into American society
  

In the 1880s, New Immigrants made up only 19% of the immigrant population. By the turn of the century, New Immigrants constituted 66% of the total immigration.

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  Jobs
  
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  Freedom of religion
  
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  Food “We eat here every day what we get only for Easter in our native country.”
  
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  No military conscription
  
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  Free land grants
  
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  Cheap steam travel by ship
  

Push Factors: What drives immigrants out of Europe?

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  Religious persecution (especially prevalent among Jews and the Polish areas of Russia)
  
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  Overcrowding in Europe due to the Industrial Revolution
  
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  Joblessness among the peasantry of Europe
  

Working and Living Conditions

As new immigrants flooded the cities, there were blessings and curses to the population increases.

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  Economic growth
  
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  Overcrowding
  
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  Poor working conditions
  

Most immigrants from the late 1880s through the early 1900s found jobs among the industries of the Atlantic Coast. They worked long hours for very low wages. Men, women, and children worked 14 hours a day six days a week around the clock.

Many children worked in the textile industry because they had nimble fingers and could move quickly. Skills necessary for changing thread spools on the machines.

There were no safety devices. Coal dust destroyed the lungs of miners. Many textile workers breathed in lint.

As immigrants flooded the Atlantic Coast cities of America, nativism began to emerge.

Define Nativism: the policy of protecting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants.

Nativists viewed the eastern and southern Europeans as cultural and religious plagues on American society. Nativists gave these immigrants a rude welcome to American shores.

Belief that the immigrant birthrate would cause immigrants to outnumber the original Anglo-Saxon groups in America

Nativists saw the new immigrants as inferior.

Immigrants worked for cheap thereby taking “American” jobs

The father of capitalism is Adam Smith. In his book The Wealth of Nations, he argued that a free market (unregulated exchange of goods and services) was the best economic system. He called this idea Laissez-faire capitalism. He asserted that laissez-faire capitalism followed two basic laws:

Competition – If too many businesses manufacture the same article the price of the item will go down so far that some businesses will not make enough profit to cover costs and therefore go out of business.

By the mid 1800s, most regulations were discontinued and tariffs dropped. Free trade was the new rule. Laissez-faire capitalism had come to Great Britain.

Some reformers of the 1800s advocated socialism. Socialists wanted to establish an economic system that would abolish the profit motive and competition. They believed that everyone, not just capitalists and owners, had a right to share in the profits of industry.

In 1848, Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto argues that class struggle between employers and employees is unavoidable and revolution is necessary to overthrow the capitalist system.

“The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chants. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries UNITE.”