The First Industrial Revolution, originating in England in the mid-18th century, was a period of profound technological innovation and economic transformation that fundamentally reshaped society, eventually spreading to Europe and the United States.
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hello
um welcome back to our lecture series
for Western Civilization 102. we have
mostly been focused on the French
Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire
and of course what is happening in
Europe after Napoleon is defeated
now we'll discuss and learn a little bit
about the first Industrial Revolution
the first Industrial Revolution begins
in England um
um
and there are a few reasons why and I'm
sure you'll hear more about this as well
in just a few minutes but England's
economy was pretty sound this is around
I guess the mid-18th century
and you know people could afford to buy Goods
Goods
and there was a higher standard of
living for workers in England
then of course on the European continent
in places like France for example
and they had in England had an increased
food supply and increased population
they had a surplus of capital as well at
this time
also the English nobility
thought that working to get a profit to
earn money was actually a good thing
they didn't think it was beneath them to
actually work and make a living um
um so
we're going to see that the overall
feeling in England was conducive to to
starting this first Industrial Revolution
Revolution
England had also bettered their
transportation systems throughout the
country which definitely helps with
getting Goods you know to and from Market
Market
basically helping trade on England as
well and England did not have tariffs or
that European countries had that would
hinder trade say if you were France and
you had a tariff and you had Goods
coming in from Germany that would
basically you know hinder or hurt trade there
there
um and of course England had they had an
awesome Navy so they they had a really
good Maritime tradition and so they had
lots of ships to transport these Goods
as well and they also had a lot of
mineral resources coal and iron ore that
was needed in the manufacturing process
for these factories
so you know we're going to see different
Industries as far as we have cotton of
course different inventions that will
help increase this output with the
cotton industry
we have the steam engine which will help
make the Industrial Revolution a success
and there were inventions that helped
for example in the mining of coal they
could go deeper and deeper into the ground
ground
the steam engine of course helping that
out pumping water out three times
railroads are being built in England of
course but also Europe Europe's the
continent's just a little bit behind but
they'll they'll come about they'll come
into the industrial revolution as well
um but we have railroads as far as
transportation is concerned the first
modern Railways were in England
which will help with the Industrial Revolution
Revolution
and bridges are being constructed
textile factories
also you know eventually the Industrial
Revolution spreads onto the European continent
continent
the reason it was delayed there were a
few reasons why it takes a bit longer
for the Industrial Revolution to hit the continent
continent
transportation systems were not good
they they didn't have really great
Transportation Systems in France and
France didn't have as as many navigable
Rivers as England did for example
and again I'd mentioned those tariffs England
Europe had a lot of tariffs a lot of
separate tariffs that will hinder trade
and they didn't have as many of the raw
materials the specific ones that were
helpful for the Industrial Revolution
like England did such as coal
now especially uh the middle class
people on the European continent were
maybe not as motivated to make money
start businesses or in large businesses
it was more agrarian which is
agriculture on the continent and so
we're not going to see as much Capital
being loaned out and and such on the
European continent
and you know the French Revolution and
all of the Napoleonic Wars that had
taken place had destroyed a lot of
factories and machinery and Napoleon's
Continental System had also hurt Europe
economically as well
and at that you know when Napoleon did
his Continental System England just
simply found other markets to trade
so there's a lot of reasons why the
Industrial Revolution is delayed and I
also have to say for example with the
different inventions and machines that
are are being built in England spending
Jenny that kind of steam engine all that
England was very um
um
they wanted to try and
keep these inventions to themselves
they actually had laws saying that if
you worked in a factory that you
couldn't leave the country because they
didn't want all of this knowledge to get
out it does however eventually this will
reach the United States as well
and we gained some of that British
technology through spying of course
because the British didn't just simply
hand it over and wish as well
but we're going to notice eventually I
don't know around 8 15 or so 18 15 or so
that population is increasing we're
having more producers and consumers on
the European continent
governments are becoming more centralized
centralized
so the state could actually sponsor give
money to Industries or could help build
railroads which would improve their
transportation system or maybe award
so they start doing like these
protective tariffs basically trying to
keep English Goods out of their
countries and protect their own
businesses within their countries got a
protective tariff
So eventually the Industrial Revolution
spreads so what we we see is
before we had a a kind of a home-based
craft economy and then with the the
beginnings of the Industrial Revolution
starting in England eventually spreading
to Europe and to the United States
we're going to see that people are
coming out of their homes they're
actually working in factories and um
it's much more structured which will
cause actually a lot of of issues of
course and a lot of very poor working
conditions as well so let's find out
more about the first Industrial Revolution
Revolution
hello today we are going to talk about
the first Industrial Revolution
and in order to do that we also want to
discuss a little bit about its impact on society
society
and a lot of people don't realize that
the Industrial Revolution actually
started in England so let's uh let's
take a look at this and uh and we're
going to tell you a little bit about it
and how it started in England and how it
spread to Europe and finally how it
spread to the United States
and eventually to other parts of the
world but we're not going to be
discussing that the Industrial
Revolution was one of the most
transforming events in history
and it started in England like I said
and then it spread to other places but
the question is why why did it start in
England well I'm about to give you a
list of reasons why the Industrial
Revolution started in England first of all
all
we had what was known as the
Agricultural Revolution
and with this Agricultural Revolution we
have significant advances made in the
area of farming so we're not going to
get into all of the advances that were
made in farming during this period but
we're just going to kind of say that we
have new crops we have new methods of
rotating crops we have fertilization
techniques we have breeding of animals
and one we also have a number of new inventions
inventions
and among those new inventions is
something known as the seed drill
making it easier for planting and that
was attributed to a man named Jethro
Tull the seed drill which helped in all
of these things helped to produce more crops
crops
and England
is going to have more food and more
purchasing power
so we so we have reasons why the
Industrial Revolution started in England
and reason number one being the
Agricultural Revolution and all these
advances in the field of farming
another reason why the Industrial
Revolution started in England
was that they already had what we would
call a ready supply of capital
in other words
you had people who could afford to
invest in new technologies for factories
and so on
so you have a ready supply of capital
and another reason why the Industrial
Revolution starts in England
is because you have a few
individuals we like to say we like to
call them
entrepreneurs who are very interested in
making money they're very interested in
making profits so they're they're
willing to take chances they're willing
to invest they're willing to to put
their money out there so that they can
make money they they they they see these
opportunities that they not only will
see the opportunities they will seize
the opportunities to make money so we
have that uh individuals who are
interested in making profits these early industrial
industrial
entrepreneurs as we will call them
another reason why Britain was able to
shall we say uh get in first on the
Industrial Revolution was because they
had an ample supply of resources they
had mineral resources such as iron and
coal and those resources are going to be
very important when it comes to Industry
as you will soon see plus we have to add
another reason why England is number one
or we say Britain is is number one why
the Industrial Revolution starts in
England is because the government
is going to be playing a major role the
government will play a major role to a
past laws that will actually protect
private property and and this of course
will help be an incentive for
um for industry
so you have the government because you
have the government supporting it
and of course we'll talk more about the
government and making laws having to do
with industry later on
uh we we want to now talk about some of
the technological changes that happen
that will
help get this Industrial Revolution
kicked off so first we talked about
reasons why it started in England and
now we're going to talk about some of
the technological changes now I'm not
talking about
something related to farming we
discussed the Agricultural Revolution
separately this is technological changes
that will push us in push us meaning
England into the industrial revolution
and these changes have to do with the
cotton industry
before before the Industrial Revolution
people would uh make a cotton cloth in
their homes this was that it was known
as like a cottage industry which uh
definitely is was very different from
from what we're going to talk about so
and it would take a long time to spin
thread it would take a long time to to
weave the cloth and so on but these uh
these these uh inventions that I'm about
to talk about uh will will show you how
things will get faster and faster over
time uh these machines that they will
create to help spin cloth to help spin
thread and and then weave cloth it's
going to definitely
pick up and things will get faster and
bigger and and pretty soon you'll have
these factories and we'll talk about
that in a moment it's 1733 we have a man
named John K who invents what's known as
the flying shuttle
and with this flying shuttle we have a
weaving machine that actually allowed
one man to do as much as two or woman if
you will to do as much as two so that in
and of itself at that time was something
that was uh considered significant but
this led to more inventions more
inventions when it came to spinning
thread and weaving cloth for example in
1764 we have a man named John Hargraves
who comes out with something called the
spinning jenny the spinning jenny with
this invention one person could spin thread
thread
or as much thread as eight people so
that is a significant achievement then
just uh
or closely around the same time we have
a man named Richard arkwright who comes
up with what's called a water frame
weaving machine and that sounds kind of
strange a water frame weaving machine
hmm I wonder if it if they used water
power well of course that's what we mean
we mean a weaving machine that uses
water power oh so these first cotton
Mills would have to be built by water or
on on Rivers so that that's interesting
1779 we have a man named Samuel Crompton
Samuel Crompton was able to come out
with what's called a spinning mule so
first we had the spinning jenny now we
have the spinning mule and the spinning
mule did weaving and spinning and it did
it much faster so with these new
inventions things are getting faster and faster
faster
1789 we have a man called Edmund carp right
right
who comes out with what we call a power
loom a power loom which does things even faster
faster
and then of course
way over across the ocean in the United States
States
now this is going to be connected to
this Industrial Revolution in England
but we have a man called Eli Whitney who
invents the cotton gin
which means more people are going to
plant cotton because with the cotton gin
you have a device that separates the
seeds from the cotton fiber without
people having to pick it out by hand
which took a long long time so this this
new invention called the cotton gin is
going to help this cotton industry in England
England
anyway so Richard arkwright we met him a
few moments ago Richard arkwright gets
the credit for opening the first textile mill
mill
and of course he does this back in
1774. he opens the first textile mill
and within a few years you had a number
of these cotton Mills in England these
cotton Mills that were that's what we
call them that were driven by water power
power
okay you have towns you have cities that
begin springing up around these cotton Mills
Mills
and you have other related inventions
that help with
any problems they encounter
and other inventions that will actually feed
feed
into new Industries
so now we need to talk about something
that will be connected to many
Industries and it's something known as
the steam engine
the steam engine
so a man named Thomas newcomen
came out with or invented you could say
a steam engine and this was like in the
early part of the 1700s that this man
called newcomen had come out with a
steam engine so we often like to give
him Thomas newcomen the credit for
inventing the steam engine
but the reason that the steam engine was
invented in the pers first place was to
help pump water out of the coal mines in
England that was a big problem trying to
get the water out of the coal mines
and at first it was known simply as as
an atmospheric engine I know that sounds
like a strange thing to us and an
atmospheric engine and then they
eventually started calling them steam engines
engines
and then uh a few decades later we have
a man named James Watt and we also have
some other people who get involved with
inventing bigger and better steam
engines but the name James Watt really
stands out so he invents what we call a
bigger and better steam engine that
could pump the water from the coal mines
three times faster than other steam engines
engines
so we have
improvements being made
with these steam engines
so they're getting faster
and now we also see where
steam power is being applied to Manufacturing
Manufacturing
that's right many of the Mills started
using steam power for the manufacturing
instead of the water power they started
using these steam engines and this is
something that helped to speed up
industry even more so things seem to be
getting bigger and faster and able to do
more and and and and and the whole
process seems to seems to just snowball
it seems to snowball
steam power becomes the main source of
energy in the late 19th century
or to or rather till the late 19th century
century
it will become the main source of power
the main source of energy until the end
of the 19th century
and then later on there will be what we
call a Second Industrial Revolution that
you'll hear about in another lecture but
steam power becomes Numero Uno becomes
number one during this time and and you
might say well steam power whoa how did
that work well I don't know exactly how
it worked not a scientist but the the
steam was fueled by coal
that's interesting the steam engines
were fueled by coal so the coal industry
grew even more the coal industry grew tremendously
tremendously
so we have these different Industries
being connected to one another and and
listen to this the steam engine
revolutionized the production of cotton Goods
Goods
and allowed the factory system to spread
to other areas not just in England
but to other countries
that you didn't have to set up your mill
on a river anymore you didn't have to
set it up on water you didn't have to
use the the the the the the the water
power now you could use the steam power
not only that
not only did the uh the the steam
revolutionized the the uh cotton mill
industry and and uh industrial uh
industrialization period but also we we
see uh new Industries being created
new Industries being created for example
we have the the iron industry uh in in
Britain that uh that is going to get
stronger because of new processes which
I'll explain in a moment but this iron
industry is going to be connected to
another industry it's in that we'll talk about
about
trains in a moment but anyway the iron
industry of Britain was uh radically
transformed during this time so we're
not saying they didn't have an iron
industry at all before this but what
we're saying is it is radically
transformed during this period because
we have a new method of making iron we
have a new method of what they call
smelting the iron ore in order to
produce cast iron and this new method
was known as uh as puddling I know it
sounds strange so this system called
puddling was developed and
and with this puddling you had better
iron you had a higher grade a higher
quality of iron and this of course this
of course is going to cause what we
would say a a boom in the iron industry
because you can make better iron the
quality is better it's the iron is going
to be in bigger demand and they're going
to be wanting iron to use uh for uh for
the factories they're going to be
wanting iron to uh to use uh in in other
Industries as we'll talk about in a
moment so here we say again
this caused the Boom in the iron industry
industry
and the demand for new machines in
factories helped the development of the
iron industry so it was like these
industries were dependent on one another
and they're helping each other grow
these industries are helping each other grow
grow
not only that they are connected to new
Industries new Industries will be created
created
wow this is just and and we're only
scratching the surface here we're just
scratching the surface of of some of the
stuff that happened uh in England during
the Industrial Revolution
so now we want to connect all of this to
maybe not all of it but we want to
definitely connect the iron industry to
a revolution in transportation
a revolution in transportation well what
exactly do we mean by that
we're going to have a revolution in what
we call the railroad industry
that's right
England had some railroads at first
railroads that were uh that that used a
horse-drawn carts for example little
rails coming out of out of the mines to
carry the the coal and that sort of
thing but
in 1804
steam power was combined with the
railroad now they're going to be using
steam for the railroad they're not going
to be pulling
carts with with the horses they're going
to be having these big Steam
driven steam-powered engines now and of course
course
by 1820 England is going to have several
hundred miles of railroad track
and by 1850 they're going to have
several thousand miles of railroad track
and you know what they're not just going
to be carrying goods
they're not just going to be carrying
products they're not just going to be
carrying raw materials on these rail
cars they are also going to be carrying
people so the railroad becomes an
industry in itself
and it's all connected to the iron
industry and the coal industry things
are so interconnected and we just don't
realize it so now when they're
transporting their raw materials they're
transporting their goods they're
transporting their people then they can
do this
much faster much faster with the rail
cars much faster
and it's it's it's also very exciting so
the growth of the rail industry caused
the coal and the iron Industries to grow
even further
yeah because hey they're using steam
power on the railroad so they need coal
to run the steam engines
so and and then they need they need iron
to make the engines and to uh make the
uh the rails so it's all all seems to be
interconnected and they're creating new
jobs wow it's amazing it's absolutely
amazing so this Industrial Revolution
that we've talked about or at least how
it got started in England
is not going to be confined to England
it is going to spread it's going to
spread to other areas it's going to
spread for example to Europe
oh that's right it is going to spread to
Europe it's going to spread to the
United States let's talk about in Europe
for a few moments let's let's hit a few
a few highlights as to where it spreads
in Europe for example it it goes into
France it goes into Belgium it goes into
what we call some of the German states
at this time we don't we don't have a
unified Germany quite yet but we will by
the end of the 19th century but anyway so
so
um places like France and and Belgium
and parts of of what we would eventually
call Germany is going to be the first to
industrialize on the continent of Europe and
and
um and they're going to start doing
cotton manufacturing as well you know
like like the the cotton Manufacturing
in England so by the time we get to 1850
you can to have large industrial centers
in places like I mentioned in places
like France and and Belgium and uh and
of course parts of Northern Germany and
we're talking particularly in those
areas where they had resources they had
mineral resources that they could use in
their industry like iron ore and and
coal for example
so other places too like in Northern
Italy and of course the United States
they are going to be industrializing as well
well
and I'd like to say just a little bit
about the Industrial Revolution in the
United States
for example the United States
has its own Industrial Revolution
and the United States is going to have
tremendous growth we're talking about um
um
the cities in the North in the northern
part of the United States mostly and
that's where we're going to have most of
the factories a huge huge percentage of
the factories so we're going to have
some uh factories and some
industrialized areas in the northeast of
but a lot of
a lot of Europe at this time and of
course the southern part of the United
very much Untouched by the Industrial
Revolution because
in some areas you're going to have a
lack of natural resources and in other
areas you're going to have uh other
things that are lacking so it will make
it more difficult for the Industrial
Revolution to go to other areas but here
in the United States we like to give a
man named Samuel Slater a lot of credit
because he is
often referred to as the father of the
American Industrial Revolution because
he gets credit for for for copying and
bringing stuff from England to the
United States so that's Samuel Slater
so-called father of the American
Industrial Revolution
but um speaking of America speaking of
the United States I'd like to mention a
few other things about this um
this Industrial Revolution
that happens here in the United States
of course besides the fact that I
mentioned Eli Whitney and the cotton gin
I also want to mention that in 1807 in
the United States we have a man named
Robert Fulton who is able to have the
first successful Steamboat now I'm not
saying that he was the only one that
came up with that idea but he's the one
that gets the credit for having the
first truly successful Steamboat and
that was right here in the United States
and then
by 1850 there would be
transatlantic steam ships
so oh my goodness not only are we using
steam power for the railroads we are
using it for shipping now and again
steam is the main power that is used
until the latter part of the 19th
century but also another thing about the
United States I'd like to point out
was that a man named Samuel Morse will
come out with uh or invent what we call
a telegraph
and many of us have heard of the morse
code well it was Samuel Morse that came
out with the morse code and of course he
invented the telegraph so here in the
United States we have
we have someone who
invented the telegraph and then
eventually we're going to have someone
who invents the telephone which would be
a little bit later on in in the 19th
century and a man named Belle but
getting back to this Telegraph thing
this was just absolutely phenomenal for
for that day and time by the time we get
to the middle of the 19th century by the
time we get to say 1851 we have a
transatlantic Telegraph cable
that is laid between Great Britain and
the United States
we're able to transfer news quickly
I mean it was just absolutely phenomenal
and then they started doing these this
Telegraph uh uh cable laying telegraph
cables uh all over Europe
and we had we were able to have fast
news we were able to have cheap news and
doesn't sound like something very
impressive to us in our day and time
with our instant messaging and and all
kinds of things that we have but back
then this was considered absolutely
phenomenal so we we have a news industry
that's created uh What uh some would
call a a well-developed press came along
and a man named Julius reuter gets
credit for having a new service that
would transfer news from Europe to the
to the United States
and so there are so many things that are
interconnected here different inventions
all kind of tied in to this Industrial Revolution
Revolution
and how our lives are are changing and
things are speeding up and education is
becoming more important
education is becoming more important
anyway so there is just uh so so so much
to talk about but we want to focus on uh
certain things about this Industrial Revolution
Revolution
get back to talking about the Industrial
Revolution itself about the lives of the
factory workers and the lives of the the
what we might call the middle class
during this time we want to discuss a
little bit of that for a while so we we
have benefits of the Industrial
Revolution and we also have burdens of
the Industrial Revolution we have
positive things and we have negative
things first of all let's talk about a
few some positive things there'll be
some negative things intertwined in
there but on a positive note at least
for some people we have what we call New Wealth
Wealth
some new wealth in Britain
Britain's wealth increases
dramatically during this Industrial
Revolution for example
the wealth of Britain increased more than
than
three-fold between 1780 and 1850 that's
that's very interesting their national
product increased more than three-fold
between those years 1780 and 1750. not
only that
the population expands we have
population expansion in England we have
population expansion in Europe and and
this gives you an example here from 175
million in 1780 to 266 million in 1850.
but Britain itself
Britain's population
more than doubled during this time
period with the Agricultural Revolution
that could produce more food and and
that helped dramatically
the the middle class
we have we have New Wealth New Wealth in England
England
the middle class uh is grows uh they uh
there was New Wealth in England
that was generated so rapidly that
personal income actually Rose faster
than the population growth I mean it's
just unbelievable and and who is making
all this money well it's the it's the uh
um the owners of the factories the
owners of the mines the owners of these
industries these are the people that are
making money excuse me for using a a a
an expression hand over fist they're
just they're just making lots of money
and some of these people made huge
fortunes I mean some of these people
became phenomenally wealthy but as a whole
whole
as a whole the middle class benefited
the most from this Industrial Revolution
initially the middle class they
benefited the most we have for the
middle class we have things like the
family vacation that comes about during
this time
the middle class had separate living
districts they didn't want to live by
the factories of course they were away
from the factories they were away from
the smoke they lived in separate
neighborhoods and then we have what we
call middle class values
Queen Victoria was a queen of England
who who reigned from from oh for a long
period from like 1837 until 1901 she was
Queen of England and so we named a whole
time period after
the the Victorian age and that's tied
into this middle class value thing with
with Queen Victoria so we have this
Urban middle class
who um who want to live up to to these
quote Victorian values
um Queen Victoria was a model for
Morality we like to say I wouldn't mind
saying a few more things about Queen
Victoria but nonetheless the Victorian
era represented the height of the
Industrial Revolution
and we see significant social progress
we see economic progress we see
technological progress in in England
getting back to this middle class
moral value thing we see women of the
middle class being what we would call
put on a pedestal they were they were
viewed as as obedient wives who would
wait on their husbands
non-passionate women who might might get
involved in Charities and
and when their husbands would come home
they would uh bring him his slippers his
pipe you know that sort of uh sort of um
um
Victorian type of image that some of us
get that has that lasted uh well into
the 20th century for some people
expecting the women women to be
submissive and and waiting on husbands
and being non-passionate and that sort
of thing Queen Victoria is also
associated with furniture and
architecture of the the period by the way
way
like I said I want to say a few more
things about about Queen Victoria and
I'll I'll try to do that very quickly
that her husband had died and and she
she wore black the rest of her life and
so she was she didn't seem like a very
happy person so it's kind of interesting
that people wanted to uh model their
lives after her
morality but nonetheless uh I won't go
there so we have a tremendous growth in
in population and
um this is difficult for some of the governments
governments
uh for example in England it's hard for
the government to handle the massive
movement of people to the cities it
caught the cities unprepared and oh my
goodness because of industrialization
the cities are growing so quickly that
uh that there's so many people moving
into the cities that the governments
cannot keep up with it you can't keep up
with the growth you have you have slums
you have crime problems
you have city streets that are used
as open sewers and open drains
problems bringing in fresh water oh my goodness
goodness
you would not want to see a city or be
in a city like this if you think some of
the that there are funny smells on uh in
the French Quarter on Bourbon Street hey
that's nothing compared to what these
cities were like back then oh man this
overcrowding terrible living conditions
and and and and and and we have our
health problems we have we have cholera
we have tuberculosis uh people breathing
in the factory smoke because they're
living right near the factories oh my goodness
goodness
but we still had population growth even
though we're having these problems that
we have to deal with we we have a
decline in death rates from major
diseases of all things we have what we
call the smallpox vaccine that comes out
a man named Jenner comes out with a
smallpox vaccine and it's interesting
because if you hear the story about how
he he noticed this is a country Doctor
Edward Jenner he he noticed that the
milkmaids did not get smallpox and so he
was able to figure out how to make a vaccine
vaccine
based on on his observations of the
milkmaids not getting smallpox if they
they did get a a little bit of something
but it wasn't anything major and he was
able to use this to uh
and I don't want to get technical with
the uh
with the
the story about that but let's just say
Jenner came out with a smallpox vaccine
to help prevent people from getting a
smallpox in and dying from it
eventually we do have uh we do have some
sanitary conditions during that are improving
improving
um we start making changes in the cities
but some of that's going to take some
time and um
um
we have more food because of the
Industrial Revolution some of this stuff
I've already talked about
but even though we have more food
we are going to have a very serious
problem and the only place where we're
not going to have population growth is
going to be Ireland because in Ireland
in 1845 we have what is known as the
Potato Famine a blight that hits the
potato crop and the poor people depended
on the potato as their main source of
food so this is going to cause
Ireland to actually lose population not
just from people dying but you're going
to have more than more than a million
Irish who are going to leave their
country and move to America so that's a
that's kind of interesting that Ireland
was the only country that faced a
population decline in the 19th century
um in other parts of Europe we see where
serfdom is being abolished we see
Transportation improving
and that sort of thing but before we
finalize our material on the Industrial
Revolution I'd like to talk a little bit
about the working conditions for the the
factory workers and a little bit about
people working in the mines I'm talking
about the working conditions conditions
of factory workers and the Mine Workers
we are talking something very horrendous
here we are talking very dangerous very
deplorable working conditions we're
talking 12 to 16 hour days and six days
a week we're talking no minimum wage
this is when the Industrial Revolution
starts out I mean people are literally
working their lives away
the Mills were dirty the Mills were
Dusty the Mills were unhealthy we could
go on and on no safety equipment
if you injured yourself too bad
because if they didn't have workman's
comp they didn't have anything to to to
to to help the people so no safety
equipment and very little very very
little time off for breaks and the wages
were very low oh my goodness so no
unemployment no minimum wage
no disability compensation
the list goes on and on but you might be
shocked to hear what else I have to say
women and children were working
we are talking women and children in
large numbers were working and you might
say well what's wrong with people doing
a little bit of work well
these were these are virtual horror
stories about
particularly with the children women
were working in factories and mines
children were working in factories and
mines children were exploited oh because
they were small they could they could do
the mine work easier and get in these
little nooks and crannies because they
were smaller they could
maneuver around the machines and try to
unclog some of these Factory machines
that might get jammed up and oh don't
you talk about dangerous so the children
were exploited during this time children
had a terrible life if they were oh you had
had
families whose children would be working
you had poor orphans who would be sent
off to to do this Mill and mine work so
oh it was terrible and five years old
this is before they started doing the
the regulations on this sort of thing
five years old they would be working in
factories oh my goodness and children
could be paid
way less
the children would receive
a third or less than that a third of the
pay that a man would get or probably
less than a third women were paid about
half of what a man would get so women
and children were being exploited during
this time and again no safety
regulations and um
they made they made changes change came slowly
slowly
change came slowly for example we have
efforts that change by the time we get
to the 1830s and the 1840s we have in
England we have Parliament enacting laws
laws to get rid of the worst kinds of
abuse in the workforce we're talking
the first law is mainly affected
children in the in the textile mills and
in the mines and then well for example
we have the factory Act of 1833 that's
it that's one example the factory Act of
1833 stated that the children between
9 and 13 could work only eight hours a day
day
can you imagine your nine-year-old working
working
period working a job particularly in a
mine or a factory for eight hours a day
those between 14 and 18 could only work
a maximum of 12 hours a day
12 hours into work and 12 hours a day
wow of course I know there's people that
work that do 12-hour shifts for
different jobs even now but back then it
was different
the factory Act of 1844 included women
Factory Act of 1844 stated that women
could only work 12 hours a day
in 1842 women and children
women and children under 10
would no longer have to work in mines so
so women
women
and children under 10 would no longer
work in Minds so gradually we see
changes being made
and then by 1856 we have
the hours of work for those 9 to 11
excuse me 9 to 18 the number of hours
would be reduced down to 10 hours rather
than 12 hours a day now it's going to be
10 hours a day so we have these these
different Factory acts and and sometimes
they kind of go they take a step forward
and they take a step backward as far as
the laws in England regarding the
the the working of the children in in in
in in the minds well in the factories
and and women and they they kind of
they waver back and forth just a little
bit but by 1878 here we have it by 1878
we have what's known as the factory Act
of 1878. there were a lot of factory
acts and you shouldn't have to remember
all of them because it would get rather
confusing but the factory Act of 1878 I
want to kind of emphasize that one
because here we go no child anywhere
under the age of 10 was to be employed period
period
according to this law and
here's something interesting too
we also have included in this compulsory education
education
a few minutes ago I kind of breezed over
the fact that education is becoming important
important
in the 19th century so compulsory
education for children up to 10 years old
old
so we're going to want them to have at
least an elementary education at least
to learn how to read and write
another thing that goes with the factory
Act of 1878 10 to 14 year olds could
only be employed
for half days
that's better
women were to work no more than 56 hours
a week
so again with the factory act we have no
child under the age of 10 was to be
employed period compulsory education for
children up to 10.
10 to 14 year olds only to be employed
for half days and women were not to work
more than 56 hours a week
and we also had Factory inspectors who
were appointed to
find those the find those Factory uh
owners that would break the laws These
Guys these these inspectors were
supposed to go after the the factory
owners that didn't want to follow the
laws as they were laid down so as we can
see the the progress
was slow
safety in the workplace
that was only partly addressed by this time
time
they're still going to be more and more
improvements needed over time but
like I said these Factory acts they are
they're the first of them will be taking
care of the of the worst abuses in the
workplace and then slowly we were taking
a step forward and some backward and
finally we get like I said to the
factory Act of 1878 but but we must
remember that we still have not
completely addressed the problem of
safety in the workplace we still don't
have workman's compensation and we still
don't have a lot of other things that
will be needed to help protect the work
the safety of the workers
so it sounds like we're talking about
all kind of horrible things and and oh
my goodness some of us when we think
about this we we think of uh the story
of of Oliver Twist and uh yeah it it
would make you make you think of that
and some of you may have seen the movie
or or read the book but um
despite all of these uh problems
you know you have good things you have
bad things happening but despite all of
these these uh problems with the
factories uh and the workers
we still have the standard of living
that does increase
the standard of living does increase
eventually for for everyone not at first
for the working class
but in the long run the standard of
living for everyone does increase and
this is a very debatable very debatable
topic very debatable issue
but um
for some people the standard of living
improved very quickly for others it
improved very close slowly for example
the middle class of course their
standard of living boom is going to is
going to improve very quickly
and the middle class really took off
during this time
we we have not addressed the uh the uh
other people in the middle class like
the shopkeepers the law doctors the
lawyers the shop owners uh what we would
call white collar workers Bankers I mean
these people these people really they
really took off during the Industrial
Revolution these other middle class
but the standard of living for all does
in the long run increase
but there's no doubt
there's no doubt that the people who gained
gained
in the early part of the Industrial Revolution
Revolution
was the middle class
the industrial workers would have to wait
wait until
until
later until the second half of the 19th
century to benefit from the Industrial Revolution
Revolution
so that's just a little bit about the
Industrial Revolution or the first
Industrial Revolution in a nutshell it
starts in England and then it spreads to
some parts of Europe and then to America
and we have good things that go along
with it we have bad things but as I said
in the long run the standard of living
does increase
uh for everyone but for the factory
workers not immediately
and then of course we're going to have
new inventions that that are going to
speed things up and as we move over uh
into the 20th century uh steam will be
the steam power will be replaced by oil
and you'll find out about that when you hear about the Second Industrial
hear about the Second Industrial Revolution
Revolution thank you
thank you Okay so we've learned a lot about the
Okay so we've learned a lot about the first Industrial Revolution
first Industrial Revolution um and you know it's very sad about you
um and you know it's very sad about you know the working conditions here and not
know the working conditions here and not only in Europe of course but in the
only in Europe of course but in the United States we're going to have a lot
United States we're going to have a lot of of reform measures that will
of of reform measures that will eventually slowly come about to try and
eventually slowly come about to try and protect some of these workers because we
protect some of these workers because we are moving like you saw out of the home
are moving like you saw out of the home into the factories
into the factories when we come back for our next lecture
when we come back for our next lecture we are going back into revolutions yes
we are going back into revolutions yes Europe is going to experience quite a
Europe is going to experience quite a few revolutions
few revolutions yeah we just left the French Revolution
yeah we just left the French Revolution in the Napoleonic Wars but it's not over
in the Napoleonic Wars but it's not over we have a lot of Revolutions in the
we have a lot of Revolutions in the 1820s 1830s and the very very famous
1820s 1830s and the very very famous revolutionary year of 1848 and 49. until
revolutionary year of 1848 and 49. until next time
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