Industrial Revolution

Industrialization or an Industrial Revolution is a process of social and economic change whereby a human group is transformed from a pre-industrial society (an economy where the amount of capital accumulated per capita is low) into an industrial one (a fully developed capitalist economy). It is a part of a wider modernization process, where social and economic change is closely related with technological innovation, particularly with the development of large-scale energy and metallurgy production. Industrialization also introduces a form of philosophical change, where people obtain a different attitude towards the perception of nature.

According to the original sector classification of Jean Fourastié, an economy consists of a "Primary sector" of commodity production (farming, livestock breeding, exploitation of mineral resources), a "secondary sector" of manufacturing and processing, and a "Tertiary Sector" of service industries. The industrialization process is historically based on the expansion of the secondary sector in an economy dominated by primary activities.

The lack of an industrial sector in a country is widely seen as a major handicap in improving a country's economy, pushing many governments to encourage or enforce industrialization.

The Second Industrial Revolution describes a later, somewhat less dramatic change which came about in the late 19th century with the widespread availability of electric power, internal-combustion engines, and assembly lines to the already industrialized nations.

Industrial Revolution in Western Europe
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Great Britain experienced a massive increase in agricultural productivity known as the British Agricultural Revolution, which enabled an unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce from farming, and helping to drive the Industrial Revolution.

The new manpower couldn't dedicate to agriculture due to the lack of land; besides, this was not needed either because the higher productivity mechanized farming granted allowed a single peasant to feed a bigger number of otherwise employed workers. On the other hand, new agriculture techniques increased the demand for machines and other hardware, traditionally provided by the urban artisans. Artisans, collectively called bourgeoisie, employed rural exodus' workers to increase their output and meet the country's needs. The growth of their business coupled with the lack of experience of the new workers pushed to a rationalization and standardization of the duties the in workshops, thus leading to a division of work, that is, a primitive form of Fordism. The process of creating a good was divided into simple tasks, each one of them being gradually mechanized in order to boost the productivity, therefore the income. The accumulation of capital allowed investments in the conception and application of new technologies, enabling the industrialization process to self-sustain.

The mechanization of production spread to the countries surrounding England in western and northern Europe and to British settling colonies, making those areas the wealthiest since, and shaping what is now know as the Western world.

Incidentally, the possession of exploitation colonies eased the accumulation of capital to the countries that possessed them, speeding up their development. The consequence was that the subject country integrated a bigger economic system in a subaltern position, emulating the countryside who demands manufactured goods and offers raw materials, while the metropole stressed its urban posture, providing goods and importing food. A classical example of this mechanism is the triangular trade, who involved England, southern United States and western Africa. This polarity still affects the world, and deeply retarded the industrialization of what is now known as the Third world.

Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the British slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment. It has been pointed out, however, that slave trade and the West Indian plantations provided less than 5% of the British national income during the years of the Industrial Revolution.[2]


Industrialization in Asia
A totally different pattern of industrialization followed in East Asia, where there was an acceleration in industrialization. In the 1960s, a network of small privately-owned factories spread across four small countries known as the Asian tigers, focusing their activities on the exportation of low value added goods to rich countries.[citation needed] This specialization, allowed by the existence of stable governments and well structured societies, was favored by a low cost workforce, a favorable exchange rate, and low custom duties. Because of the success of those initial policies, the Asian tigers have recently been trying to step forward in this stage and diversify their economies.

This starting model was afterwards successfully copied in all eastern and Southern Asian countries, including communist ones.[citation needed] The success of this phenomenon has led to a huge wave of offshoring, that is, western factories or tertiary corporations choosing to move their activities to poor countries where the workforce is less expensive and less collectively organized.

China and India, while roughly following this development pattern, were forced to adopt, because of their weight specific policies. China's government is actively investing in expanding its own infrastructures and securing the required energy and raw materials supply channels, is supporting its exports by financing the United States balance payment deficit through the purchase of U.S. treasury bonds, and is strengthening its military in order to endorse a major geopolitical role.[citation needed]

India's government is investing in specific vanguard economic sectors such as bioengineering, nuclear technology, pharmaceutics, informatics, and technologically-oriented higher education, openly overpassing its needs, with the goal of creating several specialization poles able to conquer foreign markets.[citation needed]

Both China and India has also started to make huge investments in third countries, making them active actors of today's world economy.


Industrialization in other countries
After the Convention of Kanagawa, which was issued by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, had forced Japan to open the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade, the Japanese government realized that drastic reforms were necessary in order to stave off Western influence. The Tokugawa shogunate abolished the feudal system. The government instituted military reforms to modernize the Japanese army and also constructed the base for industrialization. The government vigorously promoted technological and industrial development which eventually brought Japan to become a powerful modern country.

In a similar way, Russia suffered during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The Soviet Union's centrally controlled economy decided to invest a big part of its resources to enhance its industrial production and infrastructures in order to assure its own survival, thus becoming a world superpower.

The other European communist countries followed the same developing scheme, albeit with a less emphasis on heavy industry.

Southern European countries saw a moderate industrialization during the 1850s-1870s, caused by a healthy integration of the European economy, though their level of development, as well as those of eastern countries, doesn't match the western standards.[citation needed]


Petrol producing countries
Oil-rich countries saw similar failures in their economic choices. Because oil is both important and expensive, regions that had big reserves of oil had huge liquidity incomes. However, this was rarely followed by economic development. Experience shows that local elites were unable to re-invest the petrodollars obtained through oil export, and currency is wasted in luxury goods.[citation needed] This is particularly evident in the Persian Gulf states, where the per capita income is comparable to those of western nations, but where no industrialization has started. Apart from two little countries (Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates), Arab states have not diversified their economies, and no replacement for the upcoming end of oil reserves is envisaged.[citation needed]


The Third World
A similar state-led developing program was pursued in virtually all the third world countries during the Cold War, including the socialist ones, but especially in Sub-Saharan Africa after the decolonization period.[citation needed] The primary scope of those projects was to achieve self-sufficiency through the local production of previously imported goods, the mechanization of agriculture and the spread of education and health care. However, all those experiences failed bitterly due to lack of realism: most countries didn't have a pre-industrial bourgeoisie able to carry on a capitalistic development or even a stable and peaceful state. Those aborted experiences left huge debts toward western countries and fueled public corruption.


Newly industrialized countries
The countries in green are considered to be newly industrializing nations. China and India (in dark green) are special cases.In recent years, countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Turkey have experienced moderate industrial growth, fueled by exportations going to countries that have bigger economies: the United States, China, and the European Union, respectively.[citation needed] They are sometimes called newly-industrialized countries. Most African and Latin American nations seem to follow a similar scheme.[citation needed] Despite this trend being artificially influenced by the oil price increases in 2004-2006, the phenomenon is not entirely new nor totally speculative (for instance see: Maquiladora). Most analysts conclude in the next few decades the whole world will experience industrialization, and international inequality will be replaced with social inequality.[citation needed]




Effects of industrialization
Frequently in history, people found themselves changing and tinting their true goals in life to suit the natural flow taken by main stream companies. They moved in to the city and started smaller businesses. Many had small coops in the middle of the countryside because this helped them produce a product that fit more of the consumers' needs. The products became more intimate and things such as lace, wood carvings and other intricate home furnishings. These were sold throughout the countryside and best selling items were shipped to larger cities for assured success.


Current situation
GDP composition of sector and labor force by occupation. The green, red, and blue components of the colors of the countries represent the percentages for the agriculture, industry, and services sectors, respectively.In 2005, the USA was the largest producer of industrial output followed by Japan and China, according to International Monetary Fund.[citation needed]

Currently the "international development community" (World Bank, OECD, many United Nations departments, and some other organizations)[citation needed] endorses development policies based on merely poverty reduction, and giving poor populations access to basic services like water purification or primary education.[citation needed] The community does not recognize traditional industrialization policies as being adecuated to the Third world or beneficial in the longer term, with the perception that it could only create inefficient local industries unable to compete in a free-trade dominated world.

Industrialization: The First Phase: 1700-1850

While Europe's "great men" plotted grand schemes to pursue their political and intellectual ambitions during the crisis of the Old Regime, French Revolution, and Napoleonic wars, obscure British inventors designed machines whose impact would dwarf their efforts.
They industrialized textile making by using machines and new power sources to accomplish a task formerly done by human and animal power. They began what has been called by some the Industrial Revolution.
The huge increase in productivity made possible by using machines can be shown in the amount of raw cotton Britain imported in 1760 and 1850. In 1760 the British imported a bit over 1000 tons; in 1850 the number had risen to over 222,000 tons.
The story behind the growth of the textile industry is one of a continual "catch-up" game between the spinners and weavers to respond to a growing market.
After the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland, Britain possessed an expanding population with a larger per capita income than that of any other European state. The population growth stemmed from a gradual decline in death rates and an increase in the birth rate. ^14 It provided more customers and workers.
[Footnote 14: J. D. Chambers, "Enclosures and the Labour Supply in the Industrial Revolution," Economic History Review, 2nd series, V, 1953, pp. 318-343, as cited in David Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 115.]
[

The Revolution In Making Cloth
Practical people seeing the need for greater output solved the practical problems of production. In the many steps from the raw cotton to the finished cloth, there were bottlenecksprimarily in making yarn and weaving the strands together.
In 1733, John Kay (1704-1764), a spinner and mechanic, patented the first of the great machines - the flying shuttle. This device made it possible for one person to weave wide bolts of cloth by using a spring mechanism that sent the shuttle across the loom.
This invention upset the balance between the weavers of cloth and the spinners of yarn: ten spinners were required to produce enough yarn needed by one weaver. James Hargreaves (d. 1778), a weaver and carpenter, eliminated that problem in 1764 with his spinning jenny, a mechanical spinning wheel that allowed the spinners to keep up with the weavers.
Five years later, a barber named Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) built the water frame that made it possible to spin many threads into yarn at the same time. Ten years after that Samuel Crompton (1753-1827), a spinner, combined the spinning jenny and water frame into the water mule, which, with some variations, is used today.
By this time the makers of yarn were outpacing the weavers, but in 1785 Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823) invented the power loom that mechanized the weaving process. In two generations what had once been a home-based craft became an industry.
The appetite of the new machines outran the supply of cotton. Since most of the material came from the United States, the demand exceeded the capability of the slave-based southern economy to fill the supply.
The best worker could not prepare more than five or six pounds of cotton a day because of the problems of the seeds. American inventor Eli Whitney (1765-1825), among others, devised the cotton gin, a machine that enabled a worker to clean more than fifty times as much cotton a day. This device coincidentally played a major role in the perpetuation of slavery in the United States.
Finally, the textile industry became so large that it outgrew the possibilities of its power source: water power. Steam came to drive the machines of industrializing Britain. In the first part of the eighteenth century a mechanic, Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729), made an "atmospheric engine" in which a piston was raised by injected steam. As the steam condensed, the piston returned to its original position.
Newcomen's unwieldy and inefficient device was put to use pumping water out of mines. James Watt (1736-1819), a builder of scientific instruments at the University of Glasgow, perfected Newcomen's invention. Watt's steam engine also was first used to pump water out of mines.
It saved the large amounts of energy lost by the Newcomen engine and led to an increase in coal productivity. After 1785 it was also used to make cloth and drive ships and locomotives.
The application of steam to weaving made it possible to expand the use of cloth-making machines to new areas, and after 1815 hand looms began to disappear from commercial textile making, replaced by the undoubted superiority of the cloth-making machines.
These inventors made their contributions in response to the need to solve a particular problem. Their machines and the new power sources expanded productivity and transformed society in ways never before dreamed of. The transition from a rural agrarian to an urban lifestyle merits applying the term revolutionary to the process of industrialization.
The steps in increasing textile production were repeated and continue to be repeated in other goods as well. The liberation from the productive limitation of human and animal power to satisfy essentially unlimited demand is the great gift of industrialization.
[See Power Looms: Power looms in operation in an English mill in the 1820s.]
Britain's Dominance
Industrialization began in Britain in the eighteenth century for a number of reasons. Neither the richest nor the most populous country in western Europe, it did, nevertheless, possess at virtually all levels of society a hard-working, inventive, risk-taking private sector that received strong support from the government.
Industrialization could not begin and grow without individual business owners who took a chance on something new.
The British kept this close tie between private initiative and creative governmental support throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Thanks to early governmental support of road improvements and canal construction, Britain had a better transportation network than any other country in Europe. The British also had mastery of the seas, excellent ports, and a large merchant fleet.
They enjoyed the advantage of living safely on their island, away from the carnage of war, even during the Napoleonic wars.
The chance to industrialize in stable conditions gave them the opportunity to profit from war contracts between 1792 and 1815. They developed their industrial capacity without fear of battle damage or loss of life.
Probably the most important factor was the relative flexibility of the British social and political systems. Members of the elite, unlike their colleagues on the continent, pursued their wealth in the new industrial framework with great energy.
They worked closely with the middle classes and workers, even to the point during the nineteenth century of sponsoring gradual reform efforts to stifle any chance of revolution from below.
The combination of inventiveness, growing markets, governmental support, and social flexibility made Britain the world's dominant economic power until the end of the nineteenth century.
Napoleon's interference had hurt economic growth, but had also spurred the British to look for new manufacturing methods and markets.
Once the wars were over, Britain flooded the continent and the Americas with high-quality, inexpensive goods. No nation could compete against British efficiency.
When Britain began industrializing before 1789, there were isolated areas on the continent such as the French Le Creusot works that could have served as the base for a similar growth. Twenty-six years of revolution and mercantile policies made that competition impossible. ^15
[Footnote 15: E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848 (New York: New American Library, 1964), pp. 44-73.]
Cotton production continued to increase and was supplemented by the arrival of the modern Iron Age. In 1800 Russia and Sweden had exported iron to Britain. By 1815 Britain exported more than five times as much iron as it imported.
By 1848 the British produced more iron than the rest of the world combined. As in textile production, in ironmaking a number of inventions appeared to respond to problems. Refining of the brittle cast iron was improved to make it more malleable and tougher. At the same time more efficient mining processes for both coal and iron ore were used to ensure a constant supply of raw materials.
To further dominate the metals market, in the 1850s Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) developed a process to make steel, a harder and more malleable metal, quickly and cheaply.
So effective was the process that between 1856 and 1870 the price of British steel fell to one half the amount formerly charged for the best grade of iron. The drastic reduction in price, a mark of industrialization, had a positive impact on all areas of the economy.
In the period after midcentury Britain produced more than two-thirds of the world's coal and more than half of the world's iron and cloth. Industrial development encouraged urbanization and by 1850 more than half of the population lived in cities and worked in industries.
The British continued to enjoy the highest per capita income in the world, and the island nation stood head and shoulders above the world in terms of economic and material strength.



WHEN AND WHERE DID THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION OCCUR? WHY?

The Industrial Revolution began in England in the early 18th century for
the following reasons:
1. England had experienced all of the forerunners of industrialization in the previous century: an agricultural revolution, cottage industry, and an expanded commercial revolution. These developments had built surplus capital and an infrastructure
(shipping, banking, insurance, joint stock companies).
2. England already had a handcraft textile industry using wool, but with the availability of cotton from overseas markets as an alternative raw material.
3. The scientific revolution in England prepared the way for new inventions to be applied to industry.
4. A spreading shortage of wood (used for energy, for shipbuilding and
construction) stimulated a search for alternatives.
5. England was rich in supplies of coal for energy and iron for construction.
6. England had a long, irregular coastline with many rivers and natural
harbors which provided easy transportation by water to many areas.
7. England's population grew rapidly in the 18th century, providing a labor
force for industry.

NEW TECHNOLOGY IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY:
In about 1765, Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny which could spin numerous spools of cotton simultaneously. It was hand-powered, yet it could multiply several-fold the amount to be spun.
At about the same time Arkwright invented the water frame which could spin several hundred spools at a time. But it required water power, and it could only spin coarse thread.
Both inventions were used, the one to spin coarse thread, the other to spin
fine thread.
About 1790, Crompton's Mule, powered by a steam engine, provided an alternative method.
Cotton yarn could be spun in great quantity, but weaving of cloth was by
hand until the power loom was perfected about 1800.
In the interim, weavers were well paid, until displaced by the power loom.
Thus, the employment market was dramatically changed twice in a short
period of time by the process of industrialization.

THE PROBLEM OF ENERGY:
The shortage of trees for lumber had led to the use of coal for heating, but coal mines constantly flooded. Newcomen's steam engine, invented in 1705, was an inefficient but acceptable method of pumping water out of the mines. It could not, however, generate power.
The new textile machines could be driven by water power, but that would
have set severe limits to the available locations. Furthermore, lack of
lumber threatened to cut short the industrial growth.
The iron industry consumed large quantities of lumber to produce charcoal, needed for production of pig iron. The iron industry was coming to a halt.
In the early 1760's through the 1780's, James Watt improved the design of the steam engine so that it could generate power. This was the most important of all the inventions of the time because it enabled coal to be burned to drive machinery.
Steam-driven bellows enabled coke (produced from coal) to be burned in a blast furnace rather than charcoal. In the 1780's Henry Cort developed the puddling furnace, and steam-powered rolling mills. These developments revitalized the iron industry.
All of the above developments were to change the source of energy from
wood to coal, and the preferred construction material from wood to iron.
These are hallmarks of industrialization.

THE PROBLEM OF TRANSPORTATION
The process would nevertheless have stagnated if there had not been a
revolution in transportation.
Iron rails were developed for coal carts to be hauled to nearby water transport. The combination of iron rails and the steam engine to transport people and goods was the railroad. This was the greatest achievement in transportation since ancient times.
Once accepted, it brought great numbers of consumers within reach of the growing volume of goods being produced. It made a market economy possible.
Industrial development on the continent lagged behind England for at least a generation. The separation of England from the Continent by the Napoleonic Wars delayed the spread of English technology. Eventually, industrialization spread, first to the lowlands and the northeastern United States, then eastward and southward across Europe and westward across North America
WHY INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION HAPPENED..??Causes of industrialization:
The causes of the Industrial Revolution were complicated and remain a topic for debate, with some historians feeling the Revolution as an outgrowth of social and institutional changes brought by the end of feudalism in Britain after the English Civil War in the 17th century. As national border controls became more effective, the spread of disease was lessened, therefore preventing the epidemics common in previous times[citation needed]. The percentage of children who lived past infancy rose significantly, leading to a larger workforce. The Enclosure movement and the British Agricultural Revolution made food production more efficient and less labour-intensive, forcing the surplus population who could no longer find employment in agriculture into cottage industry, for example weaving, and in the longer term into the cities and the newly developed factories. The colonial expansion of the 17th century with the accompanying development of international trade, creation of financial markets and accumulation of capital are also cited as factors, as is the scientific revolution of the 17th century.
Technological innovation was the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the key enabling technology was the invention and improvement of the steam engine.[10]
Historian Lewis Mumford has proposed that the Industrial Revolution had its origins in the early Middle Ages, much earlier than most estimates. He explains that the model for standardised mass production was the printing press and that "the archetypal model for the industrial era was the clock". He also cites the monastic emphasis on order and time-keeping, as well as the fact that mediaeval cities had at their centre a church with bell ringing at regular intervals as being necessary precursors to a greater synchronisation necessary for later, more physical, manifestations such as the steam engine.
The presence of a large domestic market should also be considered an important driver of the Industrial Revolution, particularly explaining why it occurred in Britain. In other nations, such as France, markets were split up by local regions, which often imposed tolls and tariffs on goods traded amongst them.[11]
Governments' grant of limited monopolies to inventors under a developing patent system (the Statute of Monopolies 1623) is considered an influential factor. The effects of patents, both good and ill, on the development of industrialisation are clearly illustrated in the history of the steam engine, the key enabling technology. In return for publicly revealing the workings of an invention the patent system rewards inventors by allowing, e.g, James Watt to monopolise the production of the first steam engines, thereby enabling inventors and increasing the pace of technological development. However, monopolies bring with them their own inefficiencies which may counterbalance, or even overbalance, the beneficial effects of publicising ingenuity and rewarding inventors.[12] Watt's monopoly may have prevented other inventors, such as Richard Trevithick, William Murdoch or Jonathan Hornblower, from introducing improved steam engines thereby retarding the industrial revolution by up to 20 years.[13]
EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION ON WORLD::
In terms of social structure, the Industrial Revolution witnessed the triumph of a middle class of industrialists and businessmen over a landed class of nobility and gentry.
Ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labour dominated by a pace set by machines. However, harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the Industrial Revolution took place as well. Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel—child labour, dirty living conditions and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.[29]
Factories and urbanization
Industrialisation led to the creation of the factory. Arguably the first was John Lombe's water-powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721. However, the rise of the factory came somewhat later when cotton spinning was mechanised.
The factory system was largely responsible for the rise of the modern city, as large numbers of workers migrated into the cities in search of employment in the factories. Nowhere was this better illustrated than the mills and associated industries of Manchester, nicknamed "Cottonopolis", and arguably the world's first industrial city. For much of the 19th century, production was done in small mills, which were typically water-powered and built to serve local needs. Later each factory would have its own steam engine and a chimney to give an efficient draft through its boiler.
The transition to industrialisation was not without difficulty. For example, a group of English workers known as Luddites formed to protest against industrialisation and sometimes sabotaged factories.
In other industries the transition to factory production was not so divisive. Some industrialists themselves tried to improve factory and living conditions for their workers. One of the earliest such reformers was Robert Owen, known for his pioneering efforts in improving conditions for workers at the New Lanark mills, and often regarded as one of the key thinkers of the early socialist movement.
By 1746, an integrated brass mill was working at Warmley near Bristol. Raw material went in at one end, was smelted into brass and was turned into pans, pins, wire, and other goods. Housing was provided for workers on site. Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton were other prominent early industrialists, who employed the factory system.
Child labour
The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chance of surviving childhood did not improve throughout the industrial revolution (although infant mortality rates were improved markedly).[30][31] There was still limited opportunity for education, and children were expected to work. Employers could pay a child less than an adult even though their productivity was comparable; there was no need for strength to operate an industrial machine, and since the industrial system was completely new there were no experienced adult labourers. This made child labour the labour of choice for manufacturing in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution between the 18th and 19th centuries.
Child labour had existed before the Industrial Revolution, but with the increase in population and education it became more visible. Before the passing of laws protecting children, many were forced to work in terrible conditions for much lower pay than their elders.
Reports were written detailing some of the abuses, particularly in the coal mines[32] and textile factories [33] and these helped to popularise the children's plight. The public outcry, especially among the upper and middle classes, helped stir change in the young workers' welfare.
Politicians and the government tried to limit child labour by law, but factory owners resisted; some felt that they were aiding the poor by giving their children money to buy food to avoid starvation, and others simply welcomed the cheap labour. In 1833 and 1844, the first general laws against child labour, the Factory Acts, were passed in England: Children younger than nine were not allowed to work, children were not permitted to work at night, and the work day of youth under the age of 18 was limited to twelve hours. Factory inspectors supervised the execution of the law. About ten years later, the employment of children and women in mining was forbidden. These laws decreased the number of child labourers; however, child labour remained in Europe up to the 20th century.
Housing
Living conditions during the Industrial Revolution varied from the splendour of the homes of the owners to the squalor of the lives of the workers. Cliffe Castle, Keighley, is a good example of how the newly rich chose to live. This is a large home modelled loosely on a castle with towers and garden walls. The home is very large and was surrounded by a massive garden, the Cliffe Castle is now open to the public as a museum.
Poor people lived in very small houses in cramped streets. These homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of damp. Disease was spread through a contaminated water supply. Conditions did improve during the 19th century as public health acts were introduced covering things such as sewage, hygiene and making some boundaries upon the construction of homes. Not everybody lived in homes like these. The Industrial Revolution created a larger middle class of professionals such as lawyers and doctors. The conditions for the poor improved over the course of the 19th century because of government and local plans which led to cities becoming cleaner places, but life had not been easy for the poor before industrialisation. However, as a result of the Revolution, huge numbers of the working class died due to diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions. Chest diseases from the mines, cholera from polluted water and typhoid were also extremely common, as was smallpox. Accidents in factories with child and female workers were regular. Dickens' novels perhaps best illustrate this; even some government officials were horrified by what they saw. Strikes and riots by workers were also relatively common.
Luddites
The rapid industrialisation of the English economy cost many craft workers their jobs. The textile industry in particular industrialised early, and many weavers found themselves suddenly unemployed since they could no longer compete with machines which only required relatively limited (and unskilled) labour to produce more cloth than a single weaver. Many such unemployed workers, weavers and others, turned their animosity towards the machines that had taken their jobs and began destroying factories and machinery. These attackers became known as Luddites, supposedly followers of Ned Ludd, a folklore figure. The first attacks of the Luddite movement began in 1811. The Luddites rapidly gained popularity, and the British government had to take drastic measures to protect industry.
Organisation of labour
The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, thus facilitating the organisation of combinations or trade unions to help advance the interests of working people. The power of a union could demand better terms by withdrawing all labour and causing a consequent cessation of production. Employers had to decide between giving in to the union demands at a cost to themselves or suffer the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were hard to replace, and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining.
The main method the unions used to effect change was strike action. Many strikes were painful events for both sides, the unions and the management. In England, the Combination Act forbade workers to form any kind of trade union from 1799 until its repeal in 1824. Even after this, unions were still severely restricted.
In the 1830s and 1840s the Chartist movement was the first large scale organised working class political movement which campaigned for political equality and social justice. Its Charter of reforms received over three million signatures but was rejected by Parliament without consideration.
Working people also formed friendly societies and co-operative societies as mutual support groups against times of economic hardship. Enlightened industrialists, such as Robert Owen also supported these organisations to improve the conditions of the working class.
Unions slowly overcame the legal restrictions on the right to strike. In 1842, a General Strike involving cotton workers and colliers was organised through the Chartist movement which stopped production across Great Britain.[34]
Eventually effective political organisation for working people was achieved through the trades unions who, after the extensions of the franchise in 1867 and 1885, began to support socialist political parties that later merged to became the British Labour Party.
Other effects
The application of steam power to the industrial processes of printing supported a massive expansion of newspaper and popular book publishing, which reinforced rising literacy and demands for mass political participation.
During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730 - 1749 to 31.8% in 1810 - 1829.[30] Also, there was a significant increase in worker wages during the period 1813-1913.[35][36][37]