The Industrial Revolution    

‘The Industrial Revolution’

Braidot, Agostina

Mores, Evangelina

Instituto Superior de Profesorado n° 4 ‘Ángel Cárcano’

E.D.I. – Social Studies III

Ms Maggio

July 1st, 2010

Introduction

A series of revolutions may be well considered to be the precursors to the Industrial Revolution. Optimum conditions were provided by crucial advances and developments in agriculture, technology and transportation for England to become the first industrialised country.

Enormous, far-reaching changes characterised this epoch, in which the city life, the social structure and the economy of a country were profoundly transformed and England would never be the same. Well was it named a Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution

Causes

Certainly, the Industrial Revolution marked a before and after in the manufacture of goods in England. Aylett (1985) states that in the first decades of the eighteenth century, families would make goods in their own homes or cottages. This is why this production process was called domestic system or cottage industry.

The most important one was the cloth industry. However, as both the cloth British export and the internal market were increasing at the same pace as the population, the domestic system began to prove insufficient to cater for the burgeoning demand. The negative aspect of the cottage industry was that it was time-consuming and ineffective. Therefore, there was a need to boost the production, thus a series of devices was developed for large-scale manufacturing. Notwithstanding the fact that the early inventions were machines to be used in the cloth industry, it would not take long to spread to the rest of the industries, ergo marking the start of the factory system.

Moreover, the aforesaid population growth was another major cause of the Industrial Revolution. According to Richards and Hunt (1950), the more people there were, the stronger the need to supply them with manufactured goods.

Montagna (2010) accounts for the key whys and wherefores of such an enlargement of population. Firstly, there was an increase in life expectancy and in the number of births as well. Furthermore, most of serious diseases were practically eradicated, in addition to a more significant amount of food at people’s disposal, hence a healthier life.

It is worth mentioning that a circle began, since the population continued to grow together with the industry. The latter would give larger remunerations to the workers than what they could expect to earn in the villages. As a result, people would marry and have children at a younger age. What is more, the new factories supplied the populace with enhanced garments and houses.

Schultz (1968) emphasises that “important was the significant growth of population in England after 1740 through improved midwifery, medicine, and foundling hospitals. The expanding population reduced the labor shortage, expanded the home markets, and from 1720 to 1760 helped British exports to double in value” (p. 205).

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An additional reason which influenced the Industrial Revolution to happen was the scientific advances. As reported by Richards and Hunt (1950), it was thanks to a stable and favourable environment that science could develop. Seeing that, since the seventeenth century, thoughts and actions were no longer under the Church’s sway, the English scientific thought and knowledge were able to broaden. By way of illustration, it was in 1662, during the reign of Charles II, that the Royal Society was founded.

Evidently, the scientific progress is to be held accountable for the building of machines that led to the revolution. One ...

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