Why europe industrialized

The industrial revolution in Europe didn't happen overnight but only spread over the continent very gradually. One of the triggers was the unusually high growth in the population which set in around the middle of the 18th century and produced a gigantic reservoir of workers. At the same time new, more efficient methods of production became necessary in order to supply the basic needs of so many people.

In this situation Great Britain enjoyed two important advantages: an extremely productive and wealthy agricultural system, and an astonishing number of creative inventors. This was why the United Kingdom dictated the rhythm of progress to the rest of Europe from onwards for the next century or so.

The first spinning frames were created on the British Isles. These were followed by mechanical weaving looms, and it was not long before textile factories were shooting out of the ground. At the same time a boom in the iron industry broke out. As soon as people discovered how to turn coal into coke iron manufacturers had excellent, almost unlimited reserves of fuel at their disposal with which to process iron ore.

Once steam engines were introduced to heat the furnace ovens more quickly and effectively, the skylines in the coal regions were quickly covered in colliery towers and the chimney stacks of iron works.

Workers poured into the new industrial centres and in a few years villages exploded into major cities: here the masses were forced to live under appalling conditions in crowded slums and damp cellars. Working hours were around 14 hours a day and the workers were slaves to the rhythm of the machines. Women were expected to work just as hard for less pay, especially in the collieries and textile factories. Children too were unscrupulously exploited.

The workers lived in constant fear of unemployment and hunger. Their desperation often exploded into bloody acts of rebellion. Machine-breakers tried in vain to put a brake on developments, but the new inventions fitted together like cogs in a wheel.

Improved steel production led to more rails with which to transport steel steam locomotives drawing wagons full of coke and steel. France was a major industrial competitor on an equal level with Great Britain. As early as the 18th century, supplies of cotton to the textile factories rose five times as quickly as in the British Isles.

French manufacturers concentrated on finished products. These were often luxury goods like woven silk, china and leather goods. Such traditional trades were the first to be mechanised and this explains why the first major strikes happened in the silk-processing industries. Skilled workers in Lyons took industrial action in the s to force the introduction of minimum wages.

Since France has relatively few resources of coal and iron, collieries and ironworks only began to appear in the middle of the 19th century to cater for the growing railway industry. Slowly but surely the focus of employment began to switch from the agrarian sector to industrial production. The industrial revolution in Europe had very different features. Belgium, one of the first industrialised countries, was able to draw on rich resources of iron ore and coal and a strong tradition of textile manufacturing.

Though many people in Britain had begun moving to the cities from rural areas before the Industrial Revolution, this process accelerated dramatically with industrialization, as the rise of large factories turned smaller towns into major cities over the span of decades. This rapid urbanization brought significant challenges, as overcrowded cities suffered from pollution, inadequate sanitation and a lack of clean drinking water.

Meanwhile, even as industrialization increased economic output overall and improved the standard of living for the middle and upper classes, poor and working class people continued to struggle. The mechanization of labor created by technological innovation had made working in factories increasingly tedious and sometimes dangerous , and many workers were forced to work long hours for pitifully low wages. In the decades to come, outrage over substandard working and living conditions would fuel the formation of labor unions , as well as the passage of new child labor laws and public health regulations in both Britain and the United States, all aimed at improving life for working class and poor citizens who had been negatively impacted by industrialization.

The beginning of industrialization in the United States is usually pegged to the opening of a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in by the recent English immigrant Samuel Slater. By the end of the 19th century, with the so-called Second Industrial Revolution underway, the United States would also transition from a largely agrarian society to an increasingly urbanized one, with all the attendant problems.

By the early 20th century, the U. Historians continue to debate many aspects of industrialization, including its exact timeline, why it began in Britain as opposed to other parts of the world and the idea that it was actually more of a gradual evolution than a revolution.

The positives and negatives of the Industrial Revolution are complex. On one hand, unsafe working conditions were rife and pollution from coal and gas are legacies we still struggle with today. On the other, the move to cities and inventions that made clothing, communication and transportation more affordable and accessible to the masses changed the course of world history. Regardless of these questions, the Industrial Revolution had a transformative economic, social and cultural impact, and played an integral role in laying the foundations for modern society.

Start your free trial today. Robert C. Oxford: Oxford University Press, New York: Random House, New York: Grove Press, But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The Industrial Revolution, which began roughly in the second half of the s and stretched into the early s, was a period of enormous change in Europe and America.

The invention of new technologies, from mechanized looms for weaving cloth and the steam-powered locomotive to Technology has changed the world in many ways, but perhaps no period introduced more changes than the Second Industrial Revolution. Child labor, or the use of children as servants and apprentices, has been practiced throughout most of human history, but reached a zenith during the Industrial Revolution.

Miserable working conditions including crowded and unclean factories, a lack of safety codes or The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child The Industrial Revolution brought not only new job opportunities but new laborers to the workforce: children.

By , at least six percent of all American workers were under the age of For employers of the era, children were seen as appealing workers since they could be The 19th century was a period of great change and rapid industrialization. The iron and steel industry spawned new construction materials, the railroads connected the country and the discovery of oil provided a new source of fuel. The discovery of the Spindletop geyser in The Second Industrial Revolution, which lasted from the late s to the early s, saw a surge of new technology and inventions that led to dramatic changes in the economy and how people lived and worked in Europe, Great Britain and especially the United States.

Steel mills, Long before the United States began accusing other countries of stealing ideas, the U. The Russian Revolution of was one of the most explosive political events of the twentieth century.