Definition: a process of change from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry...
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Transcript of Definition: a process of change from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry...
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Definition: a process of change from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture - it began in England in the 18th century and spread to other parts of the world
- the term was popularized by Arnold Toynbee to describe England’s economic development from 1760 to 1840
Main features: technological, socioeconomic and cultural
Technological changes: 1. the use of iron and steel, 2. the use of new energy sources
including both fuels and motive power such as coal, steam engine, electricity, petroleum, internal combustion engine
3.the invention of new machines: spinning jenny. The power loom – increased production
4.factory system – a new organization of work which lead to the division of labour
5.transportation and communication: steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, radio
6.application of science to industry Other developments: agricultural improvements, wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as source of
wealth in the face of the rising industrial production
Increased international trade Political changes – new state
policies Social changes: growth of the
cities, working class movements, the emergence of new patterns of authority
Cultural transformations Psychological change: man’s
confidence in his ability to use resources and master nature
1760-1830 - revolution confined to Britain
-the first country it went to was Belgium
Railroad systems – first to transport coal 1820; first commercial line Liverpool-Manchester 1830
Urbanization villages grew into cities: Manchester
A new work ethic promoted by the new middle-class: no idleness and frivolity
1820 – liberal agitation revived in Britain, France and the Low Countries
Liberals wanted stronger parliaments, wider protection of individual rights – the Reform Bill in 1832 – set the framework for additional liberal legislation Corn Laws – a series of statutes enacted between 1815 and 1845 – kept corn prices at a high level
Trade more than industry characterized the British economy
1842 – marks the victory against the Corn Law
1815-1832 After the Napoleonic wars there was
no longer need for factory-made goods and many people lost their jobs
Unemployment grew with 300,000 men from Britain’s army and navy
Because of the cheaper imported corn the landowners’ income went down and asked for a corn law – rose in he cost of bread
1830 starving farm workers in the South of England rioted
1834 a new poor law was intended but the government did not provide the necessary money
The workhouses were full and dirty The Whigs understood better than
the Toriesthe need to reform the law in order to improve social conditions
The Reform Bill – Scotland’s voters increased from 5, 000 to 65,000; England with 54% of British population had over 70% of MPs – it is a recognition that Britain had become an urban society
1824 the workers are allowed to join together in unions
1840 the introduction of cheaper postage system enabled them to organize themselves across the country far better than before
1838 – the Chartist Movement: rights for all adults, the right for a man without a property of his own to be a MP, voting in secret, payment for MPs, an election every year
Robert Peel the Prime Minister – weakened the Chartist movement, abolished the Corn Law in 1846
He established a regular police force for London in 1829, followed by all other towns in the following 30 years
Crime was pushed out of cities, towns, villages and country
Family life - stricter ideas of family life - people no longer married for
economic reasons - the return to authority exercised by
the head of the family Scotland – women were more
independent
Britain became powerful because it had enough coal, iron and steel and could even export them to other countries
It produced new heavy industrial goods, machinery for woolen and cotton cloth
Owned more than half of the world’s total shipping
The industrial empire was supported by a strong banking system
The railway – by 1840 – 2,400 miles of track had been laid, by 1870, it was almost complete
The Victorian Age
Great Britain was a powerful island nation, the center of the global empire that fostered British contact with a wide variety of other cultures
By the end of the 19th century – one quarter of the earth’s land surface was part of the British Empire. More than 400 million people were governed from Great Britain
Strongly connected to the nature and role of woman: Women’s political rights: suffrage –
petitions to Parliament advocating it were introduced as early as 1840s
To allow married women to own and handle their own property – culminated in the passing of the Married Women’s Property Acts (1870-1908)
The growth of the textiles industry brought hundreds of thousands of wome ninto factory jobs
The new kinds of labour and poverty that arouse with the Industrial Revolution - a challenge to traditional ideas of woman’s place
Florence Nightingale – famous for organizing a contingent of nurses to take care of sick and wounded soldiers during the Crimean War
Cultural Contexts
In the wake of the Napoleonic wars British political energies were redirected towards domestic issues
The empire had not become the focus of public attention
The growth of industrialization Exacerbated political unrest Offered new opportunities for workers Created stress
Displaced workers migrated to expanding industrial towns
1829 Parliament ratified “Catholic Emancipation” – removed the restrictions on the political rights of Catholics
1830 Reform Bill All these nurtured an unusual sense
of historical self-consciousness John Stuart Mill claimed it “a time of
change”
1830 Byron embodied aristocratic luxury and privilege which appeared I contemporary fiction Walter Scott
A new genre appeared “silver-fork” novels – preoccupation with the particulars of aristocratic opulence (often imaginary) – the central figure here is the dandy who incarnates a sardonic, detached elegance loosely derived from the model of Byron
Middle-class attacks on aristocracy deemed unworthy of its power were focused on antithetical developments of late 18th century thought: utilitarianism – thinker John Stuart Mill – argued that the morality of an action was to be gauged by its usefulness, utility
The second: Evangelicalism: insisted on the need of divine salvation that could be attained only through piety
They saw human life as an arena of constant moral struggle, resisting temptation and mastering desire
A great impact on legislation: spearheaded the abolition of the English slave trade and laws governing factory conditions
Self-discipline became a crucial engine of social progress and individual stature
But: schemes of economic and political progress threatened this order
The idea of woman: an angelic devotion to the needs of others, a moral influence on which refined those around her
The technological revolution had a profound effect on literature
1820 – the development of machine-made paper and the rotary steam reduced the cost of printing and monthly journals began to proliferate
Reading became politically charged Radical journalists pressed for
greater working-class political rights To regulate their writings Parliament
passed the Seditious Publication Act - tax on publication
Source of solidarity printing of poetry aligned with radicalism: Shelly’s Queen Mab”
19th Century Poets
The first reaction to the orderly and polished poetry of the 18th century was the first edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798) the sign of the beginning of the romantic age
The authors were the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge known as the Lake poets together with Southey
Wordsworth – love for nature, simple language,
returns to scenes in the past best sonnets: Westminster Bridge, an
emotional view of London asleep, and London, 1802
Coleridge - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an
old sailor describes strange misfortunes that happened on a ship
Christabel (1816) one of the most beautiful poems in English; Kubla Khan
George Gordon, Lord Byron - romantic poet - much influenced by the classical form
of Pope - work: Childe Harold, The Giaour, The
Bride of Abydos, Don Juan Percy Bysshe Shelley – - a greater poet of good family, rich and
restless - he struggled against the causes of
human misery, he saw goodness in the whole of nature and wanted all men to be free
Work: - Alastor , or The Spirit of Solitude,
Blank verse, Expresses joy in the universe and
sorrow for the violent feelings of men- The Revolt of Islam
- A cry at the cruelty of the world- Adonis – an elegy on the death of Keats
- -lyrics: The Cloud, To a Skylark, Ode to the West Wind