The Spread of Industrialization
The New Factories
The factory was very important
to industrialization. Early on, factories were situated
near water and powered by mills. When new energy
sources were developed, however, factories could be
located in cities near workers.
This new industrial economy created an entirely
new labor system. Because factory owners wanted
their machines producing goods constantly, workers
were forced to work in shifts to keep the machines
going.
Early factory workers migrated from rural areas.
In the country, they were used to periods of hectic
work, followed by periods of rest. Factory owners
wanted workers to work without stopping. They disciplined workers to a system of regular hours and
repetitive tasks. Anyone who came to work late was
fined, or quickly dismissed for misconduct, especially for drunkenness. Child workers were often
beaten.
The pace of industrialization in Europe, the
United States, and Japan depended on many factors,
including government policy.
Reading Connection Are some groups more willing to
change than others? Read about the factors that help explain
why nations adapt to change at different speeds.
30 24.0
15
Population (in millions)
Population (in millions)
By the mid-nineteenth century, Great Britain, the
world’s first industrial nation, was also the richest. It
produced half the world’s output of coal and manufactured goods. Its cotton industry alone was equal
in size to the combined industries of all other European countries. Most of them were just beginning to
industrialize.
The Industrial Revolution spread to continental
Europe at different times and speeds. Countries with
more urban areas and a tradition of trade industrialReading Check Describing Why did employers feel
ized earlier. Belgium and France did not have all of
they needed to discipline factory workers?
Britain’s advantages, but both countries showed
significant industrial growth after 1830.
In the German states, it was another story.
Comparing Britain and the United States*
There was no single nation, but more than
Britain
United States
30 states, many very small. Instead of sell90
90
ing goods in a national market, manufac76.0
turers had to face multiple governmental
75
75
units and regulations.
60
60
In the early 1830s, Prussia, one of the
45
45
41.0
38.6
largest German states, took an important
31.0
0
1830
1870
30
15 12.9
0
1900
1830
210
180
150
120
90
60
30
0
1900
United States
.032
11.0
18.6
1830
1870
1900
Railroad Track
(in thousands of miles)
Railroad Track
(in thousands of miles)
Britain
1870
210
195.0
180
150
120
90
60
30
0
53.0
.023
1830
1870
1900
*As you compare, keep in mind the vast difference in area between
Britain and the United States. Britain (England, Scotland, Wales, and
Ireland) totals 94,548 square miles (244,879 sq km); the continental
United States, 3,717,796 square miles (9,629,091 sq km).
Britain was the leading industrial nation in the
early and mid-nineteenth century, but countries
such as the United States eventually surpassed
Britain in industrial production.
1. Comparing How did Britain’s population
growth, from 1830 to 1870 and 1870 to 1900,
compare to the United States’s growth? How
did Britain’s expansion in railroad tracks compare to that of the United States during the
same period?
2. Problem Solving Which country had the
highest percentage of railroad track miles in
comparison to total square miles in 1870?
In 1900?
CHAPTER 4
Industrialization and Nationalism
257
Industrialization of Europe by 1870
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Manufacturing and
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Major railways by 1870
Industry:
Coal mining
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step by creating a free trading zone. Industrialization
began, but it did not transform the economy until
1870 when Germany was united.
In Britain, a freer society, private entrepreneurs
took the lead. In France, Belgium, and the German
states, governments tended to be active in promoting
industrialization. Often governments funded roads,
canals, and railroads.
One of the most important facts in modern history
is that Western Europe and the United States industrialized first. They therefore had an immense advantage in becoming wealthy, powerful nations, nations
that soon dominated other parts of the world.
258
CHAPTER 4
Industrialization and Nationalism
The Industrial Revolution spread throughout nineteenthcentury Europe.
1. Interpreting Maps What was the predominant industry in the United Kingdom?
2. Applying Geography Skills What patterns do you
see in the distribution of the major industries? What
geographical factors could account for these patterns?
One Asian country, Japan, followed the Western
example. Japan had seen the importance of industrial
power in 1853. In that year, American admiral
Matthew Perry steered his steam-powered ship into
the Japanese harbor and demanded that Japan trade
with the United States. Many Asian countries hesitated to change their culture and adopt some Western
ways, but the new Japanese government of 1868
decided that it must copy Western technology to
become a strong nation.
In the United States, the pace of industrializing
was fairly quick, especially considering that Americans were also busy expanding across the continent.
In 1800, six of seven American workers were farmers,
and no city had more than 100,000 people. Between
1800 and 1860, the population of the United States
grew from about 5 million to 30 million. In the same
period, cities grew, too. Nine cities had populations
over 100,000, and now only half of Americans
worked as farmers.
Once the United States extended to the Pacific, a
national transportation system was vital. Thousands
of miles of roads and canals were built to link east and
west. Robert Fulton built the first paddle-wheel
steamboat, the Clermont, in 1807. By 1860, a thousand
steamboats plied the Mississippi River and made
transportation easier on the Great Lakes and along
the Atlantic coast. It was the railroad that really
brought the nation together. In 1830, there were fewer
than 100 miles of track (160.9 km). By 1860, about
30,000 miles of track (48,270 km) had been built.
In the early years, factory workers came from the
farms of the Northeast. Women and girls made up a
History
This English train of the mid-1840s shows early passenger travel. The first line to handle both passengers and
goods opened between Liverpool and Manchester in
1830. What does the style of the rail coaches remind
you of?
substantial majority of textile workers. Early capitalists even advertised for whole families. In Utica, New
York, one newspaper ran this ad: “Wanted: A few
sober and industrious families of at least five children each, over the age of eight years, are wanted at
the cotton factory in Whitestown. Widows with large
families would do well to attend this notice.”
Reading Check Evaluating Why was the railroad
important to the industrialization of the United States?
Social Impact in Europe
Industrialization urbanized Europe and created
new social classes, as well as the conditions for the rise of
socialism.
Reading Connection Do you know any entrepreneurs
who run their own businesses? Read about how early entrepreneurs contributed to the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution drastically changed the
societies of Europe and, eventually, the world. The
major signs of this change were the growth of cities and
the emergence of two new social classes, the industrial
middle class and the industrial working class.
Growth of Population and Cities In 1750, European population stood at an estimated 140 million.
By 1850, the population had almost doubled to 266
million. The key to this growth was a decline in death
CHAPTER 4
Industrialization and Nationalism
259
Lambert/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive
rates, wars, and diseases such as smallpox and
plague. Because of an increase in the food supply,
more people were better fed and resistant to disease.
Famine largely disappeared from Western Europe.
Cities and towns in Europe grew dramatically in the
first half of the 1800s. The growth was directly related
to industrialization. By 1850, especially in Great Britain
and Belgium, many factories were located in cities,
which now grew rapidly—factories were a magnet for
anyone looking for work.
In 1800, Great Britain had one major city, London,
with a population of 1 million, and six more cities
had populations of 50,000 to 100,000. Fifty years later,
London’s population had swelled to nearly 2,500,000.
Growth was seen all over Britain now—nine cities
had more than 100,000 residents, and 18 had populations between 50,000 and 100,000. By 1850, half of the
people were urban residents. This process of urbanization was going on in other European countries,
but it happened more quickly and more completely
in Britain than in many other countries.
History
A late-nineteenth-century photo shows housing conditions in England. Typically, houses backed up against
one another, creating narrow alleyways that did not
allow for a patch of grass. How did the Industrial
Revolution contribute to such scenes?
260
CHAPTER 4
Mary Evans Picture Library
Industrialization and Nationalism
Cities grew faster than the basic facilities like a
clean water supply and sewers. Thus industrial cities
bred dirt and disease as workers crowded into ramshackle housing. Upset by disease and human suffering, reformers called for government action, but their
pleas were not met until later in the century.
The Industrial Middle Class
Capitalism had
existed since the Middle Ages, when men with capital could invest in long-distance trade for profit. In
this period, industrial capitalism, an economic system based on manufacturing, took hold. With a new
kind of economy, a new social group emerged—the
industrial middle class.
In earlier times the term bourgeoisie, or middle
class, referred to burghers, or town dwellers. They
were merchants, artisans, professionals such as
lawyers or doctors, and government officials. The
bourgeoisie were not noble, but they were not poor.
Some were quite wealthy.
During the Industrial Revolution, a new group was
added to the middle class. The industrial middle class
were the men who built the factories, bought the
machines, and figured out where the markets were.
They had initiative, vision, ambition, and quite often,
greed. As one manufacturer put it, “Getting of money
. . . is the main business of the life of men.”
The Industrial Working Class
The Industrial Revolution also created a new kind of worker, the industrial worker. Industrial workers worked from 12 to 16
hours a day, six days a week, with only a half hour for
lunch and dinner. They had no minimum wage and
could be fired at a moment’s notice.
In the cotton mills, the heat was stifling. “In the
cotton-spinning work,” it was reported, “these creatures are kept, 14 hours in each day, locked up, summer and winter, in a heat of from 80 to 84 degrees.”
Dirt and dust filled the air, and machines operated
without safety codes for the workers.
Coal miners also faced harsh and dangerous conditions. Steam-powered engines could lift the coal
from the pits to the surface, but deep below ground,
miners had to dig out this “black gold” with sledges,
pick axes, and chisels. Horses, mules, women, and
children worked underground, too, hauling carts full
of coal on rails to the lift. Cave-ins, explosions, and
gas fumes (called “bad air”) were a way of life. The
cramped conditions in mines—tunnels were often
only three or four feet high—and their constant
dampness led to deformed bodies and ruined lungs.
As in the United States, women and children made
up a high percentage of workers in the cotton industry
—about two-thirds by 1830. Reformers condemned
the factories for enslaving children. The situation
improved after the Factory Act of 1833. It set 9 years
of age as the minimum for child labor, but children
between 9 and 13 could still work 9 hours a day, and
those between 13 and 18 years of age could work 12
hours.
As the number of working children declined, more
women were employed, and before 1870 they made
up half of the labor force in British textiles. Women
were mostly unskilled and were paid half or less than
half of what men received. Excessive working hours
for women were outlawed in 1844.
One reason women and children began by working such long hours in factories was that families
were accustomed to working together in cottage
industry. When laws limited working hours for
women and children, a new pattern began to be
established. Men would be expected to work outside
the home, while women took over running the home.
Women continued to add to family income by taking
low-paying jobs that could be done at home, such as
washing laundry or sewing.
Early Socialism
The transition to factory work was
not easy. Although workers’ lives eventually
improved, they suffered terribly during the early
decade of industrialization. Their family life was disrupted, they were separated from the countryside,
hours were long, and pay was low.
Some reformers opposed a capitalist system which
they saw as responsible for destroying people’s lives.
They advocated socialism. Socialism is an economic
system in which society, usually in the form of the
government, owns and controls important parts of
the economy, such as factories and utilities. In socialist theory, this public ownership of the means of production would allow wealth to be distributed more
equally to everyone.
Early socialists wanted to replace competition
with cooperation. They wrote books about the ideal
society that might be created, a hypothetical society
where workers could use their abilities and where
everyone would be cared for. Later socialists said that
these ideas were impractical dreams. Karl Marx contemptuously called earlier reformers of this group
utopian socialists. (He borrowed the term from
Utopia, a medieval work describing an ideal society
by Sir Thomas More.) To this day, we refer to the
early socialists in this way.
One utopian socialist was Robert Owen, a British
cotton manufacturer. Owen believed that if only people lived in a cooperative environment, they would
show their natural goodness. At New Lanark in Scotland, Owen transformed a squalid factory town into
a flourishing community. He created a similar community at New Harmony, Indiana, in the 1820s,
which failed. Not everyone was as committed to
sharing and caring as Owen himself, and New Harmony split up in the late 1820s.
Reading Check Describing How did socialists
respond to new and harsh working conditions?
HISTORY
For help with the concepts in this section of Glencoe World
History—Modern Times, go to wh.mt.glencoe.com and
click on Study Central.
Checking for Understanding
1. Vocabulary Define: dynamic, enclosure movement, capital, entrepreneur,
cottage industry, puddling, migrate,
industrial capitalism, socialism.
Critical Thinking
4.
Connecting
Ideas Analyze how the Industrial Revolution changed the way families lived
and worked. CA HI 1
2. People Identify: James Watt, Robert
Fulton.
5. Cause and Effect Use a diagram like
the one below to list the causes and
effects of the Industrial Revolution.
Reviewing Big Ideas
3. Describe the importance of the railroads in the growth of cities in Europe
and the United States.
Causes
Study Central
Effects
Industrial
Revolution
CHAPTER 4
Analyzing Visuals
6. Examine the picture of female textile
workers shown on page 255 of your
text. How does this picture reflect the
role that women played in the Industrial Revolution?
7. Informative Writing You are a
nineteenth-century journalist. Write
a brief article depicting the working
conditions in cotton mills and an
explanation of how mill owners
defend such conditions. CA WA2.3b
Industrialization and Nationalism
261