Study Guide for Emma Griffin’s Short History of the Industrial Revolution
Know the following Terms
Back-projection
Family reconstitution
Malthusian checks
Black Country
Total Factor Productivity
Norfolk Four Course Rotation
Gregory King
Joseph Massie
Patrick Colquhoun
Victorian
Newcomen Engine
Crompton’s Mule
Spinning Jenny
Jacquard Loom
Real wages
Introduction
How did the industrial revolution inaugurate “an extraordinary divergence from established parameters of past
experience?” (p. 2)
What does low caloric intake tell us about preindustrial people?
How do the supply-side explanations differ from the demand-side explanations for the industrial revolution?
Contrast the social and economic changes of the 1700s to the early 1800s.
Chapter 2: Counting Growth: Measuring the Economy
What were the two principal methods that Crafts used to recreate population trends prior to and during the
industrial revolution?
How are population trends related to industrialization?
Who won the debate about the pace of industrial growth, the gradualists or the take-off school?
Which industries witnessed the largest gains in productivity according to Crafts?
Why were tax-records a flawed source for measuring the growth of specific industries?
What sources did Lindert & Williamson use to compile their statistics of occupational structures?
How do occupational structures help us understand economic growth?
What problems did their methods and sources have?
What were the three central parts of Crafts findings that historians have come to accept?
Chapter 3: A Growing Population
What factors were most influential on British population trends during the 1700s?
What caused fertility to increase after 1740?
What sources and methods have historians used to calculate and explain population growth in Britain during the
1700s and 1800s?
Why was the census of 1871 vital for Wrigley and Schofield’s methodology?
What was the size of the Wrigley and Schofield back-projection sample? How did they select the sample?
How was their sample skewed?
How did Wrigley & Schofield verify their method?
What problems have critics leveled at the Cambridge Group’s family reconstitution figures?
What was the impact of urbanization in the 1700s and 1800s on mortality rates?
Chapter 4: A Mobile Population
What does the redistribution of population across Britain indicate during the early 1800s?
In what parts of Britain was the growth rate of towns and cities most pronounced between 1700 and 1850?
What was the principal cause of urban population increases between 1700 and 1850?
What factors increased agricultural production between 1700 and 1850?
Chapter 5: Worlds of Work
How did Lindert and Williamson use burial records to correct occupational structure statistics provided by Gergory
King?
How did Kussmail use the timing of marriages to analyze occupational structures?
What sorts of sources have historians used to analyze occupational structures during the 1700s?
How did the occupational structure from the period 1750-1815 differ from the one during 1815-1865?
Chapter 6: The Mechanical Age
Which instruments improved the efficiency of the spinning process?
What was the approximate rate of growth for cotton imports in Great Britain between 1772 and 1840?
How did Cort’s puddling and rolling process revolutionize iron manufacturing?
Why was cheap wrought iron such a transformative product?
Based on the most recent research, what was the impact of the steam engine prior to 1830?
Which branches of metalworking experienced rapid growth without “ground-breaking macro-inventions?” (p.101)
Chapter 7: Coal: The Key to British Industrialization?
Why is technology insufficient to explain the industrial revolution?
How did the population influence the living standard in the so-called organic economy?
How did coal mines save the Britons “several million acres of land.” (p 108)
How was the organic economy traditionally related to the land/labor ratio?
What industries fueled the growth of Britain’s coal industry during the late 1700s and early 1800s?
How did coal improve the quality of iron produced?
Chapter 8: Why was Britain First?
Know the basic outlines and defining features of industrialization in Britain, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, China,
and India.
Chapter 9: Winners and Losers
What factors are used to calculate real wages?
How did real wages change during the 1700s?
What explanations are typically used to explain the divergent rates of change between real wages and GDP during
the 1800s?
What is the main factor for disagreement over real wage rates during the 1800s?