Susan Edson
1
THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
Escrito por:
Susan Edson
Dirigido por:
D. Juan Carlos Palmer
Trabajo presentado para la obtención del
Titulo Universitario Senior
Universitat Jaume I
Castellón, mayo 2005
2
Indice:
I.
General Concept………………………………..…… 4
1. First industrial revolution
2. Second industrial revolution
3. Modernization
II. Europe……………………………………………….. 9
1. England
2. Scotland
3. Rest of Europe
III. U.S.A………………………………………………... 17
1. The growth of U.S. industry.
2.Organization of industrial relations.
3.Agriculture.
IV. Developments and innovations……………………… 24
1. Colonialism
2. Apprenticeship
3. Science and technology
4. Machine tools
5. Textiles
6. Steam engines
7. Locomotives and Steamboats
8. The Electric Telegraph
9. Architecture
10. Rubber
11. Lighting
12. Time
V. Conclusions………………………………………...
42
VI. Bibliography………………………………………… 44
3
I. General Concept
1. The First Industrial Revolution
Between 1760 and 1830 the Industrial Revolution was mainly confined to
Britain. Being aware of its head start on other countries, Britain forbade the
export of machinery, skilled workers and manufacturing techniques. This
could not last, as many Britons saw profitable industrial opportunities
abroad and continental European businessmen were keen to lure British
know-how to their countries. Belgium became the first country in
continental Europe to be transformed economically, having machine shops
set up in Liège (c.1807) by two Englishmen, William and John Cockerill.
Like Britain, the Belgian Industrial Revolution centred on iron, coal and
textiles.
The industrialization of France was slower and less thorough than that of
Britain and Belgium. At the time that Britain was establishing her
industrial leadership, France was immersed in its Revolution, the uncertain
political situation discouraging investments in industrial innovations. By
1848 France, now an industrial power, was still behind England, despite
great growth under the Second Empire.
Other European countries were far behind. These countries lacked the
wealth, power and opportunities of the French, British and Belgians. In
other nations industrial expansion was held back by political conditions.
Germany, for example did not begin its industrial expansion until after
national unity in 1870, despite vast resources of coal and iron. Once begun,
Germany’s industrial production grew so rapidly that by the turn of the
century they were producing more steel than Britain and led the world in
the chemical industries. The rise of U.S. industrial power in the 19th and
20th centuries left the Europeans way behind. The Japanese too joined the
Industrial Revolution with great success.
The eastern European countries were even further behind in the 20th
century. The Soviet Union became a major industrial power after the fiveyear plans, condensing into a few decades the industrialization that had
taken Britain a century and a half. In the mid 20th century the Industrial
revolution spread to countries such as China and India.
4
2. The Second Industrial Revolution
Despite overlapping with the “old”, there was evidence of a “new”
Industrial Revolution in the late 19th and 20th centuries. As far as basic
materials were concerned, modern industry had begun to exploit many
natural and synthetic resources not used before: lighter metals, new alloys
and synthetic products such as plastics, as well as new energy sources.
There had also been great developments in machines, tools and computers,
giving rise to automatic factories. By the mid-19th century some sectors of
industry were almost completely mechanized, but automatic operation, not
to be confused with the assembly line, did not become significant until the
second half of the 20th century.
The ownership of factories and businesses by small groups of people,
which was characteristic of the means of production in the early mid-19th
century gave way to ownership through the purchase of common stocks by
individuals and institutions such as insurance companies. In the 20th
century, many European countries socialised basic sectors of their
economies. Political theories also changed: governments moved into social
and economic areas to meet the needs of their more complex industrial
societies.
5
3. Modernization
The Renaissance and Reformation set the west on a different path from that
of the rest of the world, with two main patterns of development:
individualism, in the end, the secularism that was the Protestant legacy and
the rise of science as a method and as a practice. Both of these lead to
important events towards the end of the 18th century. The first helped to
provoke political revolutions in America and France. The second created
an atmosphere conducive to technological innovation, which was one of
the chief elements in the emergence of the Industrial Revolution in Great
Britain.
The American and French revolutions established the political character of
modern society as constitutional and democratic.
This does not mean that from then on every government was of such
character, but even those that were not claimed to be. From the time of
those revolutions it became clear that no political system could claim
legitimacy if it wasn’t in some way based on “the will of the people,”
constitutionally expressed. The French aristocrat Alexis Tocqueville wrote
brilliantly about these principles in his works, The Ancien Régime and the
Revolution (1856) and Democracy in America (1835-1840).
Popular or constitutional dictatorships such as those of Napoleon III in
France and Adolf Hitler in Germany claimed to be democratic which
shows how central the double idea of democracy and constitutional
justification had become. But they were not infinitely malleable. Lots of
old-fashioned monarchies and empires fell before the march of modern
democratic theory. In the United Kingdom democracy was gained through
a gradual extension of the franchise in the 19th century. Autocratic
intransigence was overcome in Russia and in eastern and central Europe by
violent revolution, defeat in war and nationalist tendencies.
By whatever means it has been accomplished – the democratic
constitutional state has come to be accepted as in principle the only fully
legitimate polity in modern society. States where democracy does not
exist, for instance, in communist states or military dictatorships, feel
compelled to justify their conduct, pleading special or emergency
conditions, with a professed goal of democracy, sometime in the near
future.
The American Revolution added another aspect to the political form of
modern society. It asserted the principle of self-determination. The only
states which were legitimate were those in which people of a common
6
culture ruled for themselves a common territory. “National selfdetermination” became one of the most powerful catchphrases of the
liberal and radical ideologies that largely shaped the modern states of the
19th and 20th centuries.
This self-determination was extremely difficult to achieve in eastern and
central Europe where the question of whose nationality should be the basis
of the state divided ethnic groups bitterly and it became a powerful factor
in the dissolution of Europe’s overseas empires.
If the American and French revolutions laid down the political pattern of
the modern world, the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain laid down the
economic pattern. Great Britain was the pioneer industrial nation of the
world and the changes which took place there during the 19th century
became almost a prototype of industrialization. Other countries who chose
to industrialize copied Great Britain: there was simply no other model.
Certain tendencies in the British case were characteristic of industrial
development. These included the movement from rural areas to cities, the
massing of workers in the new
industrial towns and factories and
the rise of distinctions between
family life and work life, and
between work and leisure as
notions with a meaning for large
classes of people. Industrialization
brought about a whole new social
system and way of life.
At the time some English
novelists, such as Charles Dickens
and Elizabeth Gaskell wrote about
urban and industrial life in Britain.
Foreigners such as Alexis
Tocqueville, Friedrich Engels and
Karl Marx observed and reflected
the changes they saw in England
in a systematic analysis of the new
society. They were convinced that what was happening in Britain would be
repeated in other societies as they underwent industrialization. In works
such as Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
(1845), and Karl Marx’s Das Kapital (1867-1894), British experience was
7
examined for the light it shed on the general process of industrialization
and for what it suggested of future developments, there and elsewhere.
One consequence of the tendency to generalize the British experience itself
grew in scope and significance. It came to symbolize not just the economic
and technical changes, but other political, social and cultural changes that
were connected with it, whether as causes or consequences. Thus, the
democratic movement triggered by the American and French revolutions
was seen as the necessary political transformation that was needed in all
movement towards an industrial society. Changes in urban life, in family
form, in individual and social values, and in intellectual outlook, were all
seen as linked to industrialism. Industrial society came to stand as the best
example of modern society. Looking back, earlier developments, such as
Protestant Individualism and the scientific revolution came to be seen as
preconditions of industrialism. Industrialism, it came to be agreed, was a
package which incorporated lots of elements which all came together.
8
II. Europe
1. England
Can the term Industrial Revolution be applied to the economic
transformation of the late 18th-and early 19th century Britain? In terms of
employment, the industrial sector may not have overtaken the agricultural
sector until the 1850s and even the average unit of production employed
only ten people. Large, anonymous factories did not become common until
the late 19th century. Historians have argued, rightly, that industry did not
suddenly start to develop in the 1780s and that even in 1700 Britain was
more industrialized than its European competitors. But the available
evidence shows that by 1800 Britain was by far the most industrialized
state in the world and that, because of this, the rate of economic growth
must have accelerated in the last third of the 18th century.
Britain was able to sustain unprecedented growth in its population from
1780 onward, without suffering from major famines or acute
unemployment. In 1770 the population was about 8.3 million. By 1790 it
had reached 9.7 million; by 1811, 12.1 million; and by 1821, 14.2 million.
By the latter date, it is estimated that 60 percent of Britain’s population
was 25 year of age or under. By comparison, in Ireland, with a similar
demographic growth, there was no Irish Industrial Revolution. Partly as a
result of this, Ireland suffered the great famine of the 1840s, whereas there
was no similar famine in Britain.
Early industrialization,
undeniably, had its dark side.
Working conditions were
often brutal, particularly for
the young. Industrial safety
was minimal and unguarded
machines led to horrific
injuries. Mechanization
ruined the livelihoods of some
skilled craftsmen, most
notably the handloom
weavers. However, without
Industrialization the social
costs of rapid population
growth in Britain would probably have been far greater.
9
Although it is difficult to account for Britain’s early industrialization, some
facts stand out. Britain, unlike its most important rival, France, was a
small, compact island. It had no major forests or mountains to impede its
internal communications, except in northern Scotland. Britain had lots of
natural ports facing the Atlantic, plenty of coastal shipping, and a good
system of internal waterways. By the 1760s there were already 1,000 miles
of canals in Britain; 3,000 more miles were constructed over the next 70
years. Britain also had large reserves of coal and iron ore, and these
minerals were often located close together in counties such as
Staffordshire, Northumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Canal transport
It was very important that Britain had an ample supply of customers for its
goods, both at home and overseas. Its colonies provided it with raw
materials while also serving as captive customers. And the expanding
population meant that there was great demand at home even in wartime,
when foreign trade was disrupted. The best illustration of these advantages
is the cotton industry. Britain’s Indian settlements supplied her with everincreasing amounts of raw cotton, and annual cloth production increased
from 50,000 pieces of cloth in 1770 to 400,000 pieces in 1880. A lot of this
cloth was consumed by the home market. It has been argued that the
increased wearing of cotton (which could be easily washed) unlike woollen
clothes (which could not) improved health conditions, thus contributing to
Britain’s population expansion.
10
2. Scotland
The Scottish Industrial Revolution was in full swing from the 1820s. At
this time there was a dramatic increase in population. In 1700 there were
perhaps one million people in Scotland, by 1800 there were more than 1.5
million and by 1900 nearly 4.5 million. The greatest increases were in the
manufacturing towns. Hundreds of thousands of Irish emigrants went to
Scotland in 19th century, notably during the Irish potato famine of 18461850. There was a decrease in population in some country areas as people
moved to the towns, to England or overseas. Part of the increase in
population was due to improved medical care which had lessened
epidemic diseases in the mid-19th century. The food for this increased
population was supplied by progressive Scottish agriculture. Farming in
the southeast was celebrated for its efficiency in the early 19th century, and
the northeast became famous for its beef cattle and Ayrshire for its milking
herds.
But the key advance was in heavy industry, which, from about 1830, took
a lead over textiles, at a time when industry had replaced agriculture as the
nation’s chief concern. The production of coal and iron rose, with James
Beaumont Nelson’s hot-blast process (1828) making Scottish ores cheaper
to work. Major canals, such as the Forth and Clyde, completed in 1790
were very important for transport before being made redundant by the
railways, of which the Glasgow-toGarnkirk (1831) was noteworthy for
using steam locomotives (instead of
horses) from the start. Above all
Scotland was made famous for the
building of ships, mainly on
Clydeside. Robert Napier was the
greatest of many great Scots marine
engineers.
Horse-drawn train
Steam engine
11
3. Rest of Europe
The development of modern Europe between the1780s and 1849 was
strengthened by an unprecedented transformation that included the first
stages of the great Industrial Revolution and even more general expansion
of commercial activity. Europeans were initially more impressed by the
political news generated by the French Revolution and ensuing Napoleonic
Wars, but really the economic upheaval, which related to political and
diplomatic trends, has proved to be more fundamental.
Major economic growth was encouraged by western Europe’s tremendous
population growth during the late 18th century, extending well into the
19th century. Between 1750 and 1800, the populations of major countries
increased by 50 to 100 percent, mainly as a result of new food crops (such
as the potato) and a decline in epidemic disease. The increase in surviving
children in peasant and artisan families made it necessary for them to seek
new forms of paying labour.
Growth in commercialisation showed in a number of areas. Energetic
peasants increased their landholdings, often at the expense of their
neighbours, which increased the number of poor, near-property-less
people. The peasants produced food for sale in the growing urban markets.
Domestic manufacturing soared, as hundreds of thousands of rural
producers worked full or part-time to make thread, cloth, nails and tools
under the sponsorship of urban merchants and craft workers in the cities
started to produce goods for overseas. Europe’s social structure changed
towards a basic division, both rural and urban, between owners and nonowners. Production expanded, leading by the end of the 18th century to a
first wave of consumerism as rural wage earners began to buy new kinds of
commercially produced clothing. At the same time urban middle-class
families bought such things as books and educational toys for their
children.
In this way an outright industrial revolution took shape, led by Britain,
which remained the leader in industrialization until well past the middle of
the 19th century. In 1840 British steam engines were generating 620,000
horsepower out of a European total of 860,000. Even so, though delayed
by the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, many western European
nations soon caught up, so that by 1860 British steam-generated
horsepower made up less than half the European total, with France,
Germany and Belgium gaining ground rapidly. By 1820, with governments
and private concerns imitating British technologies, there was an intense
industrial revolution taking shape in many parts of western Europe,
12
particularly in coal-rich regions such as Belgium, northern France and the
Ruhr area of Germany. In 1825 Germany produced just 40,000 tons of pig
iron, increasing to 150,000 tons a decade later and reaching 250,000 tons
by the early 1850s. French coal and iron output doubled in the same
amount of time.
Technological changes soon affected other areas. The increase in
production made more demands on the transportation system to move raw
materials and finished products. The answer was massive road and canal
building and also the use of steam engines. Soon after 1800 steam ships
were used on major waterways and by the 1840s in oceanic transport.
Railroad systems, which were first developed to haul coal from mines,
were developed for intercity transport during the 1820s; the first
commercial line was opened between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830.
During the 1830s local rail networks grew in most western European
countries, with national systems being completed by about 1870. The
invention of the telegraph speeded up communications, allowing faster
exchange of news and commercial information than ever before.
New organization of business and labour was linked to the new
technologies. Workers in the industrialized sectors worked in factories
instead of in scattered shops or homes. Steam and water power required
factories and the labour force to be near the power source. Concentration
of labour also allowed new discipline and specialization, which increased
productivity.
The new machinery was expensive and substantial capital had to be
accumulated, through partnerships, loans from banks, or joint ventures, to
set up even modest factories. Although small firms still predominated, a
tendency towards expansion of the business unit was already noticeable.
Commerce was affected in similar ways; new forms were developed to
dispose of growing levels of production. Small shops replaced peddlers in
villages and small towns. In Paris, the department store, introduced in the
1930s, lead to an age of big business in the trading sector.
Urbanization was a vital result of growing commercialisation and new
industrial technology. Factory centres such as Manchester grew from
villages into cities in a few decades. The percentage of the population
located in cities increased steadily , and big cities displaced the more
scattered centres in urban western Europe. The rapid growth of new cities
produced new hardships, as housing and sanitary facilities could not keep
pace, although improvements were made. Gas lighting of the streets in the
better neighbourhoods from the 1830s onward, improved street conditions
13
and sanitary reformers pressed for underground sewage systems at about
this time. The better-off lived in suburban areas, thus escaping the miseries
of urban life.
Rural life changed less dramatically. Technological revolution did not
occur in the countryside until after the 1850s. However, factory-made tools
were widely used before this time, creating a substantial improvement in
productivity. Larger estates introduced new equipment, such as seed drills
for planting. Crop rotation was introduced, involving the use of nitrogenfixing plants (for example turnips), instead of the age-old practice of
leaving some land fallow. Better seeds and livestock and, from the 1830s,
chemical fertilizers improved yields too. The increase in agricultural
production was very important to the growth of cities and factories.
By 1850, in Britain, still the leader in the Industrial Revolution, only half
the total population lived in cities, with Europe way behind. There were
still as many urban craft producers as there were factory hands. In other
words, traditional economic centres did not disappear and even expanded
because of more need for housing construction and food production.
Geographic differences complicated matters too. From the 1840s, great
progress was made by many of the German states and Belgium, which
brought them steadily closer to British levels. France, which was poorer in
coal, concentrated more on increasing production in craft sectors,
converting furniture making, for example, from an artistic endeavour to
standardized output, and, eventually factory produced goods. Scandinavia
and The Netherlands did not join industrialization until after 1850.
Russian Peasants
14
Southern and eastern Europe, while importing a few model factories and
laying some local railway lines, had different economic tendencies. City
growth and technological change were both modest until much later in the
19th century, except for pockets of northern Italy and northern Spain.
Western Europe’s industrialization made its greatest impact in eastern
areas by encouraging a growing conversion to market agriculture, as
Russia, Poland and Hungary responded to the need for grain, particularly
in the British Isles. As in eastern Prussia, an increase in the work
requirements was put on peasant serfs working on large estates, to meet
export possibilities without fundamental technical changes and without
challenging the power of the landlords.
15
4. Agriculture
Europe was the first of the major world regions to develop a modern
economy based on commercial agriculture and industrial development. Its
successful modernization is due to rich economic resources, its history of
innovations, the evolution of a skilled and educated workforce and the ease
of interconnections – both natural and man-made – which made it easy to
move massive quantities of raw materials and finished goods.
Europe’s economic modernization began with a marked improvement in
agricultural output in the 17th century, particularly in England. The
traditional method of leaving land fallow was replaced by continuous
cropping on fields fertilized with the manure of animals which were raised
for food for the rapidly expanding urban markets. The wealth accumulated
by the landowners and abundant cheap labour fuelled the development of
the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.
During the 18th century towns and cities ever increasing, needed more and
more food. At the same time the British aristocratic taste for improving
their estates and decorative country houses transformed the traditional
agricultural system. This was a essentially a British development, an
indication of the pressures of industrialization even before the Industrial
Revolution. Other European countries, with the exception of the
Netherlands, from which several agricultural innovations were acquired by
the British, did little to encourage agricultural productivity. The
transformation was complex and not completed until well into the 19th
century. It consisted partly of a legal reallocation of land ownership, the
“enclosure” movement, to make farms more compact and economical to
operate. Land owners were encouraged to invest money in their estates
instead of just drawing rents from them. This money was used for technical
improvements, in the form of machinery – such as Jethro Tull’s
mechanical sower – better drainage, scientific methods of breeding to raise
the quality of livestock and experimenting with the new crops and systems
of crop rotation. This process has been described as an agricultural
revolution, but it was really a prelude to and part of the Industrial
Revolution.
16
III. U.S.A.
1. The growth of U.S. industry
By 1878 the U.S. had entered a period of prosperity after a long
depression. In the following 20 years the number of workers,
manufacturing plants and the volume of industrial production all more than
doubled. The aggregate annual value of all manufactured goods increased
from about $5,400,000,000 in 1879 to some $13,000,000,000 in 1899.The
expansion of the iron and steel industry, of great importance in any
industrial economy, was even more impressive; from 1880-1900 the
production of steel in the U.S. went from 1,400,000 tons to 11,000,000
tons. Before the end of the century the U.S. overtook Great Britain in the
production of iron and steel and provided more than one quarter of the
world’s supply of pig iron.
Many factors combined to produce this great industrial activity. The
resources of Western states were exploited, including mines and timber,
stimulating a demand for improved transportation, and the gold and silver
mines provided capital for investment in the East. The new railroads,
mainly in the West and South, caused a demand for more steel rails and
was a major force in the expansion of the steel industry. Railroad mileage
in the U.S. increased from 93,262 miles (150,151 kilometres) in 1880 to
about 190,000 miles (310,000 kilometres) in 1900. New techniques in the
production of steel, such as the Bessemer and open-hearth processes
resulted in improved products and lower production costs. Many major
inventions, including the telephone, typewriters, electric light, automobile,
etc., became the basis of new industries with many of them revolutionizing
the conduct of business. The use of petroleum products in industry, as well
as for domestic heating and lighting, became the cornerstone of the most
powerful of the new industries of the period. The corporate form of
business was widely used, offering new opportunities for large-scale
financing of business enterprise, which attracted new capital, much of it
from overseas investors. The best known businessmen of this era were
J. D. Rockefeller, in oil, Andrew Carnegie, in steel, and such road builders
and promoters as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford and James J. Hill.
17
2. Organization of industrial relations
Classical economists treated workers as an instrument of production,
subject to the same economic laws of supply and demand as raw materials
and finished goods. In the 1890s, Frederick W. Taylor and an American
industrial engineer devised a system of “scientific management”. Taylor
used time and motion studies to analyse jobs by timing each task and
movement. From these studies Taylor derived the most efficient way to
organise his factories, but he did not consider how workers could be
encouraged to work together more efficiently.
With the success
of Henry Ford’s
Model T, of
which more than
15,000,000 were
built between the
first in 1908 and
the last in 1927,
the company had
to solve the
problem of how
to produce the
car in large
numbers and at a
low cost.
Ford T (1917)
In 1913 Ford displayed to the world the first complete mass production
assembly-line for motor vehicles.
The technique consisted of two basic elements: a conveyor system and the
limitation of each worker to a single repetitive task. Although it was simple
the technique needed elaborate planning and synchronization.
The first assembly line permitted very minor variations to the basic model,
a limitation compensated by the low cost.
In the late 1920s, Elton Mayo studied productivity at the Western
Electrical Company. Mayo hoped to discover optimum lighting levels and
timings of rest periods, but he found that any group he tested improved its
productivity merely because it had been chosen for an experiment.
18
Although the conclusion was challenged, it marked the beginning of the
systematic study of industrial relations, noting that workers respond to
psycho-social, as well as economic stimuli.
As the Industrial Revolution brought large groups of workers together,
frequently in unpleasant circumstances, managers and foremen became
increasingly necessary to discipline and coordinate the workers and a
variety of management strategies evolved.
A foundry
There are two major schools of management styles, laissez-faire and
paternal. With the former the management feels no obligation to its
employees outside the workplace, aiming only at profit. The paternal style
of management, however, assumes that they have obligations to their
workers outside the workplace and to the community.
Workers are motivated by factors other than wages. Incentive systems,
which adjust pay according to production, make workers perform much
better.
19
May Day Parade (Organised by unions)
The relations between managers of different divisions of a firm and the
relations of managers with their superiors are as complex as those between
managers and workers. Relations between managers and trade (labour)
unions involve both conflict and cooperation with the unions demanding
better pay scales and working conditions for their members.
Each individual firm’s style of management is determined by the nature of
the industry as a whole; profitability, competitive situation, the
personalities of its senior managers and the characteristics of the firm’s
home country or region.
20
3. Agriculture
Since the founding of Virginia in 1607 agriculture was the most important
activity in the U.S. until about 1890. In the 20th century U.S. agriculture
declined rapidly in relative economic importance, but still continued to be
the most efficient and productive in the world, its success resting on
abundant fertile soil, moderate climate, growing markets at home and
abroad and the application of science and technology to farming.
The first settlers had to grow crops which were new to them as European
agriculture could not be easily adapted to the new environment. Each area
grew different crops according to climate, producing enough for itself and
some left over for sale. Virginia grew tobacco as a main crop; South
Carolina, rice; Maryland, corn; etc. The plantation system was developed
to produce tobacco, rice and cotton, with black slaves providing most of
the labour.
Cotton picking
Cotton was grown for home use only until it became an important
commercial crop, thanks to the cotton gin, which was invented by Eli
Whitney in 1793. This machine made it easier to extract the seeds from the
cotton.
Between the American Revolution and the
Civil War tens of thousands of farmers moved
westwards to the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.
A grain-livestock empire was formed there. In
the south farmers pushed into Alabama and
Mississippi and as far west as Texas,
establishing vast cotton plantations. By 1860
there were 2,044,077 farms. Agriculture expanded because of choice
farmlands, canal and railroad development, more demand for food from
21
growing towns and cities, increasing exports and improved farm
machinery.
The greatest improvements were made by the change from human to
animal power and the use of labour-saving machines. Besides the cotton
gin there were iron and steel
ploughs, reapers, threshing
machines, grain drills, corn and
cotton planters and iron harrows
and cultivators. These machines
were drawn by oxen and horses.
The amount of man-hours it took
to grow and harvest wheat in
1800 had halved by 1840.
An early plough
Farmers were advised by agricultural reformers to rotate their crops, but
most just ploughed up new lands when the fertility of their land declined.
By the 1860s farmers supplied many of their own needs, but increasingly
sold their produce, much of it abroad, and bought manufactured goods.
Following the Civil War agriculture expanded at an even faster rate, with
farmers migrating to the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains and West Coast
States. With the end
of slavery the number
of farms rose from 2
million to 6.4 million
between 1860 and
1916 as free black
people started their
own farms. Farm
machines continued
to improve and
machines such as the
steam tractor were
introduced.
Steam tractor
Although agriculture was highly productive, the farmers were not
prosperous. In 1900 the average income per worker was only $260
annually compared to $622 for non-agricultural workers . Between 1900
and World War I, however, farmers experienced better times as farm
produce was in high demand and land values rose.
22
Then in 1920 the post war deflation hit farmers badly, with agricultural
prices dropping way below non-agricultural prices. Congress helped by
passing new laws and subsidizing exports.
Shortly after World War II the horse age in farming came to an end. Bigger
and better machines reduced the amount of labour needed in agriculture.
Another aspect of the revolution was the use of chemicals in fertilizers,
insecticides and herbicides. New hybrid seeds were developed and there
were dramatic changes in feeding and artificial breeding of animals and
there was much better control of crop and livestock diseases.
By the end of the 20th century organic farming was introduced in response
to health and environmental concern. Farms increased sharply in size, but
less labour was needed. In 1940 there were 6.1 million farms, averaging
215 acres in size. By 1980 there were only 2.4 million farms, but the
average size was 431 acres. In 1930 some 30 million Americans lived on
farms - 25 percent of the population, but nowadays much of the nation’s
farm production and distribution is in the hands of large agribusiness firms.
23
IV. Developments and innovations
1. Colonialism
Parallel with increasing rivalry among existing colonial powers was the
rise in industrialized nations challenging Britain’s supremacy in industry,
finance and world trade. Although Britain’s economy in the mid-19th
century was far ahead of its potential rivals, by the last quarter of that
century Britain was confronted by competitors wanting a greater share of
world trade and finance. These nations had become more industrialized
and were spurred on by the spread of the railways and the maturation of
integrated national markets.
Moreover, the major technological advances of the late 19th and 20th
centuries helped the newer industrial nations to compete. Great Britain’s
advantage in being the forerunner of the Industrial Revolution diminished
considerably as newer products and sources of energy began to dominate
industrial activity. The late starters were now on a more equal footing with
Great Britain; having digested the first Industrial Revolution all nations
were starting out, more or less, from the same base to exploit the second
Industrial Revolution. This new industrialism, notably featuring industrial
chemistry, the internal combustion engine, mass-produced steel, electric
power, and oil as sources of energy, spread over western Europe, the
United States, and eventually Japan.
24
2. Apprenticeships
Attitudes towards training changed during the Industrial Revolution.
Unskilled labour was needed to work machines and the workers who
showed aptitude moved on to semi-skilled jobs. Craftsmen were still
needed, both to build machines and keep them running, so apprenticeship
continued in these trades dependant on individual skills. Skilled workers
were recruited into trade unions who worked to maintain standards and
protect the workers. As the factory replaced domestic industry, apprentices
were trained by the factories where they would later have jobs as skilled
workers.
In France there was an early reaction against free admission to all trades
and legislation concerning apprenticeships was reintroduced in 1803 and
strengthened in 1851. In the reconstruction of Prussia, which began during
the Napoleonic Wars, apprenticeship became an important feature of
industrial training. In England apprenticeship was maintained by the craft
industries and even extended to similar fields. Pupil teachers were used in
education, which was, in effect, a kind of apprenticeship, young farmers
were trained in the same way.
In the United States apprenticeship existed during colonial times.
Indentured apprentices were taken from England in the 17th century, but
apprenticeship was less important because of the high proportion of skilled
workers among immigrants.
The development of large scale machine production increased the need for
semi-skilled workers, whose skills were confined to a particular speciality.
Labour became more divided with the more ambitious looking for
advancement through study. Mechanics’ institutes were established to meet
this need.
A 19th century office
A modern office
25
Preparation for clerical work was more clearly associated with the regular
education system. In the late 19th century evening schools were
established to prepare students for employment as clerks, cashiers and
book-keepers. Later secretarial schools were made necessary by the
invention of the typewriter and the use of shorthand. Nowadays training
for office work is done after recruitment.
For the new technology, theoretical understanding and skills were needed
for which universities made no provision. The French École Polytechnique
was established in 1794 and was the earliest attempt to meet these
requirements. The École Polytechnique soon became a great scientific and
technological institution and was the first of the great professional schools
(grandes écoles), peculiar to France.
The École Polytechnique still exists with each profession having its own
school; for example, the School of Mines, the School of Roads and
bridges, the National School of Agriculture and, more recent creations, the
School of Aeronautics and the National School of Administration. Special
preparation is needed to be admitted to any of these schools.
École Polytecnique
26
3. Science and technology
The history of technology is much longer and different from that of
science. Technology is the systematic study of techniques for making and
doing things; science is the systematic attempt to understand and interpret
the world. While technology is concerned with the making and use of
artefacts, science is devoted to understanding the environment; and
comparatively sophisticated skills of literacy and numeracy are needed to
do this. Science only really began with the great world civilizations, some
3,000 years B.C., but technology is as old as mankind.
Primitive tools
Science and technology developed as different and separate activities,
science being practiced by a class of aristocratic philosophers, while
technology was a matter of practical concern to craftsmen of many types.
Sometimes science and technology crossed paths, such as the mathematical
concepts in building and irrigation work, but for most of the time the
function of scientists and technologists remained apart in ancient cultures.
In medieval times things changed; both science and technology were
stimulated by commercial expansion and urban culture. The fast growth in
technology attracted the interest of educated men; in the early 17th century
the natural philosopher Francis Bacon recognized the magnetic compass,
the printing press and gunpowder as great achievements of modern man.
Bacon urged scientists to study the methods of craftsmen, and craftsmen to
learn more about science, thus harmonizing science and technology.
Bacon, Descartes and their contemporaries advocated experimental science
as a way of enlarging man’s dominion over nature.
27
The union of science and technology proposed by Bacon did not happen
overnight. Over the next 200 years or so carpenters and mechanics built
bridges, steam engines and textile machines with little reference to
scientific principles while scientists – still amateurs – pursued their
investigations in a haphazard way. A body of men, inspired by Bacon,
formed The Royal Society in London in 1660, representing a determined
effort to direct scientific research towards useful ends, first by improving
navigation and cartography and ultimately by stimulating industrial
innovation and the search for mineral resources. Similar bodies of scholars
developed in other countries, and by the 19th century scientists were
moving towards a professionalism in which the goals were much the same
as those of the technologists. Justus von Liebig of Germany, a leader in
organic chemistry, was one of the first scientists to propose the use of
mineral fertilizer and provided the scientific impulse in the development of
synthetic dyes, high explosives, artificial fibres and plastics, and Michael
Faraday, the brilliant British scientist in the field of electromagnetism
prepared the ground for the inventions of Thomas A. Edison and others.
The invention of the light bulb by Edison in 1879 resulted in the creation at
Menlo Park N.J. of what is considered the world’s first genuine industrial
research laboratory, deepening the relationship between science and
technology. After this achievement the application of scientific principles
to technology grew rapidly. It led to better organization of workers in
mass-production, applied by Frank W. Taylor and to the time and motion
studies of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth at the beginning of the 20th century.
Henry Ford applied this model to his automobile assembly plant and the
example was followed by every modern mass-production process. As a
result systems engineering,
operations research, stimulation
studies, mathematical modelling
and technological assessment
developed in the industrial
processes. Technology influenced
science too, creating new tools and
machines with which the scientists
could achieve more insight into the
natural world. Together these
developments brought technology
to its modern efficient level of
performance.
Thomas A. Edison
28
4. Machine tools
The making of machines to make machines was one of the most important
aspects of the Industrial Revolution. Machine tools can be traced back for
centuries, but it wasn’t until the late 17th century that clock makers,
builders of scientific instruments and furniture and gun makers began to
change from wood-working lathes to ones capable of machining tool steel.
They needed a variety of gear- cutting, grinding and precise screw cutting
machines to make their products. The development of precise machine
tools affected the art of navigation and paved the way for the industrial
machine tools of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, which made it
possible to construct the steam engine and the machines it had to power.
This in turn improved the standards of living for people throughout
western Europe and North America.
The first screw-cutting lathes were made by an English instrument maker,
Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800) in 1770. Henry Maudslay (1789-1864)
produced a screw cutting lathe in 1800, which was accurate to 1/10,000 of
an inch. Three of Maudslay’s assistants developed varieties of machine
tools. Richard Roberts (1789-1864) introduced a more powerful lathe, and
in 1817 built the first planning machine for metal and soon after his first
gear-cuuting machine. He also improved the spinning mule and designed a
punching machine for making rivet holes in 1847. Joseph Whitworth
(1803-1887) improved and enlarged many of Maudslay’s early machine
tools. He is best known for constructing a measuring machine with an
accuracy of one millionth of an inch , and for first suggesting the
standardization of screw threads. James Naysmyth (1808-1890), another of
Maudslay’s protégés, invented the milling machine and a planing machine
or shaper.
However, John Wilkinson, the ironmaster, (1728-1808), was probably the
greatest machine toolmaker in England. He invented the cylinder boring
machine (the boring mill) circa 1775 that made Watt’s steam engine a
practical source of power. He was the first to demonstrate that coke could
be used instead of coal to produce quality iron on a large scale. In 1779 he
designed the first all-iron bridge constructed in England and his factory
cast the iron for it. In 1787 he built the first iron barge to transport his
goods down the River Severn. He was an industrial genius whose name is
attached today to Wilkinson razor blades.
29
5. Textiles
Although the textile industry remained a cottage industry until the 18th
century, workers occasionally operated together under one roof, there was
one such mill as early as 1568 in Zurich and another in Derby, England in
1717. Factory organization advanced mainly in the north of England and
the Industrial Revolution, at its height between 1760 and 1815, greatly
accelerated the growth of the mill system.
Many new machines for the textile industry
caused riots, and laws prohibited their introduction
because they put so many people out of work. The
first modern invention that increased the loom’s
efficiency was John Kay’s flying shuttle, patented
in 1733. This device resulted in greater
production from a single loom, cloth of a
greater width and a reduction in the number of
workers on the looms. Kay’s invention was
very unpopular with weavers because of their
fear of becoming unemployed. In 1755 Kay
was attacked by a mob and one of his looms was
destroyed. Kay died a destitute man in 1764
although his machine was widely used after his death.
Hand loom
The next major improvements were brought about by Richard Arkwright’s
(1732-1792) spinning machine and James Hargreaves’ (d.1778) invention
of the spinning jenny. Arkwright’s machine needed mechanical power and
began the move from spinning as a cottage industry to a factory system. It
produced the first practical cotton warp, which made it possible to produce
all-cotton goods. Hargreaves’ machine made it possible to use finer and
stronger yarns than ever before.
The history of inventions in the textile industry shows how the invention of
machines which radically improved output in one branch of the trade
created a need for fresh inventions in other branches to catch up with the
demand for their products. By the time Edward Cartwright had perfected
his power loom the whole English cotton manufacturing industry needed
bigger supplies of raw cotton. The demand was met with the invention of
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, which made it quicker and easier to clean cotton,
thus increasing supplies.
30
The invention of the sewing machine
in the mid 19th century increased the
demand for textiles. The sewing
machine was unique in that it was the
first major consumer appliance. The
first machine was invented by Elias
Howe (1819-1867) in 1843. It was
based on lockstitch and could only
sew straight seams. Isaac Singer
(1811-1876) invented the first really
practical, domestic sewing machine in
1851. His machine had a straight
needle, foot treadle and could sew
curved seams. Singer sewing
machines were sold on an instalment
basis, making them an affordable item. Singer is still one of the biggest
producers of sewing machines and is well known.
A modern sewing machine
31
6. The Newcomen and Watt Steam Engines
Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) was an English blacksmith who invented
an atmospheric engine. Steam was admitted to a cylinder, condensed by a
jet of cold water, and the vacuum created in the cylinder operated a piston,
which was forced downwards on its working stroke. Together with
Thomas Savery who had invented a similar pump in 1698, Newcomen and
his other partner, John Calley, built their first engine on the site of a waterfilled mine in 1712. These engines were very slow and inefficient, but they
were better than anything yet invented to pump water out of mines.
James Watt (1736-1819) improved the Newcomen engine by fitting it with
a separate condenser, which could be connected to the
cylinder by a valve. The condenser could be kept cool
while the cylinder was kept hot (something not
achieved by Newcomen). To a large extent Watt’s
engines were responsible for many of the
improvements brought about by the Industrial
Revolution.
James Watt
32
7. The Steam Locomotive and the Steamboat
Watt’s patent for a separate condenser covered the use of high pressure
steam, but he refused to develop an engine using this as he was worried
about boiler explosions and bursting pipes. However, when Watt’s patent
ran out in 1800 other inventors used high pressure steam. Richard
Trevithick (1771-1833) built several full sized steam carriages, which ran
on English roads, using a cylindrical boiler and high pressure steam.
During the first decade of the 19th century he built several more steam
carriages, called locomotives, which were used for hauling coal and ore out
of mines.
Railways had existed in Britain for about two centuries, first using horses
to haul wagons on wooden tracks and later on iron-edged rails. By 1825
people like Trevithick and George Stephenson had invented a boxlike
affair on wheels, propelled by a fire burning engine, which ran on rails and
carried cargo many times its own weight. The first public railway was
opened in 1825 on the
Stockton and Darlington
line and was worked by a
Stephenson locomotive.
During the 19th century
British steam locomotives
were exported to many
countries.
The first practical steamboat was built by William Symington ((17631831) in Scotland in 1801. Robert Fulton (1765-1815), an American,
constructed the “Clermont”, which
had side paddles and was powered
by a Boulton and Watt engine. It
began operations, carrying fare
paying passengers on the Hudson
River in 1807. Within decades
steam-powered boats were making
transatlantic crossings, greatly
increasing commercial
possibilities.
33
8. The Electric Telegraph
The invention of the telegraph is usually credited to Samuel F. B. Morse
(1791-1872). Although he did invent the Morse code, the real credit should
be given to two Englishmen, William Cooke(1806-1879) and Charles
Wheatstone (1802-1875). Cooke became intrigued by the telegraph after
seeing a demonstration of an early system by a Russian diplomat. The two
men devised an instrument that contained six wires and five operating
needles, instead of a wire for each letter of the alphabet, which was
common at the time. In
1839 they installed a
telegraph line along the
Great Western Railway
and it was used initially
to report the position of
trains. Cooke and
Wheatstone’s telegraph
was the first to be offered
to the public as a
commercial service and
the first use of electricity
in a commercial
enterprise in the world.
Combination key / sounder 1875
At the same time, Morse was in the
U.S.A., asking Congress for funds to
develop his own system. After making
a congressman his partner he received
the money and a telegraph line was
built between Baltimore and
Washington D.C. The first message
was sent in 1844, using Morse’s code.
After a time his single wire and single
needle system proved effective and
became widely used.
Telegraph post and wires
34
9. Architecture
Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) discovered a process of making steel cheaply
which led to its use in the construction industry. George Fuller (18511900), a young man who worked drawing building plans became interested
in the problem of load bearing capacities and how much weight each part
of a building would carry. During the 1880s he moved to Chicago and set
up business as a building contractor, where his firm built the Tacoma
Building, which was the first structure ever built where the outer walls
carried no burden and served no purpose
other than to keep out the elements and
provide a facade. In 1902 Fuller and an
architect, David Burnham, designed and
built the 21 storey, triangular Flatiron
Building on the corner of Broadway and
23rd – it was New York’s first
skyscraper. Once George Fuller’s
construction firm had paved the way,
others followed and today about half of
all the large apartment and office
buildings in the U.S. are built on his steel
cage system.
The iron bridge at Coalbrookdale,
England (built 1777-1779), which still
stands today, is another fine example
of what could be achieved with the
development of new materials and
processes.
Coalbrookdale Bridge
Crystal Palace, a huge iron and glass
structure, which was designed by Sir
Joseph Paxton, in only ten days, for
the Great Exhibition in London, in
1851 was conceived to symbolize
the industrial, military and
economic supremacy of Great
Britain.
Crystal Palace
35
10. Rubber
Today we take modern materials for granted and do not
realize that many are relatively recent
discoveries or inventions. Rubber, for
example, is a vital component of cars
and also supplies us with many
domestic items (hot water
balloons, etc.), office
erasers, etc.) and articles for
(footballs, golf balls, tennis
Rubber was discovered by the
Spanish invaders of South
America in the 15th – 16th
centuries, but despite this it was
not until about 1730 that rubber
was introduced into Britain and
not until 1791 that its use for the
mackintosh (rubber raincoat) was
introduced. Rubber was not widely
used as, with time, it deteriorated
in air, becoming very sticky and
unmanageable. This changed
dramatically with the invention of
“vulcanization”, in 1834.
bottles, mattresses, toy
products (rubber bands,
leisure and entertainment
balls, etc.).
Taking latex from a rubber tree
Goodyear found that cooking the material with raw sulphur stabilized it
and also stiffened the products made with the substance. It came to be used
for an increasing number of products, such as tyres, Wellington boots and
improved mackintoshes, and rubber and textile were combined to produce
waterproof fabric. It took over 40 years to develop the heavy duty car tyres
we have today.
As yet Brazil was the only supplier and growing demand made the price
soar, creating rich entrepreneurs who exploited the natives that collected
the raw latex from the rain forest. This commodity monopoly was broken
by taking young trees raised, from seeds collected in Brazil by Sir Henry
Wickham, in 1876, in greenhouses in London’s Kew Gardens and
transplanting them in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Malaysia in large
36
plantations. These countries were able to meet the rising demand of the
rubber industry, and the price of raw rubber fell dramatically.
With the Second World War much of world’s natural rubber production
was lost to the Japanese, resulting in the invention of synthetic rubber, of
which there are many types, made from gas or oil.
Lots different types of synthetic rubber are available to designers today,
many for special tasks requiring, for example, very high or low
temperatures. Natural rubber is still a valuable international commodity,
helping many developing countries to earn hard currency.
Rubber plantation (Malaya)
37
11. Lighting
Power cuts force us to rely on primitive methods
of illumination, such as candles, gas or oil lamps,
which were the main source of illumination up
until the late Victorian era (late 19th century).
Electricity had been discovered and studied for
more than a century, but it took until 1879 to
invent the light bulb.
The invention of the battery by Count Alessandro Volta in 1800, marked a
turning point in the understanding and controlling of electricity. Sir
Humphrey Davy discovered in 1802 that by putting two carbon electrodes
a short distance apart, a continuous spark would jump across the gap and
cause illumination. This was not very efficient and Davy went on to
discover many new elements such as calcium and magnesium. He became
interested in the problem of lighting in mines, to try and prevent so many
accidents caused by methane gas explosions at the coalface owing to the
use of naked flames. He invented a lamp where the flame was completely
enclosed by iron gauze, with a minimum gap in the gauze of 0.5mm, as
anything larger could cause an explosion.
The introduction of the lamp into
mines encouraged a great
expansion in the mining industry,
providing coal for steam raising
and the powering of the Industrial
Revolution. There were still many
accidents as the gauze was very
fragile and the loss of just one wire
made it unsafe. The bonnet lamp,
where a bonnet surrounds the
gauze and protects it, was an
improvement. This lamp gives
very poor illumination and is only
used nowadays to test for gas,
mainly in other countries, since the
end of deep mining in the U.K.
Davy bonnet lamp
38
Through the Victorian era, there was an increasing
demand for improved illumination, especially in
factories attempting to work a twenty-four hour
day to maximise return on capital invested in
machinery. The introduction of coal gas with
distribution networks, gave gas lights from an
early date. Birmingham’s
streets, for example, were gas
lit from 1826. A big
improvement in lighting
power came with the
invention of the mantle (1885).
Gas street lamp
Such lights are still used in many developing countries
where there is no electricity grid.
Gas ceiling lamp
It was however electricity which inventors tried
to develop to produce better lighting. Joseph
Swan in England and Edison in the U.S.A.
found the solution in 1879 – the electric light
bulb. In the late Victorian era this invention
provided a much safer alternative to the open
flame of the gas light, especially in factories.
Distribution networks were gradually
expanded, the electricity being provided by
coal-powered generators. In the 20th century
the gas discharge lamp was invented and more
recently, halogen tungsten lamps and LEDs
(light emitting diodes). The latter promise
much more efficient illumination for the
industries of the 21st centuries.
Early light bulb
39
12. Time
Before the middle of the 18th century perceptions of time were generally
hazy, except perhaps for a few scientists.
Anything which cast a shadow was used to see, more or less, what time of
the day it was. Sun dials were a sophisticated version of a stick in the
ground, but were rendered worthless by overcast skies. Candles with the
hours marked on them and hour glasses were used, the latter being more
accurate and used by navigators. Even in ancient Greece and Medieval
Europe devices were constructed to try to measure the time, using
unwinding springs or falling weights. From the late 17th century the
accuracy of their mechanisms gradually improved, especially to the benefit
of astronomers and other scientists. But for most people, in a mainly
agricultural economy, the natural rhythms of the days and seasons were
enough. Time was local: the church bells called the parishioners to
worship, attend funerals and celebrations and warned them of occasional
calamities – squires and vicars used sun dials to determine the time.
The first long case-clocks, which had only one hand gave a rough idea of
the time, with a greater accuracy than twenty minutes a day difficult to
achieve.
The Industrial Revolution changed all that, people had to organise
themselves in a different way to be on time for their jobs in factories where
punctuality was required. Shifts were measured by the factory clock and
the workers were woken by “knockers up” (men with long poles who
tapped on the workers’ bedroom windows). The necessity for factory
production and transport meant that local time (calculated by when the sun
was overhead at noon) spelt confusion. Agreed timetables were essential
for railways, coaches, etc. as was standard time. It was the railway that
imposed Grenwich Time across Britain.
Captain Cook pioneered the application of the newly
developed chronometers to “carry” Grenwich Time
with him on his voyages. This enabled him to
determine longitude more easily and accurately than
before and to attain a remarkable precision in his
maps and charts. The revolution in ocean navigation
proved of incalculable benefit to Britain’s
commercial prosperity and national security.
Marine chronometer (1825)
40
Because of the gradual improvement in incomes, as a
result of the industrial and agricultural revolutions,
the market for timepieces was widening. From the
mid 18th century rural craftsmen, often part-time
clockmaker-farmers manufactured cheap long caseclocks that were reasonably accurate. After the 1770s
many of these rural clockmakers assembled and
finished the small clock components made in
Birmingham’s new “toy” factories. Their cottage
grandfather clocks had relatively simple mechanisms
and needed winding every day, but they were cheap
and were among the first “consumer durables” bought
by the poorer people. So, farmers and artisans had
thirty-hour pull-wind clocks in their cottages and the
better paid factory workers had bulky (turnip-sized)
pocket watches. These first watches were sometimes
made in Liverpool or Coventry and increasingly in
Switzerland.
Tall case-clock
However, it was in New England, America, between about 1816 and 1837
that Eli Terry redesigned and simplified clock movements to enable large
quantities to be constructed and assembled. First they were made of wood
and, after 1837, cheap brass. They sold for as little as $10 in 1810 and soon
after for much less.
Watches were later produced in
factories and the technological
innovations that changed the design
and production of American clocks
led to millions of watches being
produced annually by firms such as
Waltham, Elgin, Hamilton and
Waterbury. The Industrial Revolution
not only changed our attitude to time,
but also the way timepieces were
made.
Elgin pocket watch
41
V. Conclusions
Looking back to before the Industrial Revolution, when most people lived
on farms or, at most, in small villages, we imagine how relaxing it would
be, but, in fact, it was far from it. Indeed, life was very hard; some had
their own piece of land while others worked for the big landowners, but
there was no security. If the weather was bad one year, then the crops
failed, the landowners did not need workers and the majority of people
went hungry. There was little or no medical service, people died young and
the infant mortality rate was very high. With innovations in farm
machinery, fewer workers were needed and the cottage industry
disappeared, with machines in factories doing all the work instead.
The great need for work made the farmers and artisans move to the large
towns and cities. Although there were jobs to be had, the conditions were
often very bad and dangerous, especially for children, but, with time, laws
were passed which restricted working hours and provided formal education
for the young. Health and life expectancy improved greatly with the
advances in medicine.
Better communications have led to easier travel, facilitating commerce,
thus improving the economy.
In our European society working hours are getting shorter and there is
rising unemployment, but social services provide health care and a certain
amount of security. We have more time for leisure, but not necessarily the
money we would like to have to enjoy it. This is probably why there are
still many people who work long hours, often with more than one job,
especially women who do a normal paid job and look after the home and
children. All this, of course, can cause a terrible amount of stress, which is
a far too frequent feature nowadays.
Our consumption society never stops telling us, through our new
communications systems - television, radio, telephone, etc. - about all the
things we “need” to make our lives better, which, in turn, makes us try to
earn, or borrow, more money in able to buy them.
With the rise in stress and dissatisfaction at not having everything we want
comes a rise in violence, especially domestic, which is reaching frightening
proportions.
42
Perhaps the next course to take should be to slow down a little and make
the new technology work for us. More and more people are leaving the
cities, if they can, and moving back to the countryside. With the aid of
computers it is possible to work from home, perhaps going to the office
once in a while for meetings. Another alternative is flexible working hours,
to suit your own life style. Both these options make for more leisure and
time for the family, thus reducing stress and creating a far healthier
outlook.
In the future factories will be so automated hardly any workers will be
needed to run them, machines will do nearly everything for us and perhaps
all we will have to do is enjoy ourselves. Could this be our “Brave New
World”?
Busy doing nothing?
43
VI. Bibliography
Encyclopædia Britannica (2001 Edition)
Open University - www.open2.net
Friederich Engles
The Condition of The Working Class in England in 1844 (1845)
Alexis Tocqueville
The Old Regime and The French Revolution (1856)
Democracy in America (1835-1840)
44