The Industrial Revolution
 

During the next week you will be working together to create a Class PowerPoint Presentation about the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the social and political structure of England during the 19th century. The presentation must be held together by a clear thesis statement which answers the following overall question:

The Enlightenment philosophes had argued that the application of science and reason would lead to a better society for all. Did the extraordinary changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution represent progress? (Decide as a group whether your definition of progress will be grounded in a classical liberal, radical liberal or socialist political philosophy.)

Presentation Ground Rules

I. Thesis

II. Origins of the Industrial Revolution (2) (Yanbo L. Brett B.)

III. What Happened During the Industrial Revolution?

A. Industrial Technology  (3) (Robby H., Peter D., George B.)

B. The Social Effects of Industry (5) (Jordan B., Charles C., Max B., Willy B., Matt G.)

1.      The Lives of Workers

2.      Manchester: The First Industrial City: Political Activism to 1850

3.      Victorian London: Political Activism to 1880

IV. Cultural Responses (3) (Ryan S., C.J., Bob W.)

A. Literary

1.      The Economics of Authorship

2.      Social Protest in Literature

3.      Mass Production and Popular Culture

B. Realism in Art

V. Conclusion

 

 

You will be given a paragraph test on this unit at the end of next week: here are the questions:

Test Questions:

  1. What were the causes of the Industrial Revolution in England?
  2. How did innovations in technology and business practice revolutionize the production and marketing of goods? How were these innovations financed?
  3. What impact did the new economy have on the lives (job security, work conditions, housing, health) of English workers? Did Adam Smith's "invisible hand" create a just society?
  4. How did England avoid a workers' revolution? What did workers do to exert pressure on the factory owners and the government in order that have their grievances heard? What political and legislative changes resulted from this debate?
  5. How was the ideological debate about the problem of urban poverty reflected in the popular culture of late 19thc.  England? 

Overview:

I. Origins of the Industrial Revolution  

What were the causes of the Industrial Revolution in England? 

 

Overview:

Origins of the Industrial Revolution (BBC)
The Origins of the Industrial Revolution in England (Kreis Lecture)

A. The Agricultural Revolution of the 17th-18th Centuries 

B. Population Growth 

Thomas R. Malthus (1766-1834): First Essay on Population, 1798, excerpts 

C. The Power Crisis 

D. Capital 

  II. What Happened During the Industrial Revolution? 

A. Industrial Technology 
How did innovations in technology and business practice revolutionize the production and marketing of goods? How were these innovations financed?


The Workshop of the World (BBC History) 
Victorian Technology (BBC History)
The Industrial Revolution (Outline)  Brooklyn College  
Albert Brunel: The Practical Prophet of Technological Innovation (BBC History) 

1. Coal Mining and Textiles 

The Textile Industry Before Industrialization (Open Door)
Thomas Newcomen, The Newcomen Engine (Wikipedia) (animation)
James Watt,  The Steam Engine (Wikipedia) (animation)
History of Coal Mining in England (Wikipedia)
British History: The Textile Industry (Spartacus)
James Hargreaves (c.1720-1778) The Cotton-Spinning Jenny 
Richard Guest: Compendious History of the Cotton Manufacture, 1823, excerpts
John Kay, The Flying Shuttle
Richard Arkwright, Spinning Jenny and the Spinning Frame (Wikipedia)
William Radcliffe, Origin of. Power Loom Weaving, 1828, excerpts
The Steam Engine (History) (U. Of Rochester)
The Spinning Mill (Animation) (BBC History)
The Beam Engine (Animation) (BBC History) 
The Winding Gear (Animation) (BBC History)

2. Iron Ore 

The Blast Furnace (Animation) (BBC History)
Coke Blast Furnace (Wikipedia) 

3. Bridges 

The Iron Bridge (BBC History)
The Construction of the Iron Bridge (Animation) (BBC History) 
The Beam Engine (Animation) (BBC History) 
The Winding Gear (Animation) (BBC History)   

4. Railroads  

The Evolution of the Locomotive: Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson (Spartacus) (Wikipedia) (BBC History) 

5. Steam Ships 

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) The Great Western 
The Paddle Steamer (Animation) (BBC History) 
The Steam Ship Great Britain (Scientific American Vol. 1 (1845), No. 1, p 2.)

6. Capital 

Capitalism (Victorian Web)
Victorian Economics (Overview) (Victorian Web)
Commercial Origins of the Industrial Revolution (Halsall)
Capital from Slave Trade Profits (The Williams Thesis)
Was Slavery the Engine of Economic Growth? (Digital History)
Liverpool and the Slave Trade (PBS)

"The introduction of machines into the Manchester cotton industry, described by James Ogden, 1783" English Historical Documents 1714-1783. Horn, D. B. and Mary Ransome, eds.. London: Routledge, 1957.
Capital and Labor: Capital 1700-1750 and the Growth of Wealth (1923) (Lord)
Capital and Labor: The Employment of Capital (1923) (Lord)
Capital and Labor: Banking, 1750 (1923) (Lord)

 

B. The Social Effects of Industry
What impact did the new economy have on the lives (job security, work conditions, housing, health) of English workers? Did Adam Smith's "invisible hand" create a just society?

How did England avoid a workers' revolution? What did workers do to exert pressure on the factory owners and the government in order that have their grievances heard? What political and legislative changes resulted from this debate?

Urbanization and Population Growth (The History Center) 
Victorian Social History: An Overview (Victorian Web) 
Victorian Political History: An Overview (Victorian Web)

The Workshop of the World (BBC History)
All Change in the Victorian Age (BBC History)
Beneath the Surface: A Country of Two Nations (BBC History) 
Social Class (Victorian Web)  

1. The Lives of Workers  

Life of the Industrial Worker in 19th-Century England (Victorian Web) 
The Physical Deterioration of the Textile Workers (Victorian Web) 
Leeds Woolen Workers' Petition, 1786 Attacking the effects of machinery. 
Leeds Cloth Merchants' Letter, 1791 Defending machinery. 
Observations on the Loss of Woollen Spinning, 1794, excerpts 
Child Labor in Cotton Factories 1807 (Peel Web)
Child Labor in the 19th Century (Spartacus) 
Child Labor (Victorian Web)
Working Conditions (Open Door)
Urban Conditions (Open Door)
Edwin Chadwick (1803-1890): Report on Sanitary Conditions, 1842
Women Miners in the English Coal Pits, 1842   
Harret Robinson: Lowell Mill Girls, 1834-1848 
Michael Faraday: Observations on the Filth of the Thames, 1855

 

2. Manchester: The First Industrial City: Political Activism to 1850

The History of Manchester at the Spartacus Encyclopedia of British History 

Political Responses to 1850:

The Classical Liberal Position:

Andrew Ure (1778-1857): The Philosophy of the Manufacturers, 1835, excerpts
James Kay-Shuttleworth, 1832,  The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Class in Manchester in 1832
Thomas Robert Malthus (Victorian Web) 
Malthus' "Essay on Population" (Victorian Web) 
Adam Smith's Laissez-Faire Policies (Victorian Web) 

The Socialist Position:

Friedrich Engels: Industrial Manchester, 1844, excerpts from The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.

Radical Liberal Reform to 1832:

Corn Laws (Victorian Web)
The Anti-Corn Law League (Peel Web)
The Peterloo Massacre, 1819  
The Peterloo Massacre (Spartacus)
The Luddites (Spartacus)
1831 Reform Riots (Spartacus)
Terms of the 1832 Reform Act (Victorian Web)
The 1832 Reform Act (Peel Web)
The Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1884 (Victorian Web)
Child Labor (Victorian Web)
The Anti-Poor Law Movement (Victorian Web) 
Chartism or The Chartist Movement (Victorian Web) 
The Workhouse in 18th and 19th c. England  
Changing attitudes towards poverty after 1815 (Victorian Web)
Chartism or The Chartist Movement (Victorian Web) 
Chartism (Spartacus) 
Chartism (Peel Web)
The Trade Union Movement (Spartacus)

 

 

3. Victorian London: Political Activism to 1880 

A Brief History of London (Victorian Web)
Victorian London - one page description of the Industrial city in Victorian England
Victorian Occupations -- Life and Labor in the Victorian Period: An Overview (Victorian Web)  
Charles Booth's Descriptive Map of London (1889) 
Monument and Dust: The Culture of Victorian London (UVA)
London Mortality Statistics (UVA) 
London Population Statistics (UVA)

Political Responses to 1880:

The Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1884 (Victorian Web)

The Liberal Ideal:

The Crystal Palace International Exhibition of 1851 (Victorian Web)
Models of the Crystal Palace (UVA) 
Laissez-faire and the Victorians (BBC History)
The Rise of the Victorian Middle Class (BBC History)

The Reality Beneath the Surface:

Beneath the Surface: A Country of Two Nations (BBC History)
Michael Faraday: Observations on the Filth of the Thames, 1855 
Sanitary Condition of London and its Suburbs Palmer's Full Text Online 23 Aug. 1859 (History Learning Center)
London: A Pilgrimage by Dore and Jerrold (Spartacus) (Victorian Net) (Gilman ppt.) 
London Low-life - Beggars and Cheats- excerpts from Those That Will Not Work  (1862) Henry Mayhew 
London's 'Great Stink' and Victorian Urban Planning (BBC History) 
Dickens's London - The East End

Radical Liberal Reform to1884:

Victorian Legislation: A Timeline (Victorian Web)
Terms of the 1832 Reform Act (Victorian Web)
The Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1884 (Victorian Web)
Child Labor (Victorian Web)
The Anti-Poor Law Movement (Victorian Web) 
Chartism or The Chartist Movement (Victorian Web) 
Chartism (Spartacus) 
Chartism (Peel Web)
The Trade Union Movement (Spartacus)

Revolutionary Currents:

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Bloody Sunday (1887) (Spartacus) 
The London Dockers' Strike (1888) (Spartacus) 
The Matchgirls' Strike (1887) (Spartacus)

The Solution?

British Empire: An Introduction (Victorian Web)
Why did the British Empire expand so rapidly between 1870 and 1900? (Victorian Web)
Lenin on Imperialism, the Highest Phase of Capitalism (Sprago Web)

 

Fun and Games:

Victorian England Activities (Public Record Office)
Muck and Brass (game) (BBC History) 
The Cholera Game (Public Record Office)
Victorian Crime Game (Public Record Office)

III. Cultural Responses

How was the ideological debate about the problem of urban poverty reflected in the popular culture of late 19th c. England?

 

A. Literary

Victorian Web: Literature Overview 
Literary Definition of Realism (Victorian Web) 

The Industrial Revolution (BBC Arts)

1. Social Protest in Literature: 

·         Elizabeth Gaskell, from Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life

·         Charles Dickens, from Hard Times, chapter 5 "The Key Note"; Charles Dickens: Hard Times, Chapter 2  

·         Charles Dickens, Bleak House: The Novel as Source Material

·         Thomas Carlyle: Signs of the Times: The "Mechanical Age"  

·         George Eliot, from Middlemarch. (History Learning Center)

·         Anthony Trollope, Michael Armstrong: Factory Boy 

·         Emile Zola (1840-1902): Germinal, 1885, extracts  

2. The Economics of Authorship (Victorian Web)

·         “Breaking News: Renaissance Journalism and the Birth of the Newspaper” (NY Times 1-23-09)

·         Charles Dickens' Writings: Economic Contexts and Themes

·         How Did Nineteenth-Century British and American Authors Get Paid?

·         Dickens Wrote for Money! 

·         Revolutionary Pickwick: Modern Authorship, Mass Audience, and the Victorian Publishing Industry

·         Publishing in Parts, Periodicals and Dickens' Working Methods

3. Mass Production and Popular Culture:

·         Popular Culture in Victorian England (History Learning Center) 

·         Beneath the Surface: Social Reports as Primary Sources  (BBC History)

·         Sex, Scandal, and the Novel (Victorian Web)

·         Sex, Drugs and Music Hall (BBC History)

·         Opium and Empire in Victorian Britain (The Imperial Archive)

·         Jack the Ripper Casebook (Ryder and Piper)

·         Crime and Punishment in Victorian England (History Learning Center) 

·         The Detective Novel  Detective Novels: Whodunits and Thrillers 

·         The Sensation Novel  Introduction  The Victorian Custody Novel: Deceived and Deserted

·         Victorian Sensationalism: Casebook Literature

 

 

 B. Art Styles in the Industrial 19th Century  

Images of the Industrial Revolution in England

Realism in Art:  Realism (Artcyclopedia); Literary Definition of Realism (Victorian Web)

 

Conservatism:

J.M.W. Turner,

Official Art: Ernest Meissonier and Hans von Marees, William Powell Frith

Liberalism:

·         Darby, Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale (1779)

·         Manchester 1851

·         The Creation of the Metropolis: The Great Exhibition of 1851; (Victorian Web)

·         Frith, The Railway Station (1862) (essay)

·         Art, Technology and Industry (History of Art)

·         Furnishings and Fashions (History of Art)

·         Art and Printing, Illustrated Magazines, Posters (History of Art)

·         Early Photography (History of Art)

Radical Liberalism:

·         Gustave Dore and Blanchard Jerrold, London: A Pilgrimage (1872); (Spartacus) (UVA) (Gilman ppt.) 

·         Fildes, Houseless and Hungry, The Graphic  (12th April, 1869)

·         Pierdon, "St. Giles" The Rookeries of London.(1850)

·         (Early Photography) Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1888)

·         Renoir,  The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881)

Socialism:

·         Social Criticism in the Arts: Realism in France: Millet and Daumier

·         Daumier, The Uprising, The Laundress, The Third-class Carriage, In the Omnibus, Passersby; So You were Hungry? That's no excuse!, Politicians

·         Millet, The Gleaners ; The Walk to Work, Shepherdess with her flock