Industrial Revolution Kicks Off in Great Britain

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, if you wanted to create fabric goods (textiles), you had to pick the cotton, then spin the thread from the cotton, then weave the fabric from these cotton threads.  This was a long, drawn-out process that was carried out by an individual or handful of individuals in their homes, or cottages, because there were no factories which could do mass production of fabrics.  This home production is what is referred to as a cottage industry because, you guessed it, it was an industry carried out at home.  While it was certainly doable, it was slow, inefficient, and could end up with costly products due to high demand and low supply.

Then, some Brits thought up a few ways to improve upon human industry by creating machines that could do the job of several people at the same time...and the Industrial Revolution was kicked off.  As we briefly touched on in class on Tuesday, the Industrial Revolution really got it's start in Great Britain.   This short clip...yes, I know it's a bit old in appearance...gives a quick rundown of the Industrial Revolution and it's start in Great Britain and eventual spread to America..

   But why was Great Britain the home of the Industrial Revolution?  There are several reasons...

1. Great Britain had MONEY!  As the most powerful country in the world (at the time), Great Britain had money to invest in new machines and inventions and factories...as well as a supply of workers.
2. Great Britain had PLENTY of food...which means lower food prices, so people had more money to spend on other things--like buying things that other people create and invent.
3. Great Britain had plenty of people, many of which moved into towns and cities when the British government passed what were called the enclosure movement laws which fenced off common lands, making it harder for peasants to farm since they couldn't afford lands of their own.
4. Great Britain has a lot of rivers and streams for powering factories, grinding grain, and for transporting goods.
5. Great Britain had a lot of colonies (like us!), which meant they had a ready-made market for goods they produced.  Plus, since the British population was growing at home, more people needed things like clothing and tools and other manufactured items. 

When you think about it like that, Great Britain almost had to be the birthplace of an industrial revolution!  There was just a perfect set-up....even a fool could make money...right? Well, let's see if YOU can make money! Follow this link and play this simple little game to see if you have what it takes to be a COTTON MILLIONAIRE! Who Wants To Be A Cotton Millionaire?! You have to choose the location, what type of labor you are going to use, what you are going to invest in...YOU control your own destiny. It's a simple game, I know, but can you stay out of debtor's prison by making all the right decisions?

THREE MAIN AREAS OF BRITISH ADVANCEMENT

1. Textiles--Inventions such as the Water Frame (Richard Arkwright, 1769), the Spinning Jenny (James Hargreaves, 1764), the Spinning Mule (Samuel Crompton, 1779), and the Water Loom (Edmund Cartwright, 1787) led to a boom in textile production.
2. Steam Power--The steam engine was patented by James Watt in 1775 and used to pump water out of mines.  By 1782, however, the steam engine had been adapted to run other machinery, such as textile equipment, which allowed textile mills to be build all over the country and not just along rivers and streams.
3. Iron Production--The British, thanks largely in part to Henry Cort, who patented a process called puddling, perfect the production of bar iron, which was much higher in quality than the pig iron that had been used previously. 

Other notable British inventors:  Jethro Tull (seed drill), Andrew Meikle (threshing machine), John Smeaton ("rediscovered"concrete in 1756), Richard Trevithick (steam locomotive), George Stephenson (flanged wheel locomotive which ran on top of rails instead of in sunken tracks).