Overview

The biggest change in human history since agriculture. We stopped making things by hand and started making them by machine. We stopped using muscle power and started using fossil fuels.

Core Idea

The Steam Engine: James Watt improved it, and suddenly we had portable, tireless power. We could pump water out of mines, power looms to weave cloth, and drive trains.

Formal Definition (if applicable)

Urbanization: The mass migration of people from farms to cities to work in factories. (Manchester, London).

Intuition

Before: A shirt cost a week’s wages because someone spun the thread and wove it by hand. After: A shirt costs an hour’s wages because a machine made 1,000 of them. Result: Standard of living exploded, but so did pollution and misery.

Examples

  • Textiles: The first industry to industrialize (Spinning Jenny).
  • Railroads: Connected the world, allowing goods and people to move at 60mph instead of 6mph.
  • The Factory System: Division of labor. You don’t make a pin; you do one step of making a pin 10,000 times a day.

Common Misconceptions

  • “It made life better immediately.” (For the first few decades, life expectancy in cities actually dropped due to disease and overcrowding. It took time for wages to catch up.)
  • “Luddites hated technology.” (They were skilled workers whose livelihoods were being destroyed by machines. They were the first labor unionists.)
  • Capitalism: The economic system that drove industrialization.
  • Socialism/Marxism: A reaction against the exploitation of workers (Proletariat) by owners (Bourgeoisie).
  • Anthropocene: The geological era where humans impact the climate.

Applications

  • Modern Life: Everything you own was made in a factory.
  • Climate Change: Started here with the burning of coal.

Criticism / Limitations

It created massive inequality between industrialized nations (The West) and non-industrialized ones (The Rest).

Further Reading

  • Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution
  • Ashton, The Industrial Revolution