The document is a summary of the industrial revolution that took place during the 18th century in Britain. A time of transition from agrarian to industrial and urban.
The industrial revolution was a period in which predominately agrarian , rural
societies in Europe and America became industrial and urban. Britain is the
birthplace of industrial revolution because it was the world superpower and it was
rich in iron and coal which was essential for industrialization. Prior the industrial
revolution people lived in small rural societies. People relied on farming and life for
average people was difficult. People used to produce their own food, clothing,
furniture, and tools. Malnourishment and diseases were common.
Industrialization brought about factories and mass production. Iron, textile industries
and steam engine played a major role in industrialization. Transportation was
improved and industrialization brought about increased volume of manufactured
goods. Standards of living were improved. Britain used its colonies as suppliers for
raw material and as a marketplace. When the demands for British goods increased,
merchants needed more cost-effective methods of production which let to the rise of
mechanization and factory system.
In the 1700s there were series of innovations which led to ever-increasing
productivity and required less human energy. For instance, in 1764 Englishman
James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny. The spinning jenny was a machine
that enabled an individual to produce multiple spools of threads simultaneously.
Upon Hargreaves death there was about twenty thousand spinning jennies’ in use
across Britain. The spinning jenny was later improved by British inventor Samuel
Compton’s spinning mule. There was another innovation in textiles called the power
loom which mechanized the process of weaving cloth and it was developed in the
1780s by English inventor Edmund Catwright.
The impacts of industrial revolution
The industrial revolution transformed the agricultural system into an industrial
system. There was introduction of cities and new methods of ploughing and animal
mating. It led to many socialist movements, urbanization, labour movements and
feminists’ movements.
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