Effects of the Industrial Revolution on the modern world

1Why this matters

Economic historians rank the Industrial Revolution alongside the invention of farming as one of the biggest turning points in human history. Its effects were both good and terrible, and they were felt far beyond Britain. For Africa, the most important effect came at the end of the nineteenth century: industrial Europe wanted raw materials and markets, and it now had the steamships, medicines and guns to take them.

2Positive effects

• More goods, more cheaply. Machine-made cloth, tools and household goods became affordable to ordinary people.
• Better transport and communication: railways, steamships, and later the telegraph.
• New jobs in factories, mines, railways and offices.
• Growth of towns and cities with, eventually, water supplies, schools and hospitals.
• A new middle class of factory owners, engineers, merchants and professionals.
• Scientific and technical progress, which led to modern medicine, electricity and the technology we use today.
• Workers' rights: over time, trade unions and new laws improved conditions and extended the vote.

3Negative effects

• Harsh working conditions. Workers laboured 12 to 16 hours a day in noisy, dangerous mills and mines, paced by machines.
• Child labour. Children were cheap and nimble; in 1788 about two-thirds of the workers in water-powered cotton mills in England and Scotland were children.
• Overcrowded slums. Manchester's population grew about six times between 1771 and 1831. Housing was cramped, and dirty water spread diseases such as cholera.
• Pollution of air and rivers by coal smoke and waste.
• Loss of skilled jobs. Hand weavers were ruined. Some, called Luddites (from 1811), smashed machines in protest.
• Destruction of other economies. Cheap British cloth undersold hand-made textiles in India and elsewhere, throwing millions out of work.
• Expansion of slavery on American cotton plantations to feed British mills.

4How people responded

• Factory Acts. The Factory Act of 1833 banned children under nine from textile mills and limited hours for older children, with inspectors to enforce it. In 1842 women and young children were banned from working underground in mines.
• Trade unions were legal from 1824, though still heavily restricted. The Chartists of the 1830s and 1840s demanded the vote for working men.
• New ideas: reformers such as Robert Owen built better housing and schools for his workers, and thinkers such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (The Communist Manifesto, 1848) argued for socialism.

5Effects on Africa

The link between industry in Europe and empire in Africa is one of the most important ideas in this course.

1. Demand for raw materials. Factories needed cotton, palm oil (for soap and machine lubrication), rubber, copper, cocoa and more.
2. Demand for markets. Factories produced more than Europeans could buy, so manufacturers wanted new customers.
3. Surplus capital looking for profitable investment in mines, plantations and railways.
4. The tools of conquest. Steamships could travel up African rivers; quinine protected Europeans from malaria; the breech-loading rifle and the Maxim machine gun gave small European forces overwhelming firepower.
5. The end of the Atlantic slave trade, abolished by Britain in 1807, shifted European interest towards "legitimate trade" in African raw materials.

Together these pressures led to the Scramble for Africa after 1880.

Worked example: a balanced judgement

Question: "The Industrial Revolution was good for ordinary people." Discuss.

In the short run, the claim is weak: early factory workers faced long hours, child labour, slums and disease, and many skilled hand workers lost their livelihoods. Outside Europe, Indian weavers were ruined and slavery expanded on cotton plantations. In the long run, the claim is stronger: cheaper goods, better transport, medical progress and, after long struggles, laws and unions that raised living standards. A fair conclusion is that the benefits came slowly and unequally, and were won by workers' own struggles as much as given by industry.

Practice

Solution. Any three of: rapid growth of towns (urbanisation); overcrowded slums and disease; child labour; long working hours; rise of a middle class and a working class; growth of trade unions.

Solution. They were textile workers, many of them skilled hand workers, who from 1811 smashed machinery. Machines operated by less skilled, cheaper workers were taking their jobs and lowering wages.

Solution. Factories needed raw materials such as palm oil, cotton and rubber, which Africa could supply, and new markets for surplus goods. Industry also provided the tools of conquest: steamships, quinine against malaria, and machine guns.

Solution. It banned children under nine from working in textile mills, limited the hours of older children, and appointed factory inspectors to enforce the law.