THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Definition: a process of change from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture - it began in England in the 18th century and spread to other parts of the world

- the term was popularized by Arnold Toynbee to describe England’s economic development from 1760 to 1840

Main features: technological, socioeconomic and cultural

Technological changes: 1. the use of iron and steel, 2. the use of new energy sources

including both fuels and motive power such as coal, steam engine, electricity, petroleum, internal combustion engine

3.the invention of new machines: spinning jenny. The power loom – increased production

4.factory system – a new organization of work which lead to the division of labour

5.transportation and communication: steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, radio

6.application of science to industry Other developments: agricultural improvements, wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as source of

wealth in the face of the rising industrial production

Increased international trade Political changes – new state

policies Social changes: growth of the

cities, working class movements, the emergence of new patterns of authority

Cultural transformations Psychological change: man’s

confidence in his ability to use resources and master nature

1760-1830 - revolution confined to Britain

-the first country it went to was Belgium

Railroad systems – first to transport coal 1820; first commercial line Liverpool-Manchester 1830

Urbanization villages grew into cities: Manchester

A new work ethic promoted by the new middle-class: no idleness and frivolity

1820 – liberal agitation revived in Britain, France and the Low Countries

Liberals wanted stronger parliaments, wider protection of individual rights – the Reform Bill in 1832 – set the framework for additional liberal legislation Corn Laws – a series of statutes enacted between 1815 and 1845 – kept corn prices at a high level

Trade more than industry characterized the British economy

1842 – marks the victory against the Corn Law

1815-1832 After the Napoleonic wars there was

no longer need for factory-made goods and many people lost their jobs

Unemployment grew with 300,000 men from Britain’s army and navy

Because of the cheaper imported corn the landowners’ income went down and asked for a corn law – rose in he cost of bread

1830 starving farm workers in the South of England rioted

1834 a new poor law was intended but the government did not provide the necessary money

The workhouses were full and dirty The Whigs understood better than

the Toriesthe need to reform the law in order to improve social conditions

The Reform Bill – Scotland’s voters increased from 5, 000 to 65,000; England with 54% of British population had over 70% of MPs – it is a recognition that Britain had become an urban society

1824 the workers are allowed to join together in unions

1840 the introduction of cheaper postage system enabled them to organize themselves across the country far better than before

1838 – the Chartist Movement: rights for all adults, the right for a man without a property of his own to be a MP, voting in secret, payment for MPs, an election every year

Robert Peel the Prime Minister – weakened the Chartist movement, abolished the Corn Law in 1846

He established a regular police force for London in 1829, followed by all other towns in the following 30 years

Crime was pushed out of cities, towns, villages and country

Family life - stricter ideas of family life - people no longer married for

economic reasons - the return to authority exercised by

the head of the family Scotland – women were more

independent

Britain became powerful because it had enough coal, iron and steel and could even export them to other countries

It produced new heavy industrial goods, machinery for woolen and cotton cloth

Owned more than half of the world’s total shipping

The industrial empire was supported by a strong banking system

The railway – by 1840 – 2,400 miles of track had been laid, by 1870, it was almost complete

The Victorian Age

Great Britain was a powerful island nation, the center of the global empire that fostered British contact with a wide variety of other cultures

By the end of the 19th century – one quarter of the earth’s land surface was part of the British Empire. More than 400 million people were governed from Great Britain

Strongly connected to the nature and role of woman: Women’s political rights: suffrage –

petitions to Parliament advocating it were introduced as early as 1840s

To allow married women to own and handle their own property – culminated in the passing of the Married Women’s Property Acts (1870-1908)

The growth of the textiles industry brought hundreds of thousands of wome ninto factory jobs

The new kinds of labour and poverty that arouse with the Industrial Revolution - a challenge to traditional ideas of woman’s place

Florence Nightingale – famous for organizing a contingent of nurses to take care of sick and wounded soldiers during the Crimean War

Cultural Contexts

In the wake of the Napoleonic wars British political energies were redirected towards domestic issues

The empire had not become the focus of public attention

The growth of industrialization Exacerbated political unrest Offered new opportunities for workers Created stress

Displaced workers migrated to expanding industrial towns

1829 Parliament ratified “Catholic Emancipation” – removed the restrictions on the political rights of Catholics

1830 Reform Bill All these nurtured an unusual sense

of historical self-consciousness John Stuart Mill claimed it “a time of

change”

1830 Byron embodied aristocratic luxury and privilege which appeared I contemporary fiction Walter Scott

A new genre appeared “silver-fork” novels – preoccupation with the particulars of aristocratic opulence (often imaginary) – the central figure here is the dandy who incarnates a sardonic, detached elegance loosely derived from the model of Byron

Middle-class attacks on aristocracy deemed unworthy of its power were focused on antithetical developments of late 18th century thought: utilitarianism – thinker John Stuart Mill – argued that the morality of an action was to be gauged by its usefulness, utility

The second: Evangelicalism: insisted on the need of divine salvation that could be attained only through piety

They saw human life as an arena of constant moral struggle, resisting temptation and mastering desire

A great impact on legislation: spearheaded the abolition of the English slave trade and laws governing factory conditions

Self-discipline became a crucial engine of social progress and individual stature

But: schemes of economic and political progress threatened this order

The idea of woman: an angelic devotion to the needs of others, a moral influence on which refined those around her

The technological revolution had a profound effect on literature

1820 – the development of machine-made paper and the rotary steam reduced the cost of printing and monthly journals began to proliferate

Reading became politically charged Radical journalists pressed for

greater working-class political rights To regulate their writings Parliament

passed the Seditious Publication Act - tax on publication

Source of solidarity printing of poetry aligned with radicalism: Shelly’s Queen Mab”

19th Century Poets

The first reaction to the orderly and polished poetry of the 18th century was the first edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798) the sign of the beginning of the romantic age

The authors were the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge known as the Lake poets together with Southey

Wordsworth – love for nature, simple language,

returns to scenes in the past best sonnets: Westminster Bridge, an

emotional view of London asleep, and London, 1802

Coleridge - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an

old sailor describes strange misfortunes that happened on a ship

Christabel (1816) one of the most beautiful poems in English; Kubla Khan

George Gordon, Lord Byron - romantic poet - much influenced by the classical form

of Pope - work: Childe Harold, The Giaour, The

Bride of Abydos, Don Juan Percy Bysshe Shelley – - a greater poet of good family, rich and

restless - he struggled against the causes of

human misery, he saw goodness in the whole of nature and wanted all men to be free

Work: - Alastor , or The Spirit of Solitude,

Blank verse, Expresses joy in the universe and

sorrow for the violent feelings of men- The Revolt of Islam

- A cry at the cruelty of the world- Adonis – an elegy on the death of Keats

- -lyrics: The Cloud, To a Skylark, Ode to the West Wind