Industrial Connections

The Industrial Revolution started in Britain’s factories. It was made possible by coal, steam engines, and farming improvements. These created connections across the world. They changed how humans work and live.

We will look at how industrial production changed British life. Then, we will look at how these changes spread around the world. Different people were affected in different ways. Wealthy Europeans became even richer. Colonial workers were forced to work for Europeans. The working poor in Europe had new jobs in factories. But these factories also had terrible working conditions.

Britain’s “dark Satanic Mills”

The Industrial Revolution led to many improvements in our lives. Cotton underwear is one example. But for many people, it was a hard time to live. Poor workers moved to cities for better work. They faced inhuman conditions in factories. William Blake was an English poet. He called the factories “these dark Satanic Mills.” The Industrial Revolution improved life for a small group of people. But these changes made life worse for many at the time.

Rural communities in England also changed. Farmers moved into cities for work. Large families split up. Before, children used to live with extended family relatives, such as their grandparents. This period saw the rise of nuclear families. Nuclear families are when only parents and children live together. In many cases, the family was just a mother and her children. People had less family support. A lack of support led many to become poor or homeless.

Industrialization endangered many children. In the early 1800s, England had more than a million child workers. Many grew up in orphanages and then went to work in workhouses. Some children were forced to work for food and a place to sleep.

Women’s lives changed as they began to work outside the home. Rural women made textiles at home. They could also work in agriculture or become a servant. One of the few ways women could make money in the city was by working in textile factories. But married women’s husbands often demanded that their wives quit working.

Social mobility

Factory work was hard, but sometimes it gave workers new opportunities. For some, it was a chance to earn more money. This could lead to a better social standing.

Industrialization made Britain a wealthy nation. But workers, politicians, and writers began to question why the factories were so terrible. People pushed for reform, or change. Reformers said children should be in school, not factories. Workers also wanted to get a minimum wage. This meant everyone would be given a base amount of money. They also wanted safer factory conditions. These reforms did not reach Britain’s colonies.

Industrialized sugar comes home

Industrial production in Britain relied on materials from elsewhere. We will now look at three goods: sugar, wheat, and copper. These were all affected by the Industrial Revolution.

Europeans forced enslaved workers to farm sugarcane in the Caribbean. In the early 1800s, the British government made slavery against the law. This essentially ended the Atlantic slave trade. It then became more expensive to make sugar in the Caribbean. Europeans turned to colonies in Southeast Asia. They forced local people to work in large sugar factories. Everyone suffered except the Europeans. The people in Southeast Asia worked under difficult conditions. The Caribbean economies were hurt by lower sugar prices.

Wheat-fueled industrialization

Machines were powered by coal. But the people working those machines were powered by wheat, or bread. Britain needed to feed its workers to keep factories running. The British demand for cheap bread changed wheat production around the world.

Britain brought in wheat from Russia, Argentina, and California. British factory owners helped pay for railroads and ports in Russia and Argentina. California wheat traveled 17,000 miles from San Francisco to Liverpool, England. It was such a money-making crop that gold miners became wheat farmers.

Copper connects the world to Wales

Metal ore was historically smelted near the place it was mined. Smelting is the process of heating and collecting metals. Industrialization changed this process. Metals could be brought in from faraway places.

Copper is an orange-colored metal. It is used to make machine parts. The city of Swansea is in Great Britain. Swansea was a center of British copper smelting. Around 1830, steamships allowed Swansea to bring in ore from new places. Copper arrived from parts of the Americas, Australia, Asia, and Africa.

Swansea made half of the world’s copper by the mid-1800s. The network used labor from enslaved Africans, Indigenous Americans, and Chinese indentured servants. Copper made in Swansea helped to build steam engines. These ships brought wheat, sugar and other materials around the world. But the high demand had terrible effects on Swansea. The landscape smelled awful. Everywhere was covered in smoke.

Conclusion

Sugar, wheat, and copper industries all depended on developed networks. These networks included British steam engines, money, and laborers. People around the world were affected. This included children in British factories, enslaved people in colonies, Russian peasants, and California farmers. Industrialization changed communities. The way people lived and worked would never be the same.