Industrialization: Government’s Role from 1750 to 1900 CE
Driving Question: How did the economic strategies of different states and empires shape their development and impact the world?
While the Industrial Revolution started in the late eighteenth century, not all societies industrialized at once. All around the world, different factors, such as access to resources and colonialism, helped some societies to industrialize faster and more efficiently than others. In this lesson, you will compare two societies that began the process of industrialization in the late nineteenth century.
Learning Objective
- Assess the scale of the Industrial Revolution and its impact on various regions of the world.
- Explain the causes and effects of the economic strategies of different states and empires.
Vocab Terms:
Think industrialization was all booming factories and happy workers? Think again.
Did you know: Baseball’s extraordinary popularity in Japan led some schools to ban it, and the government to pass restrictions in the 1930s to deal with student obsession with the sport. Teachers and officials worried that baseball was hurting academics, with students skipping class, staying in school extra years to play, and treating baseball as their most important subject. Let your students know that one of the impacts of the Meiji Restoration included teenagers choosing baseball over schoolwork.
If you want to move behind the “Japan modernized successfully” story, you can share this: The Meiji state industrialized fast, but often through top-down reform, heavy taxation, military expansion, and the sacrifice of older social orders.
How did Japan develop into a major world power over the course of 25 years? The answer partially lies with American warships… and baseball.
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Guiding Questions
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Guiding Questions
Egypt had cotton and the beginnings of an industrialized economy. So why did their industrialization fail?
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Guiding Questions
The Iwasaki Yatarō graphic biography is a nice way to show that industrialization created winners and losers. He was among the new business elites, such as the future founders of zaibatsu firms (Mitsubishi, for example). These were large, family-controlled industrial organizations that dominated Japan’s economy until 1945.
Have you ever heard of a rags to riches story? Someone works their way from a lower economic rung to a higher economic position. In the example of Iwasaki Yatarō, an ordinary samurai went on to become the head of one of the largest corporations on Earth.
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Guiding Questions
Give your students helpful feedback while also improving their comparison skills with the Comparison Feedback Form.
Need to cover the important skill of historical comparison but feeling a little pressed for time? Try out the cybersandwich option—complete with some handy Google Slides—covered in this community conversation.
Although industrialization affected many countries at approximately the same time, the way it affected those countries varied. You will examine Egypt and Japan to analyze the different ways industrialization affected nations.
