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Mckay Study Guide, Chapter 22 [Home][Supplementary Material]
1. Cottage Workers
Cottage workers were those who worked in the cottage or putting-out system. A merchant would loan or "put out" raw materials to these workers and collect the finished product. For example, a merchant would put out raw wool, and the worker would spin it into thread. They were rural wage earners who were relatively mobile compared to the peasants of France or western Germany. They formed a potential industrial labor force for capitalist entrepreneurs. The cottage workers were a factor that helped initiate the Industrial Revolution.
2. domestic system
The domestic system (also known as cottage industry or the putting-out system) was the arrangement in which a merchant supplied raw materials to cottage workers, who made the finished product and returned it to the merchant. In Britain where the system was most developed in 1760, the limitations first outweighed the advantages.
3. Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period of huge industrial growth from new inventions that increased production that in turn increased the economic wealth of a nation. With its beginnings in Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution grew from three main areas. First, Britain's strong economy was doing very well because of the strong and aggressively built colonial empire, which, along with the domestic regions provided a strong market for British manufactured goods. Next, the agriculture industry was second in productivity only to the Dutch, and was continually improving their methods, which resulted in a period of bountiful crops and low food prices. This meant that the average British family could spend their money on goodies. The third factor was industrial leadership, which was a result of a effective banking system and stable government. Also, the few government controls encouraged personal initiative, technical change and a free market.
4. Protective tariff
As Great Britain took the lead in the industrial revolution, it began to adopt mass production through factories. These factory goods were cheaper to produce, available in large quantities, and in high demand. Britain flooded the continent with such inexpensive goods that the Continental businesses began experiencing economic problems. In response, governments such as France set tariffs on British goods, making them more expensive than those locally produced goods. Thus, the Continental economy was preserved and kept from British monopoly. The tariffs set upon British goods to protect the Continental economy were known as protective tariffs. France was predominant in using protective tariffs to protect its economy.
5. Chartist Movement
Wanted political democracy and to give all men the right to vote. Workers also wanted to limit work in factories to 10 hours and permit duty-free importation of wheat. They developed a sense of identity and an active role in shaping new industrial system.
6. Energy Crisis of the 18th Century
The growth of the cotton textile industry might have been stunted or cut short if water from rivers and streams had remained the primary source of power for the new factories. There was rapid development in cotton textiles, and the industrial revolution was triumphing in Britain. The new factories needed energy, and the water and streams could not provide the necessary energy needed. Wood was in shorter supply, and the population of Britain was growing. They needed to find an alternate form of energy.
7. Real Wages:
Real wages of workers in all advanced countries generally rose after 1850, mainly as a result of the increasing productivity that came from the application of scientific knowledge to processes of production.
8. Sexual Division of Labor
During the nineteenth century, men emerged as the primary wage earner and women were limited in job opportunities. Virtually all the jobs open to women did not pay enough to live independently upon. Married women found that the discipline of factory life conflicted greatly with childcare. Running a household was in itself a very demanding job. Contemporaries also thought that having males and females work closely together without parental supervision would lead them to more likely form liaisons, initiate courtships, and respond to advances.
9. Separate Spheres
The man emerged as the family's primary wage earner, while the woman found only limited job opportunities. Women were expected to concentrate on unpaid housework, childcare, and craftwork, and when they did work for wages outside the house, they usually came from the poorest, most desperate families. All women were generally confined to low-paying, dead-end jobs. Men predominated in better paying, more promising occupations.
10. Patriarchal Tradition
During the Industrial Revolution, women found themselves forced into domestic labour and child care. A school of scholars claimed that the movement of women into unpaid household work had nothing to do with industrialization, but with "patriarchal tradition." Patriarchal tradition is an old practice that revolves around male-domination of work and authority in general.
11. Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus wrote the famous Essay on the Principle of Population. He believed that the population would always grow faster than the food supply because people did not marry later in life anymore, which led to more babies being born. He believed that the only way to limit population was through war, disease and famine.
12. David Ricardo
David Ricardo was a wealthy English stockbroker and leading economist. His "iron law of wages" stated that wages would always be just high enough to keep workers from starving.
13. Andrew Ure
Many factory workers suffered much under the new circumstances. But eventually, things got better, and everyone noticed the change. Outside observers also noticed these improvements and wrote about it like Andrew Ure did. In 1835, Ure wrote that conditions were improving. He believed that the conditions weren't harsh and even quite good. Andrew Ure liked the changes that were occurring during this time, and knew that it was an improvement.
14. Crystal palace
The Crystal Palace was an architectural masterpiece for the 19th century made completely of glass and iron. In 1851, the Great Exposition was held in the Crystal Palace, attracting six million people. During the exposition, companies and countries displayed their products, similar to a present day mall, while juries awarded prizes.
15. Cartwright's power loom
Invented by Edmund Cartwright in 1785 was a loom to replace handloom weavers because it costed too much to pay them, and so mechanics and capitalists had to invent a power loom to save labor costs.
16. Spinning Jenny
Hargreave's jenny was simple and inexpensive. It was also hand-operated. In early models, from sic to twenty-four spindles were mounted on a sliding carriage, and each spindle spun a fine, slender thread. The weaver moved the carriage back and forth with one hand and turned a wheel to supply power with the other.
17. Zollverein
Zollverein is a formation of a custom's union among the separate German states. This formation of a tariff union was supported by Fredrich List, who was a great journalist and thinker. This new custom tariff would allowed goods to move between the German states without any tariffs. This allowed small industries in Germany to grow and expand.
18. Factory act of 1833
Parliament's most significant early accomplishment in the pursuit to pass corrective laws, the Factory act of 1833 sought to regulate the harsh conditions of the factories. the role of children in the factories were reduced; children between 9 and 13 received work hours of 8 hours instead and adolescents to 12 hours. However, the act did not affect the children working in homes or small businesses. The act also prohibited the use of children under 9 in the factories and forced the factory owners to form schools. thus the employment of children was greatly reduced, eliminating the presence of whole families working together in factory. This was brought about because efficiency required standardized shifts for all workers.
19. Credit Mobilier
The Credit Mobilier advertised extensively. It was the most famous bank of it's kind in Paris. It used the savings of thousands of small investors as well as the resources of big ones. The activities of the bank were far-reaching; it built railroads all over France and Europe.
20. Combination Acts
An Act for the suppression of strikes and of trade unions. Behind the Combination Act there stood the law of conspiracy. Under the Act it is made an offence to assist in maintaining men on strike. Persons guilty of this or any other offence under the Act are made liable to conviction on summary procedure before justices of the peace. The statute imposes a penalty upon combinations among masters for the reduction of wages or for an increase in the hours or the quantity of work.
21. Parish apprentices in cotton mills
Apprentices, boys or girls, as young as five or six years old, were often forced to work for their masters for as many as fourteen years. Children, especially parish orphans were forced to work in exchange of food and shelter. The masters housed and fed the children and locked them up nightly in factory dormitories. It wasn't common for these kids to find themselves employed for thirteen to fourteen hours a day, which they received little, or no pay for.
22. Henry Cort
Henry Cort was responsible for developing the puddling furnace, which allowed pig iron to be refined in turn with coke. He also developed heavy duty, steam-powered rolling mills which emitted finished iron in various shapes and forms. With the puddling furnace, iron workers known as "puddlers" were required to "cook" molten pig iron in a large vat, removing globs of refined iron for additional processing.
23. James Hargreaves
Hargreaves spent much of his life as a carpenter and a weaver, working under the "putting-out" system. After Kay's flying shuttle had been invented, it took the work of up to 16 spinsters to provide a weaver with enough thread to keep him occupied. It was this problem that led Hargreaves to look for an improved method of spinning, and his machine was a simple device allowing an operator to carry out distaff and spindle spinning on several spindles at once. It was called the spinning jenny.
24. Robert Owen
Robert Owen: (1771-1858). A very successful manufacturer in Scotland, testified in 1816 before an investigating committee on the basis of his experience. He stated that "very strong facts" demonstrated that employing children under ten years of age as factory workers was "injurious to the children, and not beneficial to the proprietors". He made a testimony and he raised the age of employment in his mills and promoted education for young children.
25. James Watt
With a series of observations of the Newcomen engine, James Watt (1736-1819) realized the Newcomen engine wasted so much energy because the cylinder was being heated and cooled for every stroke of piston. He thus added a separate condenser where the steam could be condensed without cooling the cylinder, making the steam engine a practical and commercial success in England. In order to do this, Watt formed a partnership with a wealthy toy maker and found many skilled mechanics. Gradually, Watt was able to purchase precision parts, create an effective vacuum, and regulate a complex engine with this support.
26. Friedrich List
A German journalist and thinker, Friedrich List considered the growth of modern industry of the utmost importance because manufacturing was a primary means of increasing people's well being and relieving their poverty. A dedicated nationalist, he believed to promote industry was to defend the nation. His influential National System of Political Economy focused on practical policies such as railroad building and tariff. List supported the formation of unions and high protective tariffs, which would encourage infant industries. By the 1840's, List's economic nationalism had become increasingly popular in Germany and elsewhere.
27. George Stephenson
In 1825, after ten years of work, George Stephenson built an effective locomotive. In 1830 his Rocket sped down the track of the just completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway at sixteen miles per hour. This was the world's first important railroad, fittingly steaming in the heart of industrial England.
28. Grand National Consolidated Trades Union - In 1824, the British Parliament repealed the 1799 Combination Acts, which outlawed unions and strikes. After 1825, unions were tolerated, and social reformers began to work towards creating one national union for all the workers. One of the reformers, Robert Owen, was a cotton manufacturer who was concerned about the health, safety, and hours of his workers. In 1834, he organized the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union, a large and visionary union. However, it fell apart, and after 1851, the labor movement moved in the direction of trade unions.