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Industrialization
• The first wave of the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late 1700s and
continued until the mid-1800s.
• The Industrial Revolution is significant because it signaled a break from what is know as
the “Biological Old Regime.” The period before the Industrial Revolution was
characterized primarily by relatively slow growth and limited to access to natural
resources.
• New machinery and technology made labor more efficient and improved quality of life.
Machines such as the cotton gin, which separated the cotton from the seeds, contributed
to the rise of a robust textile industry in the Southern U.S., Britain, and India.
• New forms of transportation, such as railroads and steamships, made the movement of
people and goods more efficient. This led to the rapid growth of urban areas.
• The harnessing of electricity enabled the refrigeration of food and the lighting of
buildings.
• Fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) became the lifeblood of these new industrial societies,
and forever altered the relationship between humans and nature.
Why Did the Industrial Revolution Originate in
Western Europe?
• Historians have long debated why this phenomenon developed in the areas it did. Was it
cultural? Or were there other factors at play?
• Some historians have pointed to cultural factors such as “Judeo-Christian” or
“Protestant” work ethic, or the appreciation and rewarding of manual labor and
innovation.
• Others attribute the rise of the industrial west to sheer good fortune. The discovery of
coal, for example, was crucial to Britain’s ability to develop steam power. That the coal
was discovered near manufacturing centers, enabling constant experimentation with
steam technology, was a result of convenience rather than culture.
• Historians have also pointed out that without colonies or slaves, European powers would
not have been able to increase productivity on such a massive scale.
• The Great Divergence, as historians have called this period of rapid growth in Europe, has
continued to spark intense debates. A combination of factors, including the initiative and
drive to produce as well as luck and coercion, contributed to this major socioeconomic
shift.
The Industrial Revolution’s Effects
• Cities (London, Manchester, Glasgow, Philadelphia) grew exponentially as a result
of expanding industries.
• In 1750, Great Britain’s population was 80 percent rural. By 1900, it was almost
80 percent urban.
• Urban infrastructures expanded with the development of trolley systems, sewers,
and power lines. Various forms of rapid transit emerged in major cities
throughout the western world by the end of the nineteenth century.
• The factory became the center of industrial life, and changed the nature of work
significantly. Workers became part of a larger manufacturing process and were
paid according to their productivity. Factories employed women and children
alongside men, though they were paid much less.
• Throughout the nineteenth century, life expectancy rose and infant mortality
dropped in Europe as a result of industrial progress and the expansion of free
trade. Still, the newly industrial economy had plenty of critics.
Critics of Industrialization
• Industrial capitalism was not necessarily a humane system in the eyes of some. The
rapid expansion of urban centers created conditions that were often dangerous,
crowded, and unsanitary.
• Questions about who ultimately benefitted from this economic system also began to
arise.
• Two Germans, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, were repulsed by the squalid scenes they
witnessed in English cities. They reasoned that there was a major disconnect between
the interests of those who controlled the means of production and ordinary laborers.
• Marx viewed industrial capitalism as efficient and productive, but he was concerned that
the interests of the working class would be neglected as industrialists, bankers, and
landlords (“the bourgeoisie”) sought to maintain political power and monopolies over
their competition.
• Marx believed workers (“the proletariat”), would ultimately rise up and overthrow the
industrialists and landowners if their collective condition did not improve. He and Engels
expressed these sentiments in The Communist Manifesto in 1848.
China (1750-1839)
• By 1750, the Qing dynasty had consolidated its rule over all of China and
was expanding into Central Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia.
• China had a robust manufacturing sector that specialized in porcelain and
silk and well-developed irrigation and transport systems. It was quite
possibly the world’s most productive economy in the eighteenth century.
• Emperor Qianlong (Heavenly Greatness) sought to control every aspect of
Chinese life. The Qing state was absolutist and expansionist, and
established a foreign policy based on three tenets: 1) expansion into
Central Asia 2) trade and tribute in the immediate region (Japan, Korea,
Vietnam) 3) diplomacy with Russia.
• China was the center of the Asian world in the mid-eighteenth century, and
no other regional power attempted to disrupt its position. This would begin
to change in the nineteenth century.
China Encounters Britain
• The British sought to expand trade with China in 1750s, but the Qing restricted
any exchange to the port city of Canton on the southern coast. This became
known as the Canton System.
• China’s refusal to allow any further access to its ports frustrated British efforts to
penetrate the China market. The British especially wanted Chinese tea, silk, and
porcelain. But, since China wanted little in return, the British paid in silver, which
led to a trade deficit.
• Though China was relatively prosperous throughout the rest of the eighteenth
century, cracks began to appear in its economy. By 1800, growing income
inequality and several unsuccessful military ventures weakened the Chinese
state. By this time, Britain’s economy was on the upswing as it enjoyed the spoils
of victory over the French in the Seven Years’ War, as well as the burgeoning
Industrial Revolution.
• The British East India Company, firmly in control of Calcutta by the 1780s, began
to address the problem of Britain’s trade imbalance with China.
The Opium Wars
• In the 1790s, China outlawed the sale and use of opium, which had become a public health issue.
• The British East India Company began selling opium during this period, and by the 1830s it was moving
thousands of tons of the drug into China.
• By the 1820s, Europeans were demanding fewer Chinese goods, and a disruption of world’s silver supply
(due in part to the revolutions in Latin America) led to the diminishment of China’s economy.
• As the British continued to flood China with opium, leading to severe addictions throughout the country, the
Qing Emperor (Daoguang) dispatched a top official to Canton to seize opium stored there. He was able to
destroy some of the opium, but the action led to a confrontation with the British, who refused to cooperate.
A blockade ensued, leading to an intervention by the British crown.
• This sparked a three-year war (1839-1842). The British emerged from this conflict victorious, and were able
to secure the opening of five Chinese ports to trade, as well as the colony of Hong Kong (the Treaty of
Nanjing). It was the first major military defeat for the Qing.
• The Treaty of Nanjing also permitted the practice of Christianity, which had been outlawed in China for
several decades.
• A second Opium War (1857-1860), which started because of the Treaty’s unclear position on the opium
trade, resulted in the legalization of the drug.
1848 and the “Springtime of the Nations”
• Though Marx advocated for transnational worker solidarity in 1848, it was
nationalism that generated revolutionary activity throughout Europe.
• Revolutionaries in France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere demanded
universal suffrage, freedom of the press, and workers rights. Nationalist
movements emerged in Germany and parts of the Austrian Empire,
including modern-day Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. These
independence movements were largely unsuccessful, but they highlight
just how potent a force nationalism had become by this point.
• Governments also took advantage of this nationalist sentiment. British
leaders, for example, used nationalist propaganda to promote the
implementation of direct rule over India after a rebellion against the East
India Company in 1857.
Russian Autocracy and Reform in the
Nineteenth Century
• While other European monarchies were gradually liberalizing, Russian
autocrats (Tsars Alexander I, Nicholas I) became increasingly authoritarian,
often using secret police to crush dissent.
• The Russian state continued to expand throughout most of the nineteenth
century as well, particularly into regions of Eastern Europe and Central
Asia.
• Its defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856) forced it to look inward and
address some of its socioeconomic problems. Feudalism was still practiced
in large parts of Russia, and a majority of Russians were serfs (peasants
living on large manors, tied to the land by law). Tsar Alexander II, who
succeeded Nicolas after his death in 1855, changed this condition in 1861
and granted serfs the freedom to seek other employment.
The Ottoman Empire in the mid-Nineteenth
Century
• The Ottoman Empire also embarked on a series of reforms, starting in
1839. These were known as “Tanzimat” or Reorganization.
• Telegraph networks and railroads were introduced, a central bank and
stock exchange were constructed, and new government agencies
were created.
• Ottoman leaders, themselves Muslims, sought new accommodations
for practitioners of other faiths.
• The Ottoman Empire, though powerful at this time, descended into a
long and agonizing period of decline following the Crimean War.
The Creation of Italy and Germany
• Italy and Germany were established in 1871. In both cases, multiple and often disparate
provinces were united under a single national banner.
• In Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi led an independence movement and
military campaign to unite the peninsula in the 1860s. Garibaldi served in the parliament
of the Kingdom of Italy once unification was achieved.
• In Germany, a new state was formed in part as a reaction to French dominance. Wilhelm
of Prussia led a unification movement that grew out of the expansion of the Prussian
state. He became Germany’s first Kaiser, or Emperor, in 1871.
• The unifications of both nations raised big questions about how to unite peoples of
different ethnic backgrounds who often spoke different languages. The newly formed
German and Italian states provided many necessary services and protections for their
citizens, such as healthcare and private property, and were able to undermine the
Marxist ideas that were floating around Europe by this point. Still, the problem of how
to integrate peoples with different backgrounds and cultures under a single nationality
remained. Maintaining order often involved criminalizing any dissent which was
perceived as undermining national unity.
Opening Japan
• Just like China, Japan in the early 1800s was largely closed to the rest of the
world. As with the Canton system, the port of Nagasaki was the only foreign
point of access to Japanese goods.
• In 1853, as the western United States was being settled and calls for further
access to Asia grew louder, an American Naval officer named Commodore
Matthew Perry led an expedition to Japan, which was seen as an important link in
a chain of islands connecting the U.S. to China.
• When the Japanese Tokugawa government refused to open more ports for trade,
the American fleet engaged in “gunboat diplomacy,” which essentially involved
firing at Japanese ships until their demands were met. The Japanese eventually
capitulated, but did not “modernize” overnight. Clashes between traditionalists
and modernizers continued for several decades. Though Japan was one of the
most urbanized countries in the world, a feudal system hostile to social mobility
remained firmly entrenched until the Meiji Restoration in 1868, which established
a constitution guaranteeing the recognition of natural rights.
The American Civil War
• Another major conflict over the status of enslaved people erupted in the
U.S. in 1861. While the international slave trade had ended and slavery
itself had been abolished in the British Empire in the first half of the
nineteenth century, the southern American states still utilized slave labor,
particularly in order to facilitate the region’s booming cotton industry.
• The decision by the southern states to secede from the Union prompted
the North to invade, sparking a war that would last until 1865. The conflict
was ferocious and featured the same type of industrial warfare that
characterized the Crimean War (mass movement of weapons and people,
new communications, shelling, etc.).
• The northern states emerged victorious and the South was devastated,
which led to over a decade of Reconstruction. Northern manufacturing
thrived after the war, which enabled a relatively rapid economic recovery
for the U.S.
Modernization in Latin America
• Latin American countries, most formed out of anti-colonial uprisings,
were characterized by high levels of ethnic and racial mixture.
• Though Latin American governments often established governments
based upon Western Enlightenment principles such as equality before
the law and separation of powers, they essentially became oligarchies
characterized by corruption and greed.
• Indigenous peoples throughout the region were marginalized, and
racial stratification persisted. Mexico, Chile, and Argentina all
violently put down indigenous rebellions in the 1870s.
• Slavery, still practiced in parts of Latin America throughout most of
the 1800s, was finally abolished for good in 1888 (Brazil).
The Second Industrial Revolution
• The second half of the nineteenth century saw further industrial expansion throughout the world,
driven by the discovery and harnessing of fossil fuels.
• Natural gas was used for lighting, cooking, and heating.
• The first internal combustion engines (later used in automobiles) were produced in the 1870s.
• The Suez Canal was built in 1869, shortening the journey from England to India by 6,000 miles.
• By the 1880s, railroads existed throughout the world. The transcontinental railroad linked the
east and west coasts of the U.S. in 1869. India laid 15,000 miles of track by 1890.
• The global market for consumer goods also expanded significantly during this period. Bicycles,
typewriters, sewing machines became commonplace household items. Big departments stores
were built to sell these items in large quantities.
• Canned food was first sold in grocery stores in the 1870s. Breweries such as Anheuser-Busch,
Heineken, Dos Equis, and Sapporo got their start in the 1880s.
• Libraries and museums also emerged all over the world, creating spaces for intellectual
engagement.
New Ideas about Progress
• A series of World’s Fairs took place in a variety of cities during the Second
Industrial Revolution. New York, Paris, Vienna, and other major urban centers
held these exhibitions to showcase new inventions and consumer goods.
• The United States and European countries were heavily represented at these
events, but other nations did participate. For example, Mexico, Venezuela,
Argentina, and a few other Latin American countries viewed the World’s Fair in
Philadelphia in 1876 as an opportunity to demonstrate to the Western world that
they too were on the fast track to modernization.
• Smaller countries like Liberia also participated, showcasing agriculture products
such as sugar and coffee.
• The message at these events was clear: Europe and the U.S. were leading the way
in modernizing the world, and it was up to the rest of the world to follow suit.
Sources
• Carter and Warren, Forging the Modern World
• Jurgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global
History of the Nineteenth Century
• Roberts and Westad, The History of the World
• Westad, Restless Empire: China and the World since 1750