Hi and welcome back to Heimler’s History.
In this video we’re getting to one of the
main themes of Unit 5 of AP World History,
namely, the Industrial Revolution.
So we’re going to talk about what it is
and where it came from.
If you’re ready, I’m ready, let’s get
to it.
So the Industrial Revolution.
Strictly defined, the Industrial Revolution
isn’t that impressive sounding.
It’s basically the process of producing
goods with machines in order to labor more
efficient.
So we went from making stuff with our hands
to making stuff with machines.
But this shift in the method of production
of goods led to worldwide changes in social
and economic structures on such a massive
scale that it’s going to be hard for me
to exaggerate the magnitude of its effects.
And that’s what the rest of the videos in
this unit are going to explore.
For now, we’re going to look at what caused
the Industrial Revolution to begin.
And it just so happened that it began in the
country of England.
Now, why England?
Well, I got eight reasons for you.
Number 1: proximity to water.
As my grandpappy used to say, “You can’t
bust a grumpy in England without running into
water somewhere.”
Thanks, grandpappy.
And it’s true: England is an island and
no matter where you lived on this island there
was abundant access to rivers and canals.
And this is important because it created the
conditions for easy and inexpensive trade.
Number 2: metric buttloads of raw materials.
Under the surface of England’s soil lay
huge deposits of coal which would be the main
source of energy powering the Industrial Revolution.
Also there were abundant deposits of iron,
which, thanks to new methods of separating
iron from its ore, was used to create the
infrastructure of the Industrial Revolution.
Number 3: improved agricultural productivity.
So there were some significant advances in
farming during this time that increased harvests
abundantly.
A new method of planting was embraced, namely,
crop rotation.
And this was a big deal because if you plant
the same crop in the same soil year after
year, then that crop uses the same nutrients
year after year, and eventually the soil can’t
replenish itself.
But if you plant different crops on the same
ground year after year, then each year you’re
using different nutrients in the soil and
the productivity of said soil increases.
Also there was the invention of a new tool
called the seed drill which enabled farmers
farmers to place seeds in the ground at the
exact right location and depth.
Number 4: urbanization.
Now because of this improvement in agriculture,
there was more food available.
And as is usually the case in world history,
when there’s more food, people be making
more babies, and the population increases.
But combine that agricultural increase with
an advancing efficiency in farming techniques,
and you’ve got a bunch of new people growing
up on farms that no longer needed their labor.
And so the result of this was a huge migration
of people from the rural areas into the urban
areas, or cities.
Number 5: legal protection of private property.
This was important because it enable entrepreneurs
to take risks and build businesses without
the fear that the government or other businesses
would take what they built.
Number 6: Access to foreign resources.
It’s true that England had a good store
of natural resources on their own island,
but let’s not forget what occurred during
the last time period.
England had been busy creating a global empire.
And one of the cushy benefits of that was
this: they had access to all the raw materials
of their colonies.
And because they had colonies in all parts
of the globe, there was basically nothing
that they couldn’t get if they wanted it.
And number 7: the accumulation of capital.
Largely because of wealth generated by the
African slave trade, British capitalists had
accumulated huge amounts of capital.
And that meant they had the occasion to invest
such capital into new entrepreneurial opportunities,
should they arise.
Okay, those were the seven conditions that
made it possible for the Industrial Revolution
to begin.
And those seven are more the macro reasons.
Let’s zoom in for a moment and look at one
more reason on a micro scale, namely the advent
of the factory system.
So a factory is a place where good for sale
are manufactured.
But people have always made goods to sell
to other people.
What makes the factory special?
Well a factory is capable of producing those
goods in mass.
You see prior to the factory, if a good was
going to be made for sale, like a chair, an
artisan or skilled laborer made that chair
from beginning to end.
And that made the production of goods very
slow.
But here’s where I introduce you to the
father of the factory Richard Arkwright.
In 1769 he invented the water frame.
This was a wheel that you could stick in moving
water and get it to spin.
And you may be saying, so what?
Well wait a second.
Let me further introduce you to James Hargraves
who invented the spinning jenny in 1760.
This little contraption made it possible for
weavers to produce cloth at a much faster
rate.
Now if you take the water frame and hook it
up to a spinning jenny, then baby, you got
a machine making textiles faster than any
human being ever could.
And that was, in the simplest terms, the birth
of the factory.
But it wasn’t just the machines that changed,
labor changed as well.
And here’s where I introduce you to Eli
Whitney.
He came up with the notion of interchangeable
parts.
And here’s what that means.
Whitney’s application of this idea was to
guns.
Remember, before this, people made things
basically one at a time.
So that trigger was made for that gun, and
it wouldn’t fit any other gun.
But Whitney thought, why don’t we make parts
that fit every gun so that if a trigger goes
bad on that one, then you can just put in
another standardized trigger.
And so now the manufacture of goods was focused
not on whole products, but on the individual
parts of the products.
And when that happened, it meant producers
no longer had to rely on skilled laborers
to produce their goods for sale.
Instead, anyone could stand at one spot on
an assembly line and fit that cog into that
hole, and do it over and over again.
So with those three factors swirling together,
the factory system was born.
Okay, that’s what you need to know about
the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution
for Unit 5 of AP World History.
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