IN THIS CHAPTER
Summary: From 1820 to 1900, Europe witnessed the development of a Second Industrial Revolution that transformed almost every aspect of everyday life: work, wages, industry, and the social structure.
Key Ideas
• The creation of a factory system centralized and standardized industrial work.
• The d ivision of labor promoted the use of unskilled labor, simultaneously increasing the demand for and lowering the wages of manufacturing workers.
• The Second Industrial Revolution was brought about by the development and expansion of the iron and steel industry, coal mining, steam power, and railroads.
• The Second Industrial Revolution created many social changes, including urbanization, the standardization of work, an increased pace of life, and heightened class consciousness.
Key Terms
Second Industrial Revolution
factory system
division of labor
Bessemer process
steam engine
internal combustion engine
Railway Boom
class consciousness
Introduction
During the eighteenth century, the development of a more diverse economy propelled by a system of rural manufacturing (sometimes referred to as the First Industrial Revolution) radically increased the demand for manufactured goods. In response, nineteenth-century entrepreneurs and inventors created a new, more mechanized system of production, known as the factory system. This new system of production, coupled with the introduction of new sources of power, produced a Second Industrial Revolution. This second phase of industrialization, lasting from roughly 1820 to1900, was characterized by the advent of large-scale iron and steel production, the application of the steam engine, and the development of a railway system. The Second Industrial Revolution transformed almost every aspect of European life in the nineteenth century.
The Factory System and the Division of Labor
The factory system was created in order to better supervise labor. In the old, rural manufacturing system (or cottage industry) that characterized the First Industrial Revolution, peasants were left on their own to work at the spinning wheel or the loom. Both the quality and the efficiency of their work depended on factors that were beyond the entrepreneur’s control. In contrast, under the factory system, workers came to a central location and worked with the machines under the supervision of managers.
The factory system employed a technique that has come to be known as the division of labor, whereby formerly complex tasks that required knowledge and skill were broken down into a series of simple tasks, aided by machines. The division of labor had several simultaneous effects:
• It replaced skilled craftsmen with unskilled labor, thereby increasing the supply of labor and decreasing the wages that needed to be paid.
• It increased the volume that manufacturers could produce, thereby allowing them to sell products for less and still increase profits.
• It initially drew more women and children into the workforce.
• As machines did more and more of the work, it decreased the number of workers needed, creating unemployment and competition for jobs.
Iron and Steel
The nineteenth-century iron and steel industry helped to drive the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. The new machines of the textile industry created increased demand for the iron from which they were partly constructed. New, larger armies demanded more iron for guns, cannon, and ammunition. The growing population required even more iron for nails and tools.
Traditionally, the fuel for the iron smelting process was charcoal, which came from wood. By the eighteenth century, dwindling forests were limiting charcoal supply and steel was being smelted in blast furnaces, using coal as the fuel. In the 1850s, Henry Bessemer, an English engineer, discovered a way to manufacture steel more cheaply and in larger quantities. The use of the Bessemer process (as it came to be called), together with the use of the steam engine to power smelting furnaces, increased the supply of iron and steel to the point at which it could meet the ever-growing demand. In 1860, Great Britain, France, Germany, and
Belgium produced approximately 125,000 tons of steel. By 1913, they produced nearly 32 million tons.
New Sources of Power
Coal
Coal mines provided the most important fuel of the industrial revolution. Initially, coal was used to heat homes and to fuel the blast furnaces of the expanding iron and steel industry. Later, demand increased even further as steam engines devoured enormous quantities of coal for fuel. Wherever there were natural deposits of coal, huge mining industries grew up around them; agricultural production in these areas was largely abandoned, and the peasants were drawn by the thousands to subterranean work in the mines.
Steam
The perfection of the steam engine increased both the scale and the pace of heavy industry by replacing human muscle and hydropower. The steam engine was first used in the early eighteenth century to pump water out of coal mines. It was perfected and made more efficient by Thomas Newcomen and James Watt. The improved version was used to drive machinery as diverse as the bellows of iron forges, looms for textile manufacture, and mills for grain. The shift to steam power allowed entrepreneurs to relocate their mills away from water sources. During the 1820s, entrepreneurs began to exploit the potential of the steam engine as a source of locomotive power. It was first used in the 1820s to power ships. In the 1830s, it was adapted to power railway locomotives.
Electricity
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Second Industrial Revolution received another boost from the widespread application of electrical power. More versatile and more easily transported than steam engines, electrical generators were used to power a wide variety of small- and large-scale factories and mills. By 1881, the first large-scale public power plant was constructed in Britain and, in the next two decades, plants were built and lines were run to illuminate houses across Europe.
Petroleum and the Internal Combustion Engine
In 1886, two German engineers, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, perfected the internal combustion engine, which burned petroleum as fuel, and mounted it on a carriage to create the automobile. The early German automobiles were luxury items but in 1908 the American Henry Ford produced the “Model T," an automobile for the common man, and he mass produced it, creating yet another large factory-based industry. The internal combustion engine, along with its cousin the diesel engine, made transportation and travel cheaper and therefore more widely available.
The Railway Boom
In the 1820s, the British inventor George Stephenson developed a railway line with trains pulled by steam-powered locomotives. The Stockton and Darlington Line opened in 1825, and another major line went from Liverpool to Manchester by 1830. The speed and reliability of the new locomotives made them a huge success and began what would come to be known as the railway boom of the 1830s and 1840s, as Britain’s competitors quickly developed their own systems. The development of railway systems further spurred the development of heavy industries, as railroads facilitated the speedy transportation of iron and steel while simultaneously consuming large quantities of both.
The Reciprocal Nature of Heavy Industry
The four major components of the Second Industrial Revolution—the iron and steel industry, the coal industry, steam power, and the railways—had a reciprocal effect on one another:
• The iron and steel industry required improvements in the steam engine to run its blast furnaces, greater amounts of coal to fuel the engines, and railways to transport both the coal and the smelted iron and steel.
• The coal industry required more and improved steam engines to pump water out of the mines and to power digging machinery; it also required railways to transport the coal.
• The steam power industry required iron and steel to forge the engines, coal to run them, and railways to transport them.
• The railways required huge amounts of steel and iron for the construction of the engines, cars and tracks, steam engines to drive the locomotives, and coal to fuel the engines.
Working together, these four industries created an ever-increasing cycle of supply and demand that drove the Second Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century.
The Spread of Industrialization
The process of industrialization varied greatly across Europe. The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain and spread eastward across the continent of Europe.
Great Britain Industrializes First
Great Britain had several natural advantages that help to explain why it was first and why it held the lead for more than a century:
• It had a well-developed commercial economy that created a merchant class with capital to invest.
• Britain’s extensive river system was ideal for transporting goods throughout the country.
• The country was rich in coal and iron deposits, two key components of the Second Industrial Revolution.
• Unlike much of Europe, Great Britain had no internal tariffs to inhibit trade.
• It had a uniform and stable monetary system and a national banking system.
Industrialization Spread Eastward from Britain
As the Industrial Revolution spread to the Continent, it moved eastward in a way that can be described by three generalizations:
• The further east it went, the later the process began; for example, France industrialized later than Britain, Germany later than France, and Russia last.
• The further east it went, the faster the process occurred (because innovations could be copied or purchased, rather than invented and developed); for example, France industrialized at a faster pace than Britain, Germany faster still, and Russia fastest of all.
• The further east it went, the more the government was involved (because governments feared the political and military effects of falling behind their rivals, they invested heavily in industrialization); for example, there was no government involvement in the industrialization of Britain, some in France, more in Germany, and in Russia industrialization was almost totally government driven.
Russia Lags Behind
By 1850, large-scale industrialization had spread to northeastern France, Belgium, the northern German states, and northwestern Italy. The southern, central, and eastern areas of Europe—such, as Italy, Poland, and Russia—lagged behind due to insufficient natural resources and the lack of a commercialized agricultural system to allow for a mobile workforce. These areas retained their rural character.
Russia lagged behind until two successive tsars—Alexander III (1881—1894) and Nicholas II (1894—1917)—determined that Russia should become an industrial power. In 1892, Alexander III appointed Serge Witte as finance minister. Under Witte’s leadership, Russia became an iron- and steel-producing nation. By the end of the nineteenth century, factories had arisen in Moscow and St Petersburg. By 1904, the construction of a trans-Siberian railroad that linked the European portion of Russia with the East was nearly completed.
Social Effects
The Second Industrial Revolution transformed European society in significant ways:
• Urbanization increased rapidly, as the population moved into hastily built housing in cities to be nearer to the factories.
• Families were separated as the place of work shifted from the home to factories.
• Work lost its seasonal quality, as workers were required to follow a routine schedule.
• The pace of work, driven by machines, increased dramatically.
• The overall health of the workforce declined because of the harsh and unhealthy conditions of the factories.
• The availability of work became unpredictable as it rose and fell with the demand for goods.
• Gradually, women who had first been drawn into cities to work in the factories lost their manufacturing jobs as machines decreased the demand for labor; cut off from their families, many had no other option than prostitution.
• Artisans and craftsmen lost their livelihoods, unable to compete with the lower cost of mass-produced goods.
• The traditional impediment to marriage, which was the need for land, disappeared and people began to marry younger.
• A much greater portion of the population could afford factory-made goods.
• There was further change in the class structure as industrialization created both a class of newly wealthy industrialists and a precariously situated lower-middle class of managers and clerks.
• Close working and living conditions produced a sense of class consciousness among the working class.
• Rapid Review
Between 1820 and 1900, the demand for goods on the part of a steadily increasing population was met by entrepreneurs who created the factory system. The new system standardized and increased industrial production. As the century went on, the development of four inter-related heavy industries—iron and steel, coal mining, steam power, and railroads— combined to drive Europe’s economy to unprecedented heights, constituting a Second Industrial Revolution. The urbanization, standardization of work, and effects of the class system wrought by the Second Industrial Revolution significantly transformed social life in Europe.
• Chapter Review Questions
1. Which of the following was NOT an effect of the division of labor?
(A) It increased the supply of labor available to manufacturers.
(B) It raised wages for manufacturing workers.
(C) It increased the volume that manufacturers could produce.
(D) It allowed manufacturers to sell their products more cheaply.
(E) It allowed manufacturers to increase their profits.
2. The invention of new forms of power such as steam and electricity
(A) led to the creation of the factory system
(B) facilitated the invention of the automobile
(C) decreased demand for coal
(D) allowed manufacturers to relocate their mills away from water sources
(E) doomed the shipping industry
3. In general, the Second Industrial Revolution in Europe
(A) began on the Continent and spread in all directions
(B) took place in Great Britain
(C) took place more slowly in Eastern Europe
(D) was stimulated by government investment in Western Europe
(E) took place later but more rapidly in Eastern Europe
4. The railway boom of the 1830s and 1840s
(A) increased demand for steel but decreased demand for coal
(B) did not affect the demand for steel
(C) increased demand for both steel and coal
(D) increased demand for coal but decreased demand for steel
(E) did not affect the demand for coal
5. Which of the following was an advantage enjoyed by Great Britain that helps to explain why the Second Industrial Revolution originated there?
(A) an extensive river system
(B) the lack of internal trade tariffs
(C) a well-developed commercial economy
(D) natural resources
(E) all of the above
6. In Russia
(A) industrialization occurred rapidly under the direction of the government
(B) industrialization was a gradual process
(C) textile production was crucial to the industrialization process
(D) railway construction was deemed unnecessary for industrialization
(E) industrialization occurred early and rapidly due to trade with the East
7. One of the ways in which the Second Industrial Revolution affected the social structure of Europe was to produce
(A) a more even distribution of wealth
(B) a lower-middle class of managers and clerks
(C) poor people
(D) a merchant class
(E) gender equity
8. As a result of the Second Industrial Revolution, the majority of skilled artisans and craftsmen
(A) prospered
(B) became managers in factories
(C) lost their livelihoods
(D) moved to towns and cities
(E) were women
• Answers and Explanations
1. B. The division of labor increased the supply of labor available, thereby causing wages for manufacturing workers to fall, not increase. Choice A is incorrect because the division of labor did increase the supply of labor available to manufacturers by making all jobs unskilled jobs. Choice C is incorrect because the division of labor increased volume by speeding up the manufacturing process. Choices D and E are incorrect because the combination of increased productivity and cheaper labor allowed manufacturers to sell their products more cheaply and still increase their profits through increased volume.
2. D. The shift to steam and electrical power and away from hydropower allowed manufacturers to move away from water sources and relocate in more convenient locations. Choice A is incorrect because the factory system is a way of organizing labor; it is not dependent on a particular source of power. Choice B is incorrect because the invention of the automobile was facilitated by the invention of the internal combustion engine, not steam and electricity. Choice C is incorrect because both steam engines and electrical generators relied on coal for fuel, therefore increasing demand for it. Choice E is incorrect because, although the invention of the steam locomotive led to a railway boom, the application of it to ships allowed the shipping industry to prosper as well.
3. E. The Second Industrial Revolution originated in Britain and took place later but more rapidly in Eastern Europe, which was able to copy and purchase key industrial innovations. Choice A is incorrect because the Second Industrial Revolution originated in Great Britain and spread eastward across Europe, not in all directions. Choice B is incorrect because the Second Industrial Revolution was not unique to nor contained in Britain. Choice C is incorrect because the Second Industrial Revolution occurred later but more rapidly in Eastern Europe. Choice D is incorrect because there was more government investment involved in Eastern Europe where governments feared falling economically and technologically behind their Western rivals.
4. C. The railway boom increased demand for steel because steel was required for the manufacture of railway engines, cars, and rails; it also increased demand for coal because coal was the fuel for steam locomotives. Choices A and D are incorrect because the railway boom increased demand for both steel and coal. Choice B is incorrect because the railway boom did affect the demand for steel: It increased demand. Similarly, choice E is incorrect because the railway boom did affect the demand for coal: It also increased demand.
5. E. All of the choices are correct. Britain’s extensive river system (A) allowed it to move raw materials and manufactured goods with relative ease. The lack of internal trade tariffs (choice B) allowed manufacturers to buy and transport materials without eating into their profit. Britain’s well- developed commercial economy (choice C) provided both a merchant class and capital for investment. Finally, Britain’s rich deposits of iron and coal (choice D: Britain’s natural resources) provided the necessary raw materials.
6. A. Industrialization occurred rapidly in Russia under the direction of finance minister Serge Witte. Choice B is incorrect because Russia industrialized later than its European rivals but very rapidly, with most of the process taking place between 1892 and 1904. Choice C is incorrect because Russian industrialization was driven by its railway construction and steel production, not by its textile industry. Choice D is incorrect because the construction of the trans-Siberian railway was very necessary—indeed, a crucial part of Russian industrialization. Choice E is incorrect because again, Russia did not industrialize early; it industrialized later than its European counterparts.
7. B. The factory system that was characteristic of the Second Industrial Revolution required and produced a class of managers and clerks whose pay and status located them precariously at the lower end of the middle class. Choice A is incorrect because the Second Industrial Revolution did nothing to distribute wealth more evenly throughout the population; instead, it made a relatively small number of industrialists and entrepreneurs fabulously wealthy and made some workers better off than before. Choice C is incorrect because the poor had existed before the Second Industrial Revolution. Similarly, choice D is incorrect because a merchant class existed in Europe prior to the Second Industrial Revolution. Choice E is incorrect because, although many women initially found work in the factories of the Second Industrial Revolution, they were not paid equally and were the first to be let go when increasing mechanization decreased the demand for labor.
8. C. Because factory-produced goods could be made in greater quantity and sold more cheaply, most skilled artisans and craftsmen were unable to compete and lost their livelihoods. Choice A is incorrect because the skilled artisans and craftsmen did not prosper; instead, they faced either unemployment or factory work at wages much lower than the profits they had made in their shops. Choice B is incorrect because a factory manager was a new breed whose job was to keep the factory running at peak efficiency and whose skills were unrelated to those of the old artisans and craftsmen. Choice D is incorrect because, unlike their agricultural counterparts, artisans and craftsmen had always located themselves in towns and cities. Choice E is incorrect because neither men nor women were being drawn into these professions during the Second Industrial Revolution.