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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2011

Industrial revolution brought about production of goods for trade and profit using machines to enhance the productivity of labour.

The term 'industrial revolution' is used to describe the profound technological changes that began in England in the mid 18th century. Before the 18th century there was very little power machinery except wind and water mills and production was carried out with hand tools and hard human labour.

The industrial revolution introduced technologies that could employ power from water, steam, gas, coal, electricity and oil to replace or enhance human labour. This made possible a level of economic productivity that had never before been achieved and it initiated a process of unending technological transformation and social change.

Socially, the industrial revolution is associated with the rational organization of work, a transformation from a society of self sufficient producers to a society of employed wage workers and the spread of a market-driven system of allocation of resources.

Immigration, Industrial Revolution and Urban Growth in the United States, 1820-1920: Factor Endowments, Technology and Geography
Sukkoo Kim, Washington University, St. Louis - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Abstract: Industrial revolution is fundamentally linked with the rise of factories and the decline of skilled artisans in manufacturing. Most scholars agree that factories as compared to artisan shops were intensive in unskilled labor. Indeed, the hallmark of the early factories is the utilization of division of labor of relatively unskilled workers. This paper explores whether the massive influx of unskilled immigrants between 1840 and 1920, by significantly increasing the ratio of unskilled to skilled labor endowment, contributed to the growth and spread of factory manufacturing in the United States. The data indicate that immigration not only contributed to the growth and spread of factories but it also contributed to the growth of cities.

Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution
Peter Temin
Abstract: There are two views of the British Industrial Revolution in the literature today. The more traditional description, represented by the views of Ashton and Landes, sees the Industrial Revolution as a broad change in the British economy and society. This broad view of the Industrial Revolution has been challenged by Crafts and Harley who see the Industrial Revolution as a much narrower phenomenon, as the result of technical change in a few industries. This paper presents a test of these views using the Ricardian model of international trade with many goods. British trade data are used to implement the test and discriminate between the two views of the Industrial Revolution.

Through Eyes in the Storm:
Aspects of the Personal History of Women Workers in the Industrial Revolution
Abstract: Women's experience of child labour in factories in early nineteenth century England may have increased their psychological susceptibility, both in life-cycle and social-historical trajectories, to non-wage earning roles as mothers. This paper uses as a primary source an official examination into the punishment of a ten-year old female factory worker. From this text arises an interrelated collection of stories -- the story of that girl and her mother in a psychological and relational struggle under the circumstances of their lives, an alternative story of how other girls coped, and an account of how these personal dynamics fit into the broader social history of women in nineteenth century England. This history offers important insights into the effect of deprivation and brutality on the development of gender.

 

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