Industrial Revolution - HMH US History M13, L1

Industrial Revolution - HMH US History M13, L1

By Ashley Gibson

The Industrial Revolution

At the start of the 1700s, the majority of people in Europe and the United States were farmers. They made most of what they needed by hand. For example, female family members usually made clothing. First, they used a spinning wheel to spin raw materials, such as cotton or wool, into thread. Then they used a hand loom to weave the thread into cloth.

Some families produced extra cloth to sell to merchants, who sold it for a profit. In towns, a few skilled craftspeople made goods by hand in their own shops. Workers including blacksmiths, carpenters, and shoemakers specialized in their work and the goods that they produced. Their ways of life had stayed the same for generations.

A Need for Change

By the mid-1700s, however, changes in Great Britain led to a greater demand for manufactured goods. As agriculture and roads improved, cities and populations grew. Overseas trade also expanded. Traditional manufacturing methods did not produce enough goods to meet everyone’s needs.

People began using machines to create processes that made goods in more efficient ways. They also discovered new power resources to fuel the machines. These developments led to the Industrial Revolution, a period of rapid growth in using machines for manufacturing and production that began in the mid-1700s.​

Textile Industry

The first important breakthrough of the Industrial Revolution took place in how textiles, or cloth items, were made. Before the Industrial Revolution, spinning thread took much more time than making cloth. Several skilled workers were needed to spin enough thread to supply a single weaver.

Textile Industry

In 1769 British entrepreneur Richard Arkwright invented a large spinning machine called a water frame. The water frame could produce dozens of cotton threads at the same time. It lowered the cost of cotton cloth and increased the speed of textile production.

Textile Industry

The water frame used flowing water as its source of power. Merchants began to build large textile mills, or factories, near rivers and streams. The mills were filled with spinning machines. Merchants began hiring people to work in the mills.

Additional improvements also speeded up the spinning process. Britain soon had the world’s most productive textile manufacturing industry.​

Multiple Choice

What was the large spinning machine created by Richard Arkwright

• hydro wheel

• water frame

• water wheel

• hydro frame

Multiple Choice

How was the water frame powered?

• a pond

• flowing water

• electricity

• fire

Open Ended

How did machines speed up textile manufacturing?

New Machines and Processes

New Machines and Processes

New machines encouraged the rise of new processes in business and manufacturing. As the machines used to make products became more efficient, the processes involved changed dramatically.

Some text here about the topic of discussion

Slater and His Secrets

The new textile machines allowed Great Britain to produce cloth more quickly and inexpensively than other countries could. To protect British industry, the British Parliament had made it illegal for skilled mechanics or machine plans to leave the country. Disguised as a farmer, Samuel Slater, a skilled British mechanic, immigrated to the United States after carefully memorizing the designs of textile mill machines. Soon after arriving, he sent a letter to Moses Brown, who owned a textile business in New England. Slater claimed he could improve the way textiles were manufactured in the United States.

Slater and His Secrets

Slater was an English industrialist who brought a design for a textile mill to America, he is considered the founder of the American cotton industry.

Slater and His Secrets

Brown had one of his workers test Slater’s knowledge of machinery. Slater passed. Brown’s son, Smith Brown, and son-in-law, William Almy, formed a partnership with Slater. Economic freedom in the United States allowed entrepreneurs such as Slater, Brown, and Almy to take risks by using their money and talents to launch new ventures. In 1793 they opened their first mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The production of cotton thread by American machines had begun. Slater ran the mill and the machinery. He was confident that his new machines would work well.

Slater and His Secrets

Slater could have lost all of his investment, but his machines worked and the Pawtucket mill became a success. Slater’s wife also invented a new cotton thread for sewing. In 1798 Slater formed his own company to build a mill. By the time he died in 1835, he owned all or part of 13 textile mills.

Slater and His Secrets

Other Americans began building textile mills. Most were located in the Northeast. In New England, in particular, merchants had the money to invest in new mills. More importantly, the physical environment in this region was made up of many rivers and streams that provided a reliable supply of power. Fewer mills were built in the South, partly because investors in the South concentrated on expanding agriculture. There, agriculture was seen as an easier way to make money. The expansion of industrialization in the North and the South’s concentration on agriculture caused the two regions to develop significant economic and cultural differences.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

Despite these great changes in machines and processes, most manufacturing was still done by hand. In the late 1790s the U.S. government worried about a possible war with France, so it wanted more muskets for the army. Skilled workers made the parts for each weapon by hand. No two parts were exactly alike, and carefully fitting all the pieces together took much time and skill.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

As a result, American gun makers could not produce the muskets quickly enough to satisfy the government’s demand. Factories needed better technology, the tools used to produce items or to do work.

In 1798 inventor Eli Whitney tried to address some of these problems. Whitney gave officials a proposal for mass-producing guns for the U.S. government using water-powered machinery.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

Whitney also came up with the idea of using interchangeable parts—parts of a machine that are identical. Interchangeable parts became important because each part does not have to be custom-made by hand, so it saves production time. Using interchangeable parts made machines easier to assemble and broken parts easier to replace. Whitney promised to build 10,000 muskets in two years. The federal government gave him money to build his factory, and in 1801 he was called to Washington, DC, to give a demonstration.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

Whitney stood before President John Adams and his secretary of war. He had an assortment of parts for ten guns. He then randomly chose parts and quickly assembled them into muskets. To the audience’s amazement, he repeated the process several times.

Multiple Select

Whitney is know for his creation of what two things?

• Musket

• concept of interchangeable parts

• cotton gin

• water wheel

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

“I am persuaded that machinery moved by water [and] adapted to this business would greatly reduce the labor and facilitate [ease] the manufacture of this article.”

-Eli Whitney​

Open Ended

What claims does Eli Whitney make about the benefits of his ideas for mass production?

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

“[The reasons include] . . . the superior attractions of agricultural pursuits [farming], . . . the abundance of land compared with the population, the high price of labor, and the want [lack] of sufficient capital [investment].”

—Albert Gallatin,

The Writings of Albert Gallatin

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

Gallatin and others believed that few people would choose to work in a factory if they could own their own farm instead. In Great Britain, on the other hand, land was more scarce and more expensive than in the United States. As a result, fewer people were able to own farms. British factory workers generally were willing to work for lower wages than factory workers in the United States were.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

Because British manufacturers had plenty of factory workers with technical skills, they could produce large amounts of goods less expensively than most American businesses could. As a result, they could charge lower prices for the goods. Lower British prices made it difficult for many American manufacturers to compete with British companies. This situation in turn discouraged American investors from spending the money needed to build new factories and machinery. As a result, only a few industries had found a place to compete in the American market economy. These included cotton goods, flour milling, weapons, and iron production.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

These circumstances began to change around the time of the War of 1812. Since the 1790s, conflict and wars between European powers had interfered with U.S. trade. Some goods became scarce, as American consumers were no longer able to get all the manufactured goods they were used to buying from British and European manufacturers. Then, during the War of 1812, British ships blockaded eastern seaports, preventing foreign ships from delivering goods. Americans began to buy the items they needed from American manufacturers instead of from foreign suppliers. As profits for American factories grew, manufacturers began to spend more money expanding their factories. State banks and private investors began to lend money to manufacturers for their businesses.

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

At the same time, many Americans began to realize that the United States had been relying too heavily on foreign goods. If the United States could not meet its own needs, it might be weak and open to attack. Former president Thomas Jefferson, who had once opposed manufacturing, changed his mind. He, too, realized that the United States was too dependent on imports.

“To be independent for the comforts of life we must fabricate [make] them ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturalist [farmer].”

—Thomas Jefferson

Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson​

A Manufacturing Breakthrough

In February 1815, New Yorkers celebrated the end of the War of 1812 and the return of free trade. The streets were decorated and filled with merchants whose ships were loaded with goods. “With Peace and Commerce, America Prospers,” declared one display. Eager businesspeople prepared to lead the United States into a period of industrial and economic growth. These merchants and industrialists urged northern politicians to pass higher tariffs on foreign goods to protect American companies.

Open Ended

How did key contributors to the Industrial Revolution transform the way goods were produced in the United States?