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47 - The Industrial Revolution, 5. Conclusion, 6. Bibliography, SUMMARY…

- - - - SOCIAL PROBLEMS - transfer from country → towns. Towns grew v quickly & became crowded (esp in N). Unemployment - machines taking jobs. Child labour, working conditions etc. 80 hour weeks common
        
        Women
        
        Women achieve social prominence 1600-1800 but collectively remained in subjection. During Ind Rev - political awakening. 1792 **Mary Wollstonecraft wrote Vindication of the Rights of Women**
        
        END of Ind Rev saw women ↑ campaigning for political rights. 1866 - 1st mass women's suffrage petition sent to HofCs. 1897 - National Union of Women's Suffrage est (NUWSS), then Women's Social & Pol. Union (WSPU) 1903
        
        More progress in edu & property rights - State Edu Acts 1870, 1880 (made school compulsory for primary) & 1902 & Married Women's Property Act 1882 & 1892 - removed husband's control over wife's money
        
        Women worked in factories in ind. areas (paid MUCH less than men - exploited). Middle class could teach. Choice of husband most imp. choice - reflected in books of the time (Austen)
        
        Luddite Riots 1811-16 - trained artisans who lost jobs to unskilled workers operating new machines - broke into factories & wrecked machines. Punished with death/deportation. Pioneers in the struggle vs machinery replacing the work of men!
    - - Increasingly powerful middle class, upper legions grew incredibly wealthy on the back of slavery/factories etc. BUT landed arist. still had power (electoral system still quite feudal) & until 1832 new m/c were still largely disenfranchised
  - - - The political rise of the working class
        
        Increasing presence of trade unions Trade Union movt grew & achieved national unification by est. of Trade Union Congress in 1868)
        
        Politicians recognized importance of w/c - enfranchised them with Second Reform Bill 1867 (urban working men)
        
        By 1900 the w/cs were sufficiently consolidated to set up The Labour Party
      - Tensions of new m/c seen in eg Peterloo Massacre 1819) Pressure led to Great Reform Act 1832 (voting rights for men over £10
- - - - Due to - fall in mortality (more veg, more cattle thf meat in winter, more food in general, better houses, better knowledge of medicine etc.
    - - Major changes: 1) Norfolk 4-course crop rotation (no fallow yr), 2) heavy plough 3) land conversion (drainage), 4) transportation & 5/6) enclosure & free trade
        
        Enclosures - common fields fell under private ownership. Small farmers couldn't pay for enclosure - had to sell land & move to cities. Improved tech. & bigger farms enabled landlords to farm for profit (not subsistence). Represents key element in transition from feudal subsistence agric. to modern commercial one.
        
        E.Acts took away the rights the local ppl had to the land
      - Agric Rev = ↑ in agric production (mid 17-late19Cs) arising from ↑ in labour & ↑ in land productivity
  - - - 1850 - 50% of GLOBAL manufacturing was produced in the UK
        
        Basis for eco growth: coal mining, iron foundry & COTTON
        
        Cotton - EIC started to export from India end 17C. CHeap, hard-wearing & comfortable. 19C ↑ imported from slave plantations - by 1860 - 90% from Deep South
      - By beg 19C - ↑ feeling that Brit. industry was strong enough not to need protection vs foreign competitors. 1820s - merchants in London, Manc, Glasgow - petitioned for abolition of import duties. Argued corn laws kept food prices falsely high & necessitated higher wages, & that they ↓ export opportunities to other countries. Abolition = imp. step to free trade AND suplied new w/c with cheaper food & accelerated movt to cities
    - - International politics imp. too - 1713 Treaty of Utrecht - secured Britain the Asiento - exclusive right to supply Sp colonies with slaves (4800 p/a) for next 30 yrs
        Treaty of Paris 1763 - Britain acquired vast lands in American S & W (from Fr)
  - - - 1) Overseas colonies & slave labour offered limitless supply of raw materials (cotton). This drove industrialists to search for new technologies.
      - 2) Geography of Britain - island - easy access to overseas markets
      - 3) Natural resources - lots of water (eg fast rivers coming from Pennines) , salt, china, clay, iron & (crucially) COAL
- - - - Earlier novels more fragmented, lots of characters, didn’t focus so much on one person. Later novels eg by DC he was focusing more on 1 character. This was quite a new idea/trend that had arisen in the 18C.
        Oliver Twist - 1837 in serialised form (completed 1839) - give summary. Christmas Carol - 1843 (summary. Belief in human kindness). DavCop - 1850 - quite autobiographical. Novels from 1850 onwards were darker, more tragic, less humour. Hard Times (1854) - attack on capitalist society & Ind. Rev Little Dorrit (1855) attack on methods of bureaucracy. A Tale of 2 Cities (1856) - set in Fr Rev. Great Ex (1861) - most complex, maybe most popular. Commentary on the system of class and each person's place within it. Our Mutual Friend (1865) last novel. Crique of class values.
        
        HARD TIMES
        
        Powerful critique of exploitative & repressive character of Ind Rev - based itself on dehumanization of workers as mere mechanical units of manufacture, devoid of any human sentiments/emotions. Characters: Gradgrind, Choakumchild, Bounderby (bounder = dishonourable man). Contrast with Stephen Blackpool. ALSO - comment vs utilitarian philosophy that things should be ‘useful’ - who decides what is & what's not? Opening - bare schoolroom, students stuffed full of facts, but no room for creativity /independent thought. Reflected in setting - Coketown - a place which is *completely uninform & useful. Utilitarian concert again - in the new capitalist society there is no room for anything that is not useful - ie that does not serve to make a profit?