The Industrial Revolution was a big, honking turning point in history, y'all, so let's begin in the beginning and talk about how it began. So if you're ready to get them brain cows milked, let's get to it. Okay, before we get into how this revolution started, let's begin with a definition. The Industrial Revolution describes the process by which states transition from primarily a agrarian economies to industrial economies. Or to put it in words you actually understand, this was the transition in which goods for sale went from being made by hand to being made by machines.
Well that doesn't sound like that big of a deal. Well me from back there, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, so get back in your desk and let me splain it up real nice. Yeah, it doesn't seem like making a shirt by hand versus making it with a machine would translate into one of the- biggest changes in world history. But that transition fundamentally changed the world's balance of political power, it reordered societies, and it made industrial nations stupid rich.
We'll talk all about that in the rest of the videos for this unit, so… Oh, and let me mention here that if talking about the transition to industrial economies gets you excited, as I'm sure that it does, then you're the kind of student who might want to check out my AP World Heimler review guide. It's the fastest way to study all the course content, and it's got everything you need to get an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. The link is in the description, and now let's keep going.
And as it turns out, the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain around 1750, and there are seven factors to explain that. First, proximity to waterways. Not only was Great Britain an island, but it also had an ab- abundance of rivers and canals, all of which enabled the efficient and rapid transportation of manufactured goods to various markets.
And that reality is reflected in a common saying of King George II from that period. You can't bust a grumpy in England without running into water somewhere. He actually didn't say that.
Don't write that on your test. I don't even know what it means. Anyway, the second factor that led to Britain's industrialization is their geographical distribution of coal and iron.
As it turned out, the first phase of the Industrial Revolution would be powered by the burning of coal, and Britain had the profound geographical luck to have metric buttloads of it buried beneath their soil. Additionally, coal power enabled Britain's increased efficiency in the production of iron, which they used to construct bridges and machines and railroads, all of which contributed to their rapid industrialization. Third, Britain had abundant access to foreign resources. And that's just an oblique way of saying that Big Mama Britain had spent the last period building a massive maritime empire across the world and therefore had access to prodigious amounts of raw materials that were not present on their tiny island.
For example, their North American colonies provided timber in abundance and they exploited their holdings in India for copper. And I'm sure that exploitation won't cause any discontent in this period, you know, because it's foreshadowing. Anyway, the fourth factor that enabled Britain to industrialize first was improved agricultural productivity.
Or to put it another way, they had plenty of food to stuff in everybody's mouth hole. You see, just prior to the Industrial Revolution, many places in Europe, but especially in Britain, Britain experienced an agricultural revolution in which the amount of food grown on farms increased significantly. This happened because of improved methods of planting, like crop rotation, which kept part of the land, you know, unplanted so that the fertility of the soil would be maintained.
Also new technologies like the seed drill ensured that seeds could be planted more efficiently and accurately, which led to less waste and greater harvests. But then, still under this heading, I should also mention that new foods entering Europe thanks to the Columbian Exchange also contributed to this phenomenon. For example, the potato was introduced to Europe from the Americas, and this highly caloric food diversified their diets. especially among the impoverished folks in rural areas, and that in turn made them healthier and increased their life expectancy. So now, instead of living an average of 37 years, the average British person was living to the ripe old age of 41. So, you know, that's nice.
Anyway, that increase in lifespan led to a massive spike in population in Great Britain right on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. And that abundance leads us to the fifth factor for industrialization you need to know, namely rapid urbanization. So because farming was becoming more and more mechanized and therefore more efficient, that meant less people were needed to work the fields. And so where are all those out-of-work rural farmers going to go? Well, at the very same time, several cities in Britain were becoming hubs of industrial manufacturing, and they were positively starving for human labor.
And so that led to a massive rural-to-urban migration of people looking for jobs and so these industrial cities grew quick, fast, and in a hurry. And then the sixth factor that contributed to Britain's industrialization was the legal protection of private property. So Britain was unique in that they passed laws protecting entrepreneurs who took risks to start and build new businesses in the manufacturing sector.
And that significantly contributed to Britain's head start in industrialization because entrepreneurs felt safe enough risking the investment to start new businesses. And finally, the seventh factor in Britain's industrialization was the accumulation of capital. Largely on account of wealth gained through the Atlantic slave trade, Britain had many well-to-do folks who had excess capital. capital, which is why they were known as capitalists. And with all that extra boom boom, they invested in these startup industrial businesses that became the backbone of the industrial revolution.
So those are the various factors that assured that Britain would be the first mover in the process of industrialization. But once that process began, a new kind of environment for that industrial work was developed, namely the factory system. So by definition, a factory was a place where goods for sale were mass produced by machines. And the first iteration of the factory concentrated production in a single location and was powered by moving water thanks to the invention of the water frame. In textile factories, this was connected to a machine called a spinning jenny, which operated looms that created textiles way faster than they could be by hand.
And because these machines didn't require any particular skill to operate, a significant specialization of labor began to occur. In other words, prior to the mass production methods of the Industrial Revolution, goods were made by artisans who had performed every step of their craft with hard-learned skill. But now, with machines making goods, workers were more like interchangeable cogs, performing one action over and over again, and that meant they were easily replaceable. Okay, click here if you need to review other topics in Unit 5 and click here to grab my AP World Heimler Review Guide which which has everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your exam in May. I'm glad we got to hang out for a few minutes and I'll catch you on the flip-flop.
Heimler out.