HIS102Y1 Lecture : HIS349 Lecture 2.docx
Document Summary
Changes in transport: steamships (1820s, 30s), railroad boom: 1825, 1841-7. Factory acts (1833, 1844) 10 hours act (1847) Poor law amendment act/ new poor law (1834) 19th century britain - by 1851, great exhibition of industry - general feeling of optimism about british industrial progress. Exhibition showcased british techniques of manufacture, british industrial wares. Historians argue what constituted the revolution; there were vast changes between 1760 and 1880 but we might divide these changes into two separate eras. Period of vast economic growth, changes in the economy; growth and expansion, increasing profitability, but not vast changes in the lives of workers; industrialism creating a factory system did not occur in this first period. Changes in workers lives that led to them working harder and longer hours, but not in factories. Belief that productivity and economies will always grow; no economic stagnation, no stop to a growing economy - ideology. Optimism based on the promise of continual innovation.
