Industrialization Spreads (25.3)
Explain the reasons for the formation of corporations.
- A corporation is a business that controls all parts of an industrial process. - Corporations formed to cut out the "middle man" so that these corporations can make more money. - Corporations controlled (the site of the) natural resources (such as coal mines, and diamonds), controlled transportation to the factories they owned, and they controlled the transportation that took the products from the factory for distribution and sale. -- They didn't pay a middle man so they didn't have to pay for anyone elses charges. -- Businesses decided to buy up all of these things so they could make more money and become some of the wealthiest people in the region and/or country. - This led to the development of monopolies.
In what ways did industrialization benefit society?
- Even more advancements and improvements in agriculture (more food) were made. - The production and availability of products continued to increase; there was a variety in products as people bought more of them. - Transportation - Developments in communication were continued. - The creation of economic power and new wealth grew. -- (This is why we have a strong middle class- The middle class grows in numbers and strength as all of the new jobs we can have grow. Prior to industrialization, you had very few people in the upper class, some in middle class, but the majority in the lower class. People in the lower class were able to move to the middle class because of industrialization) - Modern medicine and innovation kept improving. With these improvements, people were able to keep more people alive, which resulted in a bigger population. - The middle class ended up working on expanding educational and democratic opportunities. - Comfort and ease
What factors led to the great expansion of US industry in the late 1800s?
- Railroad- In the mid to late 1800s, Americans began to construct thousands of miles of railroad tracks interconnecting all of the regions economically. - The United States had inventions like the telephone and the light bulb (which were both created in the 1870s). -- There was a technological boom- Samuel Slater, Moses Brown, and Francis Cabot Lowell were involved in textiles and all promoted the industrial process. - The U.S. harnessed the oil industry and the steel industry. -- Most American billionaires today got their money from the oil industry.
What were some of the favorable conditions that sparked industrialization in both Britain and the United States?
- The United States had running water for a power source, and it also had other natural resources that were necessary such as coal and iron ore. The U.S. also had a supply of workers. -- We see a consistent movement of immigrants coming to northern states looking for work in factories. - America, going into 1800s, had political stability and a well-developed structure. - The United States had a vast coastline, which gave them access to international trading activity. -- [In other words, they had everything that Britain had when they started the process] <*> The War of 1812 (American VS. Britain) helped to further promote the industrial process because America had previously gotten supplies from Britain, but because they were they were at war, Britain cut them off. - This encouraged American industrialization.
How would you characterize the expansion of industry throughout Europe in the early 1800s?
- The expansion of industry throughout Europe could be characterized as slow. -- Therefore, most European nations didn't begin the industrialization process until the early to mid 1800s, and some nations didn't even begin until the late 1800s. Some countries ended up being a century behind Britain in the industrial progress. We can see discrepancies through industrialized power and nonindustrialized weakness. The Countries that Industrialized First after Britain and the United States: 1. Belgium 2. Germany- which mostly focused on the development of military industrialization. Germany was interested in knowing what the British knew. (At one point, Britain banned industrial information from leaving the country so that other countries would not get the information. It became illegal to share blueprints for technology.) The Germans sent children to get information from Britain, return, and inform them. 3. France- Louis Napoleon brought industrialization to France.
How did industrialization shift the world balance of power?
- The gap between the powerful and the weak widens and hugely ended up in the industrialized countries growing in power- a lot of times at the expense of the non-industrialized countries. - Global competition and global inequality on unprecedented level grew. -- Industrialized nations began to use non-industrialized nations for their natural resources and people to sell products to. These industrialized nations conquered almost all of Africa and Asia.
How did the Napoleonic wars affect the development of industry in Europe?
--- Because of the Napoleonic wars... - Intercontinental trade almost came to a stop and communication was disrupted. All of this resulted in widespread inflation throughout continental Europe. - Europeans didn't begin their industrialization process until the 1800s. They tended to call industrialization the "British Miracle" because they thought that the British were the only ones who could industrialize.
