Chapter 11. Diffusion from the United Kingdom Britain’s Crystal Palace became the most visible symbol of the Industrial Revolution, built to house the.

Key Issue #1Chapter 11

Diffusion from the United Kingdom Britain’s Crystal Palace

became the most visible symbol of the Industrial Revolution, built to house the 1851 “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations.”

When Queen Victoria opened the Crystal Palace, the United Kingdom was the world’s dominant industrial power.

From the United Kingdom, the Industrial Revolution diffused eastward through Europe and westward across the Atlantic Ocean to North America.

From these places, industrial development continued diffusing to other parts of the world.

Diffusion of Railways Europeans developed many early

inventions of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s.

The Belgians led the way in new coal-mining techniques, the French had the first coal- fired blast furnace for making iron, and the Germans made the first industrial cotton mill.

Political instability delayed the diffusion of the Industrial Revolution in Europe.

Europe’s political problems retarded development of modern transportation systems, especially the railway.

Railways in some parts of Europe were delayed 50 years after their debut in Britain.

The Industrial Revolution reached Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and Sweden in the late 1800s.

Other Southern and Eastern European countries joined the Industrial Revolution during the twentieth century.

Fig. 11-2: The year by which the first railway opened shows the diffusion of railways and the Industrial Revolution from Britain.

Diffusion to the United States Industry arrived a bit later in the United

States than in Western European countries like France and Belgium, but it grew much faster.

The first U.S. textile mill was built in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1791, by Samuel S later, a former worker at Arkwright’s factory in England.

The textile industry grew rapidly after 1808, when the U.S. government imposed an embargo on European trade to avoid entanglement in the Napoleonic Wars.

The United States had become a major industrial nation by 1860, second only to the United Kingdom.

However, except for textiles, leading U.S. industries did not widely use the new industrial processes until the final third of the nineteenth century.

Although industrial development has diffused across Earth’s surface, much of the world’s industry is concentrated in four regions.

World Industrial Regions

North AmericaIndustrialized areas in North AmericaChanging distribution of U.S. manufacturing

EuropeWestern EuropeEastern Europe

East Asia

Manufacturing Regions

Fig. 11-3: The world’s major manufacturing regions are found in North America, Europe, and East Asia. Other manufacturing centers are also found elsewhere.

North America Manufacturing in North America is concentrated in the

northeastern quadrant of the United States and in southeastern Canada.

Only 5 percent of the land area of these countries.., contains one-third of the population and nearly two-thirds of the manufacturing output.

This manufacturing belt has achieved its dominance through a combination of historical and environmental factors.

Early. . . settlement gave eastern cities an advantage. . . to become the country’s dominant industrial center.

The Northeast also had essential raw materials. . . and good transportation.

The Great Lakes and major rivers. . . were supplemented in the 1 800s by canals, railways, and highways.

Industrial Regions of North America

Fig. 11-4: The major industrial regions of North America are clustered in the northeast U.S. and southeastern Canada, although there are other important centers.

Manufacturing Value Change

Fig. 11-5: The value and growth of manufacturing in major metropolitan areas in the U.S. between 1972 and 1997.

Europe and ManufacturingThe Western European

industrial region appears as one region on a world map.

In reality, four distinct districts have emerged, primarily because European countries competed with one another to develop their own industrial areas.

Eastern Europe has six major industrial regions.

Four are entirely in Russia, one is in Ukraine, and one is southern Poland and northern Czech Republic.

Manufacturing Centers in Western Europe

Fig. 11-6: The major manufacturing centers in Western Europe extend in a north-south band from Britain to Italy.

Rhine—Ruhr Valley Western Europe’s most important

industrial area is the Rhine—Ruhr Valley... in northwestern Germany, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.

Within the region, industry is dispersed rather than concentrated in one or two cities.

No individual city has more than one million inhabitants.

The Rhine divides into multiple branches as it passes through the Netherlands.

The city of Rotterdam is near to where several major branches flow into the North Sea.

This location at the mouth of Europe’s most important river has made Rotterdam the world’s largest port.

Iron and steel manufacturing has concentrated in the Rhine—Ruhr Valley because of proximity to large coalfields.

Access to iron and steel production stimulated the location of other heavy-metal industries, such as locomotives, machinery, and armaments.

Mid-Rhine The second most important industrial area in Western Europe

includes southwestern Germany, northeastern France, and the small country of Luxembourg.

In contrast to the Rhine—Ruhr Valley, the German portion of the Mid-Rhine region lacks abundant raw materials, but it is at the center of Europe’s most important consumer market.

The French portion of the Mid-Rhine region—Alsace and Lorraine—contains Europe’s largest iron- ore field and is the production center for two-thirds of France’s steel.

Tiny Luxembourg is also one of the world’s leading steel producers, because the Lorraine iron-ore field extends into the southern part of the country.

United Kingdom The Industrial Revolution originated in the

Midlands and northern England and southern Scotland, in part because those areas contained a remarkable concentration of innovative engineers and mechanics during the late eighteenth century.

The United Kingdom lost its international industrial leadership in the twentieth century.

Britain was saddled with outmoded and deteriorating factories and their “misfortune” of winning World War II.

The losers, Germany and Japan, received American financial assistance to build modern factories, replacing those destroyed during the war.

The United Kingdom expanded industrial production in the late twentieth century by attracting new high-tech industries that serve the European market.

Japanese companies have built more factories in the United Kingdom than has any other European country.

Today British industries are more likely to locate in southeastern England near the country’s largest concentrations of population and wealth and the Channel Tunnel.

Northern ItalyA fourth European industrial region of some

importance lies in the Po River Basin of northern Italy.

Modern industrial development in the Po Basin began with establishment of textile manufacturing during the nineteenth century because of two key assets: numerous workers and inexpensive hydroelectricity.

Manufacturing Centers in Eastern Europe and Russia

Fig. 11-7: Major manufacturing centers are clustered in European Russia and the Ukraine. Other centers were developed east of the Urals.

Manufacturing Centers in East Asia

Fig. 11-8: Many industries in China are clustered in three centers near the east coast. In Japan, production is clustered along the southeast coast.