Chapter 11 Lesson 1 Industrial Revolution

Chapter 11 Lesson 1 Industrial Revolution

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION BEGINS In the 1700’s most people were farmers. Cloth, tools, and furniture were made by

hand or in small shops. In the early 1800’s, people began making

cloth and other goods in factories. New forms of transportation were

needed to move these goods faster. These changes in manufacturing and

transportation are called the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain with their textile industry.

Textile means Machines spun cotton into yarn faster

than the hand-powered spinning wheel. In 1790, Samuel Slater, a British mechanic

opened the first cotton- spinning mill in the United States.

His cotton mill was on a river in Rhode Island. It used water power to run its machines.

These textile machines helped cotton become America’s biggest export.

cloth or fabric

ELI WHITNEY

In 1793, Eli Whitney invented a cotton engine, or cotton gin.

This cotton gin could pick the seeds from the cotton and clean it faster than farmers could clean it by hand.

Cotton production rose from 2 million pounds per year in 1790 to 60 million pounds per year in 1805.

After inventing the cotton gin, Eli Whitney was hired by the U. S. government to make 10,000 guns.

At this time, guns were still made by hand.

A part made for one gun would not fit another gun.

Whitney used interchangeable parts.

Interchangeable parts are

parts made by a machine to be exactly the same size and shape.

MASS PRODUCTION Mass production

Fitting together the same parts over and over was faster than making a single gun by hand.

Manufacturers used interchangeable parts and mass production to make many types of tools and machines.

This increased the productivity of the country.

Productivity

means making many products at once.

is the amount of goods and services produced by workers in a certain amount of time.

MACHINES BRING CHANGE

An entrepreneur In 1814, an entrepreneur named Francis

Cabot Lowell built a mill (factory) near Boston, Massachusetts.

His mill was the first factory in the world to turn raw cotton into finished cloth.

The mill had both cotton-spinning machines and power looms to weave cloth.

Lowell’s mill was a great success.

takes risks to start a business.

Many people went to work in these factories.

Their lives changed from working on the farm to working in a factory.

Workers in the first textile mills were usually girls and young women.

Some were as young as 10 years old.

Mill workers lived in boardinghouses and worked from 5:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

Although they had little free time, they still found time to take classes, learn new languages, and write poems, stories and essays.

They published these writings in a magazine called The Lowell Offering.

One mill worker, Lucy Larcom, became a well-know writer and teacher.

CHANGES ON THE FARM

The Industrial Revolution also changed life for people who stayed on the farm.

Cyrus McCormick built a horse-drawn reaper.

A reaper has sharp blades that cut grain.

Harvesting an acre of wheat by hand took about 20 hours. The reaper did the same job in less than an hour.

CHANGES IN TRANSPORTATION In the early 1800’s, settlers

headed west in search of land.

At the same time, factories and farms produced more goods to be shipped to distant cities.

Overland travel was slow, difficult, and expensive. Early roads were barely wide enough for a horse.

In 1811, the federal government began building the National Road to connect Ohio with the East.

By 1833 the road stretched from Cumberland, Maryland to Columbus, Ohio.

The National Road later went as far as Illinois.

It became the most traveled road in the United States at this time.

Towns and businesses were built along the road creating more growth for the country.

STEAMBOATS

Robert Fulton’s steam-powered boat made its first trip from New York City to Albany on August 9, 1807.

Before this, boats needed oars, wind, or water currents in order to travel.

Within a few years, steamboats were widely used on rivers for travel.

CANALS

Because roads were so poor at this time, rivers and canals were the fastest and cheapest ways to ship goods.

Canals are waterways built for travel and shipping.

In 1825, the Erie Canal opened. This canal connected the

Hudson River to Lake Erie. By 1840, more than 3,000

miles of canals were built in the eastern part of the country.

ERIE CANAL

RAILROADS Wagons on new roads,

steamboats on rivers, and barges on canals all changed transportation.

The steam locomotive created a larger change.

Trains pulled by steam locomotives (engines) were very fast.

A trip from New York City to Albany, New York took hours by steamboat. The same trip by train only took 10 hours.

By 1850, the country had 9,000 miles of railroad track. Soon farmers and factories could ship their goods to almost any city in the country.