Industrial Revolution

  • Abraham Darby used coal to smelt iron

  • Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine powered by coal

    The steam engine was used to pump water out of mines.
  • The Bridgewater Canal was open

    The canal cut the price of coal in Manchester in half.
  • James Watt began making the steam engine more effiecient

  • James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny

    James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny
    It could spin many threads at once
  • Richard Arkwright invented the waterframe

    The waterframe was a spinning machine powered by water
  • Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin

    The cotton gin separated the seeds from the raw cotton which allowed cotton production to increase
  • Thomas Malthus published "An Essay on the Principle of Population"

    He states that poverty is unavoidable, because population increased faster than the food supply
  • Factory Acts were passed

    The acts reduced a child's workday
  • Period: to

    Industrial riots occurred in England

    Luddites resisted the machines that were costing them their jobs
  • Period: to

    20,000 people visit New Lanark to study Robert Owen's reforms

  • World's first rail line

    It went from Liverpool to Manchester
  • Period: to

    Teams of inspectors ensures factories and mines obeyed Factory Acts

  • Marx and Engels wrote "The Communist Manuscript"

    Marx predicted a struggle between social classes that would lead to a classless society.
  • Rail lines are all over Britain, Europe, and North America