How Is American Industrialization A Turning Point

The American Industrial Revolution brought a lot of changes to the world. To The way Americans thought to the tools they used. American industrialization changed the world, and was definitely a turning point in world history. History has had many turning points. Some were single, not quite as big, but some were shattering events with immediate and obvious impact.

For example, the invasion of Britain by William the Conqueror transformed the land’s political and social institutions and paved the way for the rise if the modern English nation. However, single events were deemed of minor significance when they were only recognized after the event occurred. Such as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo. It was only realized when the reaction if political-military crises that escalated into World War One.

Other necessary turning points occurred not in a few days, months or even years, but instead of evolutionary developments over decades or even centuries. One of the most important turning points in human history is

American Industrialization. The development of agriculture, which replaced hunter-gather societies with more permanent settlements, occurred over the course of many generations. Other great turning points were neither developments nor events, but revolutionary new inventions and innovations that significantly altered social ideas, customs, military tactics, the spread of knowledge, home life and the overall the human condition.

The industrial revolution refers to the changes that take place when a primarily agricultural economy begins to shift to the mechanized manufacturing of goods and tools on a rather large scale. People were starting to depend more on machines than hand labor. The Industrial Revolution affected the population of the world, as have a few other events in American history.

The sweeping changes brought by the industrialization altered the entire nature of work. The way in which it was used, the role of human labor- via machines, the reliance in the time clock and the division of time into small increments, and the organizational levels needed for coordinating specialized labor. Industrialization transformed a largely rural population into an urban one, accompanied by both the negative and positive effects of rapid urbanization. Concurrently, it impacted the natural environment and or relationship with it. New inventions and means of transportation dramatically changed the way we communicate, work, travel and play. The Industrial revolution also modified the general standard way of living, the structure of the social classes, and the international balance of political and military might.

Historians, Peter N. Stearns and John H. Hinshaw wrote, “These changes inevitably have ramifications reaching into almost every aspect of human experience-into the habits of thought and relations between men and women as well as into the systems of production and exchange.” This essay contains turning points in world history: the industrial revolution, examine the causes of the industrial revolution, its spread throughout the western world, the long term impact of industrialization, and the invention of new technology. Various authors debate the drawbacks of the industrial revolution, especially in respect to the lives of workers.

Life before the Industrial revolution was not so great. Early humans survived primarily through hunting and gathering; they lived in small nomadic bands, following the migration of the herds each year. Daily life before industrial times changed very little for Europeans. Almost all people lived and worked in the country. From 1300 to 1750, people’s work and social life mixed, as families lived on small plots of land, growing food for home consumption. Children learned to milk cows, churn butter, and tend to farm animals. Generation after generation, rural families relied on tools that had changed little over the centuries, such as wooden plows dependent on beasts of burden to pull them. For centuries, the English diet consisted mostly of dark rye bread and porridge, with very little meat as humans started to develop agricultural methods, they found that they could grow food more easily and in greater quantities than they had been possible through hunting and gathering.

The shift to agricultural production allowed them to live in permanent settlements, eventually establishing towns and cities. The excess food provided though agricultural enabled some people to specialize in other types of work, such as pottery, and weaving. Overall, the Agricultural Revolution spurred the rise of complex cultures, sweeping advances in technology and the arts. Development of trade and many new religions and political systems. However, this revolution did not take place throughout the world. Even in the present day, a small percentage of the world population continues to live primarily as hunter-gatherers

Cloth manufacturing was the first industry to be affected by the Industrial revolution, especially the production of cotton fabrics.

Imported cloth from India was extremely popular in Great Britain during the eighteenth century. According to the book the industrial revolution, British entrepreneurs saw the profit to this trend, importing raw cotton from India or the American colonies and producing cloth locally. Since the demand for cloth was so high and growing, they discovered that they wouldn’t be able to supply fast enough. They then began to search for ways to accelerate the process of spinning the cotton into thread and weaving the cloth. Thankfully, John Kay improved the shuttle, which was a device, used by weavers to pass horizontal threads through the vertical threads strung on a loom. His invention, the flying shuttle, allowed weaver to send the shuttle rapidly across the loom simply by pulling on a

string.

Another important innovation of the industrial revolution was the steam engine. So many factories relied on running water for their running power source, which had to be built by rivers. A summer’s drought or a winter’s freeze could seriously affect operations, even bringing several factories at a standstill for several weeks. These limitations spurred inventors to create something more reliable energy source; the steam engine. The seam engine burned coal to heat water to the point where it produces powerful steam to run the machine. The first practical steam engine was created by Thomas Newcomer in1712, but it wasn’t till James Watt made improvements to it in the 1760’s that it started to become common use to everyone.

The new industrial system was very successful, resulting in a tremendous increase in the number of goods one individual worker could ever produce between 1770 and 1790, and the production of yarn and cotton in Great Britain increased tremendously. By 1800, the manufacture of cotton cloth had become the nation’s single most important industry. Craft workers took note in this, and began looking for ways to industrialize their own trades. Inventors and entrepreneurs searched for new and profitable ways to use mechanized equipment.