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History Professor Jonathan Rees joins WIRED to answer the internet’s burning questions about the Industrial Revolution.
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00:00Hi, I'm Jonathan Rees, history professor and researcher.
00:04I'm here to answer your questions from the internet.
00:06This is Industrial Revolution Support.
00:12With You With Them asks, I'm so gonna fail history, who the f*** is spinning jenny?
00:18The spinning jenny is one of the technological innovations that make it possible to automate
00:24the textile manufacturing process.
00:27There is a thing called the flying shuttle that comes first, and the flying shuttle,
00:32the spinning jenny, and the power loom together make it possible to automate the process of
00:39textile manufacturing all in a single building and put out sheets and sheets of fabric rather
00:45than have it done in individual homes and have it take, you know, hours if not days or weeks.
00:51All of them together make textile manufacturing both cheap and more effective and help make
00:57the Industrial Revolution possible in the British textile industry.
01:02Creators Virtual asks, I wonder if people felt the same level of panic during the Industrial
01:06Revolution as they are with AI today.
01:09And it's hard not to think about the Industrial Revolution as AI begins to appear everywhere.
01:14The thing that I keep coming back to when I think about the history that predates AI is that during
01:20the Industrial Revolution, the machines that made stuff made better stuff than the craft workers
01:26before them. Cobblers made terrible shoes. Factories made cheap, reliable shoes.
01:32The thing about AI that gets me is that the things that AI does, at least at this point in
01:38its
01:38evolution, aren't nearly as good as the things that they replace. AI writing, for example, something I have
01:44to deal with in class all the time is terrible writing. Apparently, AI, I'm told is good at coding,
01:50but nevertheless, there are still coders who are employed because the higher level tasks involved
01:55with coding can't be done by AI. AI has been tried in fast food restaurant takeout, and it keeps messing
02:02up people's orders. You're not going to have a real permanent revolution caused by AI unless it can
02:08get better at what it's doing. Maybe that's going to happen over time. Maybe it won't, but that's the
02:13future. I'm a historian. I can't handle that.
02:16Dung McGank asks, explain it to me like I'm five. Why do coal miners bring canaries into the
02:22mines with them? Canaries go into coal mines because if the canary drops dead, they know that there's
02:28dangerous gas in the mine, and the miners will drop dead shortly thereafter. So that was a signal to
02:34evacuate the mine immediately. God body money. Amazon warehouses really remind me of the industrial
02:41revolution when mother was losing fingers and I don't know how people be working there for years.
02:47The thing about Amazon warehouses is that you're regimented by a machine, and during the industrial
02:53revolution, the machines controlled your time and how you work and what you did all day. Literally,
03:00there were people who would come behind you while you're working with stopwatches and try to measure
03:06how long it took you to do just minute tasks so that they can get you to work in the
03:11one best way
03:12possible in order to be more productive. The thing about the industrial revolution and unions is that
03:18if they go in as individuals and say this work is very difficult, somebody is just going to find
03:23someone who's more desperate than them to do the same job. If they go in together and say this work
03:28is
03:28very difficult and if you don't make it better, we're all going to walk out at the same time,
03:33then at least they have a fighting chance. Unions starting in the 1880s in the United States
03:37are literally the people who invented the weekend. They're also the people who are fighting and will
03:43eventually win the eight-hour day. Leisure time opens up for the first time and they'll do things like
03:49take the subway to Coney Island on the weekend and have at least something that they can look forward to
03:53during their very difficult 40-plus hour work week. So this question is from Quora.
04:00What caused the great smog in London 1952 question mark? Well first of all 1952 is well after the
04:06industrial revolution and but a lot of that has to do with automobile smoke which comes out of the
04:12industrial revolution. The industrial revolution because it depended on coal has an absolutely enormous
04:17impact on the future of the planet. This is where all of the smog starts and in the turn of
04:24the 20th
04:24century smog was seen as a sign of progress before it got everywhere and started really choking our lungs.
04:31My adopted hometown of Pueblo, Colorado used to put smoky factories on the postcards that they sold to
04:36tourists. Their slogan at the Chamber of Commerce was watch our smoke because that was supposed to be the
04:42greatest thing that Pueblo produced. Yeah so that's the Eric Williams argument. He wrote in the 1940s
04:54that the wealth generated by that was absolutely essential for having the industrial revolution
04:59happen. I don't think most historians agree with that but it was absolutely a factor. Without that kind
05:04of wealth Britain wouldn't have been able to industrialize. But there are other factors as well
05:08that make that possible. Your homicidal ape asks most important inventions of the industrial revolution.
05:16I think the thing that I would probably privilege over all the possible inventions isn't an
05:21actually invention. It's the assembly line introduced in the Ford Motor Company in 1913-1914.
05:28When they use the assembly line in order to manufacture cars people in all sorts of different industries
05:34go oh we could do the same thing in principle in order to manufacture anything. My favorite museum
05:42exhibit is in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit where they have this thing called the exploded model T
05:47Ford and all it is is it's all the different parts of the model T but they're all slightly separated
05:53by
05:53each other and hanging on strings. And the reason I love that exhibit so much is that you can actually
05:59picture the assembly line just by looking at the parts that put it together because the whole idea
06:06of the assembly line is one person does that one thing inserts that one part over and over and over
06:13again. And you can think about that abstract principle just by looking at a car but you could manufacture
06:18a washing machine that way you could manufacture a camera that way you turns out you could manufacture
06:24anything that way. So I think it's the thing that has the greatest lasting impact even if it's not a
06:29specific invention.
06:32XX Gertrude asks did mothers work at the same factories as their children in the 19th century?
06:37I think that question probably has to do with the British textile industry where there are children
06:43and women working in the same factories. In America the probably the most legendary example of child labor
06:51is young breaker boys working in the same mines as their fathers. Different industries require child
06:57work for different purposes. So in coal mines for instance they're picking through giant slag piles
07:03in order to find usable pieces of coal out of the refuse of the rest of the mine. In textile
07:09mills
07:10they're actually under the looms fixing broken threads. A lot of the times the argument was that the small hands
07:17made them better for particular jobs. And the other argument that justifies child labor is that you know
07:22in a free country well how can you stop somebody from doing that kind of work even if they're a
07:27child.
07:28This question is from the Political Compass Memes subreddit. Luddites were the OG Tesla vandalizers.
07:35So the Luddites were skilled English workers in the textile industry whose jobs were threatened by the
07:42innovations of the industrial revolution. In order to show that opposition the Luddites broke the machines
07:48that threatened their jobs. What they have in common with the Tesla vandalizers is that they're willing to
07:53destroy property and supported their own interests. The funny thing about the Luddites is they're named
07:58after a guy named Ned Ludd who probably didn't exist and there continues to be strong opposition usually union
08:05opposition to all kinds of industrial innovations ever since. OkGreen7335 asks if vast majority were poor
08:14during the industrial revolution who was actually buying all the stuff they produced. The great thing
08:19about the industrial revolution from an economic standpoint is that when you produce more of
08:24something the price of it is going to drop. Henry Ford famously wanted his Model T cars to be affordable
08:33to
08:34the great mass of Americans and they were because he could produce them so much cheaper than any other
08:39cars on the market. Low prices meant that even if you don't have as much money as the people who
08:45own
08:45the factories you can still afford the products that those factories produced. Accelerator231 asks
08:51why was steel so difficult to mass produce until the Bessemer process? What were the main stumbling blocks?
08:58Steel is really difficult to make but the more you automate it the more of it you can make
09:04at the same time. So if you go back to the late 1700s it's really skilled craftsmen who are basically
09:10stirring this giant mush of metal in order to get something that's usable and strong. What Bessemer did
09:16is he figured out a way to blow air through it in order to automate that some of that process
09:20and make
09:21those earlier very expensive skills less important and the open hearth process from the 1890s simply automates
09:28it some more. I think it's also worth noting that steel is really important to different aspects of
09:34industrialization. In the United States steel rails are an important innovation that makes the growth of
09:39railroads possible in the late 19th century. The steel making process is also important for making
09:45skyscrapers and when you get to the 20th century people make cars out of steel so steel making is just
09:51central to all these different industries. Newtonian ass pounder asks did canals of the industrial
09:57revolution experience traffic jams? Canals where the barges are driven by horses are really only active
10:05between like the 1820s and the 1850s or 60s until railroads steal all their market. So canals are just a
10:13really narrow period during the industrial revolution. It's the early 19th century both in England and
10:20America. Canals are a way to transport the goods that factories produced to lots of different places.
10:29An intermittent technology between horses and railroads. So horses are the most important
10:36technology in world history until about 1800 when you get steamboats or a precursor to railroads. The
10:45really important driver of the industrial revolution and its markets were railroads.
10:50Ausprayde always asks what was the first modern factory? If you ask most historians name one
10:56factory as being most important I would say it would be Henry Ford's. Ford is responsible for the assembly
11:02line and he was very open about his ideas so people could tour the factory and they looked at the
11:09way
11:09Ford built cars and they said this is a concept that will work just about everywhere and in any industry.
11:16So if we're talking about modern in terms of the fact that you can manufacture anything that way
11:20and in fact so many things are manufactured that way I would say that Ford's facilities are the most
11:24important. So this question is from Quora. Why did the industrial revolution lead to large corporations
11:30rather than small-scale producers adopting the technology and continue to exist? I think the reason that that
11:38happens is that once you make money from the first technological innovations if you put the profits
11:45from that back into your business that's going to lead to further innovations that will just make your
11:52business that much more successful. In the United States monopolies become a problem in the late 19th
11:59century because so many people are making so much money in different industries from these technologies
12:05that they control huge sections of that industry and can eventually set prices. America comes up with
12:12something called the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890 that's supposed to crack down on those kinds of
12:18companies but it's not really enforced particularly well until the 20th century. Even then it's still just
12:24enforced intermittently. Wealth inequality predates the industrial revolution but what you get in the
12:30industrial revolution for the first time is something called conspicuous consumption a term invented by
12:35the economist Thorsten Veblen around the turn of the 20th century. Conspicuous consumption is buying
12:41things and showing them off just to prove how rich you are. That's a direct result of what they used
12:47to
12:47call new money making lots of money very quickly and just trying to impress their friends. So this next one
12:54is from
12:54CRR Pitt. Is there any consensus among historians and why Britain in particular became the birthplace
13:01of the industrial revolution? This is a very hotly debated subject. The causes of the industrial revolution
13:07in Britain are manifold. There's an argument that the wealth created by slavery because of the empire
13:14makes industrialization possible. There's an argument that enclosure is part of this that forces people
13:21into the cities in order to work in these factories. There are lots of exceptional circumstances that
13:25make it so important and why it takes so much longer to appear elsewhere around the world.
13:30A seldom sensible asks how did the industrial revolution benefit the common man? The biggest
13:35way the industrial revolution benefited the common man is the price of goods dropped considerably. If you
13:41could make something that's more effective and if you could make it cheaper because you could make more
13:46of it people will just simply have more stuff. Clocks became available to people. Cars became available
13:52to people who are absolutely middle class in the United States. Good clothing became possible. Clothing
13:58that you didn't have to manufacture yourself. That frees up people's time to do other things and to
14:04experience leisure. I'm not saying that the costs outweigh the benefits or that the benefits outweigh the
14:09cost. That depended on who you are and where you lived. This one's from Quora. How did the first
14:15industrial revolution cause people to change their skill sets? I think of industrialization as
14:20involving two separate phenomenons. The first one is the division of labor where a job is broken
14:26up into little pieces instead of having one person do all the pieces of that job they just do the
14:31same
14:31thing over and over again. The second piece of this is mechanization where a machine is invented in
14:37order to do that job. Division of labor tends to come earlier industrialization because it's a necessary
14:44step to creating a machine that can do that job. So when the job you once did becomes mechanized the
14:52people who own your factory say well we don't want you to do that anymore because we have a machine
14:56that
14:57will do it better. Maybe you're going to be out of work maybe they'll let you do another part of
15:01the job
15:02but eventually that job is going to be mechanized. There's always has to be workers in the industrial
15:07revolution to at least move different parts around the factory but the jobs they as they become more
15:14and more mechanized they become less skilled and the employers save an enormous amount on wages. That's
15:21why unions were so necessary to at least regulate if not actually stop these kinds of innovations
15:27because people realized that they were the only solution the only way to fight downward mobility. In late
15:37the world they were referred to as Neurosthenia. Neurosthenia is basically a way of describing what we might
15:43call nervous exhaustion. People who are sort of fed up with the pace of modern life had to retreat to
15:50places and resorts just to slow down and decompress. They sold like electric caps thinking that the electric
15:59stimulation will help them get over Neurosthenia. It's not so much a fake disease but it's the first measure
16:06that industrialization is impacting people's mental health. The problem with all the treatment
16:11from Neurosthenia is that it's really designed for the middle class the people who had money to buy
16:16these kinds of things. Workers themselves just had to put up with it because they don't put up with
16:21even a very anxiety producing job they will starve. This one is from Rustic Bohemian. Did leaving the farm
16:29and going to work in a factory really seem like heaven to 19th century farmers? It depends on what the
16:3519th
16:35century farmer was doing and what country they lived in. In Great Britain there's a big problem
16:41with the lack of access to any land because of something called enclosure. Enclosure in Great
16:47Britain happens when landowners wanted to keep the land for themselves so that they can make a profit
16:54from it and there have been people on those public lands who are farming and supporting themselves. So
16:59they are forced to go from the countryside into the city and when they're in the city they're willing
17:05to take difficult jobs in factories that they wouldn't have been otherwise. In America it's more
17:10of a draw. Lowell in Massachusetts is set up as a wonderful place where not just male workers but women
17:18could go and have a safe place where they can work and earn a living and help their families. I
17:23think it's
17:23safe to say that as industrialization progressed it got worse and worse for the workers because their
17:28work became more regimented and the pay decreased and the hours increased. Elena Little asks wait how
17:35many industrial revolutions have we had? The thing about industrialization is that because it's a very long
17:42process there are periods where you get lots of different boosts and I think some people sometimes mistake
17:50boosts for an entirely different industrial revolution. So in Britain in the 1700s a lot of the
17:58innovation deals with energy so that might be a first industrial revolution. In America in the late 1800s
18:05a lot of the innovation deals with steel making. That might be a second industrial revolution. The Henry
18:14Ford's assembly line known as mass production is a revolution that's really ongoing. Perhaps that's the
18:20third. If you're sort of a modern pundit you might argue that the internet is the beginning of a yet
18:26another
18:27industrial revolution. I just tend to think of it as one long technological process with lots of different
18:34innovations that are worth talking about together rather than a separate thing that can be taken out of that long
18:41window. This is everything for today. Thank you for watching. I hope you learned something. This was
18:47industrial revolution support.
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