Wyatt L.T. III The Industrial Revolution
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mines or industry. It also stipulated that children between 12 and 16
years of age could work no more than 12 hours a day. It also provided
for sanitation and educational standards for working children. By the
1880s all child laborers had legal protection. The new German state
also instituted voting rights for all adult males. In addition to the
extension of suffrage, these states also enacted laws that provided for
sickness, accident, and disability benefits as well as some form of pen-
sion plans. Germany also addressed child labor. Building upon earlier
Prussian law, Germany banned children under the age of 12 from
industrial employment. It further required that all children 12 to 14
years of age work only 6 hours a day, with 3 additional hours desig-
nated for schooling purposes. These measures, while introducing some
reform, were in fact limited in their scope and generally in response to
the perceived threat and strength of the growing socialist parties and
the trade unions in the 1880s.
26
However, along with improved work-
ing conditions and a better health and sanitation environment in the
urban areas, the increase in voting rights and social welfare legislation
as well as other incremental reform measures did much to gain a broad
base of citizen loyalty to the modern nation state.
Conclusion
By the turn of the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution, partic-
ularly that phase that had begun after 1850, had forever changed the
map of Europe. Belgium, France, and several German states marshaled
their resources and eventually obtained the techniques that had thrust
Great Britain into the leadership role in the Industrial Revolution. By
the end of the 19th century they began to compete with Great Britain
in a number of areas. Like Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution pro-
duced a transformation of the societies on the continent. The booming
population and the dynamic urban society that it spawned had pro-
vided Europeans a new sense of national identity. The creation of a
mass society ensured that even the working classes played an impor-
tant role. The increase in the standard of living, the appearance of new
forms of transportation that bound all regions of nations together, the
growth of educational opportunities and literacy, the sense that work
was not an end to itself with the participation of more people in leisure
time activities, and the increased role of citizens in the political process
forged a Europe that would have been unrecognizable in 1800. This
phenomenal material prosperity convinced the vast majority of Euro-
peans that they were truly living in an age of progress, one that offered
unlimited potential for the future.
141
The Industrial Revolution on the Continent in the Late 19th Century
Notes
1. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 178.
2. A. Young, Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789,as
quoted in J. H. Robinson & C. A. Beard, Readings in Modern European
History, Vol. 1 (New York: Ginn and Company), 232.
3. Stalcup, The Industrial Revolution,37–39.
4. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 139–141.
5. Stalcup, The Industrial Revolution,39–43.
6. Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History, 43.
7. Ibid.
8. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 145–146.
9. Ibid., 196–197.
10. Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History,44–46.
11. Beaudoin, The Industrial Revolution,19–25.
12. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 162–165.
13. Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History,44–46.
14. Ibid., 47.
15. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 152, 180; Stearns, The Industrial
Revolution in World History,47–48.
16. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 167.
17. Excerpted from table in Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, 194
18. Ibid., 201.
19. Ibid., 215.
20. Ibid., 198.
21. Manufacturer and Builder, Vol. 13, No. 8 (July 1881) 166.
22. Manufacturer and Builder, Vol. 21, No. 1 (January 1889), 1–2.
23. Stearns, The Industrial Revolution in World History, 55.
24. Ibid., 59–62.
25. See K. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, translated by S. Moore & E. Aveling
(New York: International Publishing, 1967), and Freidrich Engels, The Con-
ditions of the Working Class in England, translated by W. O. Henderson &
W. H. Chalons (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968); Nardinelli, Child
Labor in the Industrial Revolution, 67.
26. Nadinelli, Child Labor in the Industrial Revolution, 128, 138, 145–147.
142
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
CHAPTER 7
THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION BEYOND
THE
WEST
By 1870, major portions of the Western world had achieved or were on
the road to a sophisticated level of industrialization, although areas
such as southern Italy, Spain, Portugal, and a few isolated other iso-
lated spots within the Western orbit such as Ireland and the American
South, had made only minimal progress by comparison. In other parts
of the globe, no set of favorable conditions similar to that of the West-
ern nations, such as the availability of abundant resources, enterprising
entrepreneurs, technological advances, the growth of capital for
investment, rapid urbanization, etc., existed to facilitate industrial
growth. That is not to say that industrialization had no impact on
the non-Western regions. On the contrary, the rapid trends in indus-
trialization in Western nations in the 19th century led to their intru-
sion into other parts of the world for both economic and strategic
reasons. Western entrepreneurs built factory enterprises and intro-
duced technology into these areas and sought resources and markets,
while some Western workers sought opportunity in the newly
emerging enterprises. As a result, significant interaction with West-
ern nations occurred and in many instances left these regions with
no easy path to industrialization and an increased dependence on
the West for economic viability. Until the 1860s, East Asia (except
for China and Japan) and sub-Saharan Africa remained virtually free
from Western industrial intrusion, while the Middle East, Latin
America, and India experienced some degree of influence. However,
only Russia and Japan, for very different and unique reasons, began
a significant economic transformation within their societies, based
upon national decisions to industrialize.
India, the Middle East, and Latin America
India and the Middle East each had the opportunity to industrial-
ize relatively early. However, despite attempts to replicate the success
of the West, each of these areas failed to generate widespread industrial
development. In India, the efforts were feeble at best. The East India
Company had operated in Calcutta since the late 17th century, and
British colonial rule had established close ties with its elite classes. In
the 18th and early 19th centuries, a few colleges and scientific research
facilities and a banking operation had appeared, and some of the exist-
ing commercial enterprises and the more primitive manufacturing
activities came under the sway of the British. In the 1830s, British capi-
talists and entrepreneurs controlled portions of the Indian coal mines,
sugar refineries, and a few textile mills. The British introduced their
equipment and machinery into these ventures in an effort to establish
a modern industrial base. However, these efforts proved futile. The
cheap British textiles that flowed into India erased the jobs of millions
of rural villagers who relied on traditional domestic manufacturing
practices for their livelihood. The next stage of development occurred
with the introduction of the railroad in the 1850s. Passenger travel
commenced in 1853. Some initial fear existed that the Hindu popula-
tion might reject railroad transportation as being too dangerous.
Instead, the populace relied on railroads for transportation, but it did
not stimulate noticeable economic change. Railroad construction
merely connected the interior agricultural regions with Indian ports.
This linkage meant that the traditional cash crops flowed more freely
to the coastal areas for export, and British imports had easier access to
penetrate the interior.
1
The Middle East confronted industrialization from a position of a
long-standing bias against Western culture. Aside from the acquisition
of some Western armaments, the Ottoman Empire had remained virtu-
ally free of any Western intrusion and appeared oblivious to the speed
and depth of Western industrialization occurring on its periphery. By
the late 18th century the situation had reversed itself as the Ottoman
Empire sought additional Western military technology. The reaction of
the British to Napoleon’s military escapade in Egypt in 1798 did not go
unnoticed. Shortly thereafter, Muhammed Ali seized control of Egypt
and began to modernize its society. He established textile mills, sugar
refineries, paper mills, and armories to strengthen Egypt’s economy. In
the end, this effort failed. Like the experience in India, Egyptian facto-
ries could not compete with European enterprises, and the heavy reli-
ance on cash crops to generate income ensured they would be used to
144
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
purchase European goods and commodities rather than promote
industrial development. The Ottoman Empire also attempted to imi-
tate developments in Europe. The first factories appeared in the 1840s,
albeit with European machinery and personnel expertise. The govern-
ment pushed coal and iron production and instituted a postal service
in the 1830s, a telegraph service in the 1850s, and the railroad in the
middle of the 1860s. However, despite these small efforts, the Ottoman
Empire’s industrial growth also was a victim of the overwhelming
influence of European entrepreneurs and investors and the exchange
of cash crops for cheaper European manufactured products.
2
By 1820 Latin American nations had won independence from
their European masters. The long tradition of Spanish and Portuguese
influence hampered industrial development of its former colonies, as
these nations fell outside of the orbit of industrialization occurring in
the rest of Western Europe. In addition, the creation of a semblance of
political stability took several decades in Latin America and further
impeded industrial growth. The real impetus for embracing change
came from the economic and commercial connections that Latin Ameri-
can areas had previously established with other Western nations under-
going industrialization. Brazil introduced steam power into a sugar mill
in 1815. Coffee producers saw the advantage of steam power, and by
mid-century the country had nearly 150 steam engines in operation.
Again, however, the pattern followed that of other non-Western areas in
the 19th century. The use of new technology, such as the steam engine,
merely reinforced Latin American reliance on its cash crops for export
in order to obtain sufficient funds to purchase Western technology. In
the 1830s railroad development began in Cuba and appeared in Brazil
and other regions of Latin America two decades later. Brazil offered
financial incentives for assistance in railroad construction and extended
its railroad mileage from a paltry ten miles in 1852 to 800 miles by the
early 1870s. Mexico only built 369 miles of railroads in 1880, at a time
when worldwide construction was booming. Several other Latin Ameri-
can countries such as Mexico, Chile, and Paraguay also attempted to
modernize their economies by emphasizing ship building, iron produc-
tion, and railroad construction, but these efforts achieved only meager
results in the face of the more dominant influence of Western powers.
But Latin American countries also suffered from resisting the investment
interests of its neighbor the United States. Brazil and other countries
remained tied to the heavy, bulky, and more expensive European indus-
trial machinery rather than adopting the emerging more light and deli-
cate and less expensive machinery from the United States.
3
In truth, the splash of these early efforts fell far short of what was
required to establish a modern industrial society in India, the Middle
145
The Industrial Revolution beyond the West
East, and Latin America. A number of factors precluded the creation of
the Western model of industrialization in these areas throughout most
of the 19th century. Several conflicts between countries, political insta-
bility, the failure of the populaces to abandon their reliance on tradi-
tional cash crops for export in exchange for European goods and
commodities, primitive education systems, cultural differences, the lack
of internal infrastructure development as represented by the relatively
modest amount of factories built, and the dearth of railroad mileage
and the continued heavy dependence on European entrepreneurs,
investment, and technology prevented these portions of the globe from
making any serious transformation to industrialized societies.
Russia
Russia more quickly understood the advantages of gaining West-
ern technology for economic, political, and military purposes. In many
respects, Russia was in the best position of any other non-Western
power in the 19th century. Russia had already obtained and mimicked
Western shipbuilding and metallurgy technology since the reign of Pe-
ter the Great in the 17th century. By the early 19th century, Russia had
been incorporated into the continent’s diplomatic scene, particularly
after its efforts in the last phase of the Napoleonic Wars and the peace
settlement at Vienna. Afterwards, Russians were not uncommon sights
in Western capitals and the cultural ties between Russia and the rest of
Europe became more solidified, although the long-standing suspicion
of Russia’s strategic ambitions remained foremost in the minds of many
Europeans.
Russia had some exposure to industrialization in the first half of
the 19th century. Western agents assisted in the construction of steam-
boats and then railroads. The first steamboat appeared on the Volga
River in 1815, and regular passenger and commercial service began
five years later. The first railroad connecting St. Petersburg and its sub-
urbs appeared in 1837, and in 1851 a line opened between St. Peters-
burg and Moscow. American engineers who gained the sponsorship of
the Russian government gave the main impetus to the effort. George
Whistler, father of the famous American painter James Whistler, was
the key person in the railroad ventures. Although he noted the eager-
ness of the Russian workers he trained, Whistler was also disturbed by
their slovenly behavior. Great Britain exported textile machinery to
Russia in 1843, and a German in Manchester shipped materials to Rus-
sia and even encouraged a number of British workers to take employ-
ment in Russian textile mills. Russian entrepreneurs began a frantic
146
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
importation of British machinery. The number of imported machines
rose 30 times in the period from 1825 to 1860. Furthermore, these
machines provided models for native machine manufacturing and by
1860 Russia manufactured more machines than it imported. The num-
ber of factories engaged in machine building jumped more than four-
fold from nineteen in 1851 to ninety-nine less than a decade later. The
majority of the revenues for these endeavors came from the Tsar’s taxa-
tion of his people to obtain money to lure entrepreneurs from Great
Britain and the German states to Russia for their expertise.
4
Despite these initial efforts, Russia did not industrialize prior to
1860 and remained first and foremost an agricultural nation. The an-
cient ties of serfs to the land prevented any significant move of peas-
ants from rural to urban areas. Western powers also took great
advantage of the Russians. As more Western investors poured into Rus-
sia, they secured the export of important products such as timber,
hemp, grain, etc. for European markets, a fact that kept many peasants
tied to the farm to whet this voracious appetite. Also, few Russian
cities had developed even a primitive manufacturing tradition, making
the transition that much more difficult. The artisan class was small and
did not increase substantially even when Russian urban areas experi-
enced some modest growth beginning in the 1860s. For decades Russia
had to encourage the immigration of foreign artisans, particularly from
Great Britain and Germany. To be sure, Russian exports rose dramati-
cally for the first six decades of the 19th century, but that increase is
misleading and resembled more the cases of India, the Middle East,
and Latin America because they were primarily based on raw materials
and resources aimed for Western use.
Russia renewed its efforts to industrialize in the 1860s. The disas-
trous results of the Crimean War (1854–1856) forced the Russian lead-
ership to concede that it lagged behind the West in technological
affairs. That conflict proved first-hand to Russia that the industrializ-
ing states of Great Britain and France had far surpassed it in the capa-
bility of rapidly transporting large numbers of men and high quality
war material to the front lines with steamship power. Russia, on the
other hand, possessed few railroads and had only several thousand
miles of usable roads. Russia moved quickly in the 1860s. The emanci-
pation of the serfs in 1861 led to a host of other reforms, such as the
creation of a state bank to centralize finances and credit and the enact-
ment of new commercial laws to facilitate the growth of business. Rail-
road construction also proceeded at a healthy pace from 700 miles in
1860 to 21,000 miles in 1894 to 36,000 miles in 1900. By the 1870s,
French, Belgian, German, and American firms and subsidiaries had
established healthy operations in Russia. In addition, by that decade a
147
The Industrial Revolution beyond the West
large number of foreign engineers had arrived in Russia to direct the
efforts of Russian workers. A number of nagging issues had to be
addressed such as worker resentment of foreign managers, property
disputes, and at times inadequate equipment. In spite of these difficul-
ties, slow but steady progress was made.
After a period of retrenchment brought about by conservative tsa-
rist regimes in the 1880s, a new industrial push occurred in the 1890s.
The leading figure in this surge was Sergei Witte, the Russian Minister
of Finance, who had the formidable task of instituting policy changes
to strengthen the Russian state in the face of an evolving strategic chal-
lenges arising in Europe. Witte had earlier experience in the buildup
of the Russian railroad network and stressed a further extension of the
system, a program that doubled mileage in the decade from 1895 to
1905 and resulted in the important trans-Siberian railroad that con-
nected the heartland of Russia to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean and
made more readily available vast resources of coal and iron to support
development of heavy industry. Witte also attempted to strengthen the
Russian currency and monetary system by accumulating a substantial
gold reserve.
These trends encouraged the growth of foreign capital in Russia,
which in the 1890s represented roughly 20% of the investment in Rus-
sian industry. By World War I that amount had doubled. The number
of industrial companies also had a healthy increase in the period from
the emancipation of the serfs to the end of the century. Before 1860
only eighty companies existed in Russia. By 1873 the number had
jumped to more than 3,500. In the 1890s, the number increased by
more than 200%. The discovery of huge deposits of oil in the Caucuses
in 1870 made Russia the world’s second leading producer by 1900.
Other areas had similar growth: coal, 131%; pig iron, 190%; manufac-
tured iron, 116%; and cotton manufactures, 76%. Overall industrial
growth posted healthy gains from 6% in the 1880s to 8% in the 1890s,
although after 1900 the growth slowed. Russia’s growth rate when
compared to Western nations from 1860 to 1913 also attests to its
potential and ability to compete. During that period Russia’s growth
rate was roughly equal to the United States, twice that of Germany,
three times that of France, and four times that of Great Britain,
although it should be noted that Russia started from a lower position
of comparison.
5
Nonetheless, by the early 20th century, despite retaining a heavy
reliance on an agrarian economy and the existence of a very conserva-
tive political regime opposed to significant change, Russia had climbed
its way to the position as the fourth largest industrial nation in most
identifiable categories. Success, at least on the surface, had been
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THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
achieved. However, this rapid change and the momentum for further
development clashed with other opposing forces at this propitious
moment. Most Russian workers toiled in huge industrial enterprises.
In 1900 about one-third of the Russian factory labor force worked in
factories with a minimum of 500 persons, a figure more than two times
that of Germany, and an additional one-quarter of Russian workers
toiled in factories that employed 1,000 or more persons. The condi-
tions facing these workers resembled those that Great Britain’s indus-
trial laborers had experienced a half century earlier. Women and child
labor was widespread and abuse was commonplace. Workers at times
toiled fourteen hours day for low wages and faced fines or reduced pay
for tardiness, low quality work, or resistance to authority. Many men
left their families in the rural areas and moved to factory towns seeking
work. This family separation created additional tensions and often
resulted in a decline in morality, heavy drinking, and frequent job
changes. Living conditions were often extremely depressing as exhib-
ited by the makeshift construction of housing, overcrowding, poor or
almost nonexistent sanitation, and the exorbitant prices in the factory
owner stores. Other negative factors were also at work. Some foreign
workers recruited for Russian factories had negotiated special privi-
leges related to pay and other benefits, thus drawing additional resent-
ment from Russian workers. The few feeble efforts to enact factory
reform lacked adequate enforcement provisions.
6
Worker’s efforts to organize and appeal for improvement began as
early as the 1870s. The Russian workers movement had a distinctly dif-
ferent complexion than that of Western nations. The peasants who had
labored under such strict conditions for so long carried their frustra-
tions to the factory environment. Socialist ideas arrived in Russia at
the same moment they circulated amongst intellectuals and worker
organizers in Western Europe. The significant difference was that by
the late 19th century, government action and political and social
reform had begun to incorporate the workers into the overall fabric of
Western society. Russian workers, on the other hand, faced the pros-
pects of the conservative government’s policy of inaction in the area of
reform and a prohibition of worker organizations and strikes. In addi-
tion, aristocratic and urban elites frequently looked upon the working
classes with disdain, adding to their discontent and fueling more rea-
sons for friction and some protest actions in the 1870s and 1880s. It
was in the environment of the factory cities that Lenin and other Marx-
ists found welcome support for their ideology in Russia and formed
the Socialist Workers Party in 1898. As the 20th century dawned, eco-
nomic hard times and a devastating loss in the Russo-Japanese War of
1904 to 1905 led to the great strike in 1905. The ensuing political
149
The Industrial Revolution beyond the West
revolution that year merely patched together a false sense of normalcy
that would be disrupted in a dramatic fashion by World War I and the
Russian Revolution of 1917. Thereafter, the early promise of industrial-
ization and modernization in Russia charted a divergent course from
that of the West.
Japan
Japan’s transition to an industrialized society took another route.
In the middle of the 19th century Japan did not appear poised to
embrace industrialization. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Japan had
been virtually isolated from most foreign influence since the early 17th
century and did not fully comprehend the significant changes that
were sweeping across the Western states. In 1720 a long prohibition
against Western knowledge was partially lifted. Dutch merchants
entering Japan found a small group of Japanese interested in gaining
more information about Western science and technology. This so-
called Dutch School of Learning was an important vehicle for keeping
channels of knowledge alive for future use. Japan also did not possess
abundant resources. Coal and copper were in short supply, and textiles
had to be imported. Finally, the traditionalists in Japan clung tightly to
their belief that maintenance of the status quo was the only option for
retaining the purity of Japanese society and culture.
Japan, like Russia in the Crimean War, had to experience the
brunt of Western military power before making the decision to change.
In 1852 Commodore Matthew Perry, commanding the U.S. East India
squadron, had instructions from President Milliard Fillmore and the
Secretary of the Navy ‘‘to open commercial intercourse with the Japa-
nese government’’ for the purpose of engaging in trade and having Japa-
nese ports available for obtaining coal and other supplies for its
whaling fleet. On July 8, 1853 four black ships under his command
sailed into Tokyo (Edo) Bay and amazed Japanese onlookers who had
never before seen steamboats or such a sizeable number of guns. He
demanded to see high ranking members of the Japanese government.
Although he was unsuccessful in 1853, he returned in 1854 and the
Japanese realized their weak position. After weeks of negotiations, the
Treaty of Kanagawa was signed on March 31, 1854. The provisions
declared friendship between the two nations, opened several ports for
American vessels, obtained the promise of Japanese aid to shipwrecked
sailors, guaranteed U.S. purchase of supplies in Japanese ports, and got
approval for a permanent U.S. consul. Commodore Perry presented a
large number of gifts to the emperor (see Documents 10 and 11).
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THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION