Some boys who did not work attended schools such as grammar school. These schools were not any easier than working, however, and it did not provide money for the family so only the wealthy could afford to send their kids to schools. These schoolboys usually worked similar hours and had breaks for meals. Corporal punishment in these learning facilities was not uncommon. Teachers could punish children by smacking their bare butts with birch twigs or hold naughty boys down by their necks. The aristocratic nobility only made up one to five percent of any population so there was not too many of them.
They possessed an enormous amount of wealth which complemented their wide degree of economic, social, and political power. Most of the Europeans worked within a family economy to maximize productions. The household developed into the basic unit of production and consumption. It was virtually impossible for ordinary people to support themselves individually, this lead to many marriages just for financial purposes, instead of love and due reason. The economic life of the family usually depended on the father’s skills and land.
The father was considered to be the head of the household and therefore had many due responsibilities. Agents of textile merchants brought wool and other materials to the homes of peasants who spun and wove the fabric, the merchant then sold the product. This system of transportation of wool and other clothing materials had its drawbacks, one of the biggest drawbacks was that this system of movement was extremely time consuming and peasants were paid by the piece, not by the hour. Conclusively, pre-industrial work life was characterized by harsh conditions and minimal payments for hard work, does not sound like much fun.
From 1750 to 1850, not much changed besides a couple key factors. The ability to produce enough goods, due to the new machinery, meet consumer demands which led to more demands. Throughout Europe, there were many key factors to production that subsidized work labor. On the land, there were many natural resources provided by the Earth to aid the working man. Iron, coal and water vastly improved the technological world of the 17th and 18th centuries. The manufacture of high-quality iron became essential to industrial development.
During the 18th century British iron makes produced less than 25,000 tons annually, Iron was a great resource for many reasons but, like all resources, it had it’s limitations. One of them being that charcoal from wood rather than coke was used. This meant that the charcoal would be of lower quality than expected which would lead all products to being lower quality. Inefficient blasts were achieved in furnaces which resulted in uneven iron and sometimes iron that could not be used for production of other items. Thirdly, the demand for iron was limited.
Iron was a scarce and wealthy item that only the top industries could afford to import, this lead to low exportation of the resource and low usage of it, as well. A major turning point for iron production in the Industrial Revolution occurred in 1784 when Henry Cort developed a method for melting and stirring molten ore. This process of melting and stirring ore became known as the puddling process and was widely acknowledged as scientific genius at work. He developed a rolling mill that shaped the still-molten metal into bars, rails and other forms.
Along with iron, water was another huge factor of advancement in technology in Europe. When James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in 1765, he allowed up to sixteen spindles of thread to be spun. This meant more material for producing clothes and less work for the actual workers. This machine produced eight time the thread spun on a single spinning wheel, maximizing production all over Europe. However, people would get tired of spinning and spinning the wheel all day long so production would take a massive toll later on each day.
To fix this problem, Richard Arkwright built off of Hargreaves’ idea and invented the water frame. The water frame was the same invention as the spinning jenny but, it used water instead of people so production stayed at it’s peak all day long. The water frame also had other advantages that the spinning jenny did not have. For example, the water powered machine allowed for the spinning of a pure cotton thread which lead to much softer and comfortable fabrics for people to wear. New methods of farming rose parallel to water and iron, and benefitted the whole European community.
Charles “Tunip” Townshend created the idea of a four field system, instead of three, this was also known as the open-field system where all four fields of a land were used instead of just three. This not only increased food production but, it also left no field barren, this way all of the land owned by the farmer is productively used each and every year. New ideas of animal husbandry, breeding, arose to better the animals so that the products produced by them were more fresh and healthier to consume. Milk and meat from animals was now safer to eat and people could safely enjoy their meals.
Before the Industrial Revolution, livestock of both sexes were kept together in the fields with random breeding resulting in many different breeds of animals with their own unique and complex characteristics which would ultimately change the products each animal made. During the Industrial Revolution, Robert Bakewell separated male animals from female animals, thus allowing mating to be done deliberately and purposefully. Therefore, he fixed and exaggerated the traits that he thought were important for animals to inherit. The Jethro Wood patented plow revolutionized farming tactics.
The plow now had three separate castings, it had the iron tip plow, the moldboard, and the landslide. The plow could now be taken apart and remodeled to them were fix broken parts. There was no longer a need to go out and buy a whole new plow if one part of it broke, this saved a boatload of money for farmers and their workers. The Jethro tull seed drill also assisted farmers in creating plots of land. It allowed farmers to plant seeds in rows at specific depths that they desired so that they would not have to go out and plant each and every seed by hand.
This saved farmers time and time is money in the Industrial Revolution so it also saved the farmers money. The cultivation of the potato was an important factor in the role of dining. On a single acre of land, one peasant could plant and grow enough potatoes to feed himself for an entire year. In conclusion, the innovation in farming methods lead to more food which allowed people to have better nourishment thus, letting them live longer and reproduce more to have a bigger population.
Capitol factors of production helped Europeans become a more advanced society. Money, machinery, tools and equipment all changed for the better. New machines such as the loom and it’s partner, the flying shuttle changed the clothing world forever. These two items allowed humans at the time to now own more than one pair of clothes as they did in the times before the Industrial Revolution. Farming tools and equipment allowed not only for farmers to have an easier job but, for population to grow and increase work production in all other areas of work.
