This video summarizes many aspects of the industrial revolution that occurred between the 1700’s and early 1900’s.

Following are points the video makes:

— During the latter part of the 1700’s, the world’s first modern factories such as cotton spinning mills were being built in Britain, which transformed the country.  Small workshops were being replaced by factory production that was powered by water and steam, with the textile industry being the first to embrace steam power on a large scale.

— Manchester become the world’s first industrial city, and it was later dubbed “Cottonopolis.”

— Steam engines played a vital part in the industrialization, and Britain had an ample supply of coal to power them, which freed people from the previous constraints of only burning wood or using the power of animals.

— Canals where then built to facilitate the transport of coal from the mines to the factories that burned it, and over 2,000 miles of canals existed by 1851.

— New turnpike roads were also constructed at the same time that were paid for by tolls, which dramatically improved the amount of time that it took to travel across the country.

— In 1758, the first railway was implemented in order to transport coal from mines to factories in Leeds that was three miles away.

— Factories were being constructed to have one or two centralized engines running machines on various floors.

— Factories accelerated urbanization due to drawing people to the cities.

— Many people were “de-skilled” by the machines, where they ended up being relegated to performing repetitive menial tasks.

— Poor working conditions gave rise to a class-consciousness which began to organize at an unprecedented scale where workers called for improved working conditions, employment rights, education for their children, and the right to vote.

— The industrial revolution also led to the creation of a new prosperous class of industrialists who amassed huge fortunes.

— Nonetheless, in the 1850’s agriculture was still the largest employer, followed with domestic service and other more traditional professions such as blacksmiths, therefore Britain should actually have been thought of as being “the workshop of the world” rather than “the factory of the world.”