144-485: People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial Revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic role as a primary fuel, coal miners have figured strongly in labor and political movements since that time. After the late 19th-century coal miners in many countries were
288-431: A strike for November 1, 1919 in all soft (bituminous) coal fields. They had agreed to a wage agreement to run until the end of World War I and now sought to capture some of their industry's wartime gains. The Federal government invoked the wartime measure that made it a crime to interfere with the production or transportation of necessities. Ignoring the court order 400,000 coal workers walked out. The coal operators played
432-536: A "community of solidarity" – under the leadership of the Miners Federation . The union supported first the Liberal Party, then after 1918 Labour, with some Communist Party activism at the fringes. As well as energy supply, coal became a very political issue, due to the conditions under which colliers worked. Their dominance in remote villages heightened political and industrial solidarily, colliery owners. Much of
576-436: A YMCA Center, elementary school, and some small businesses, as well as a company store . However air pollution was a constant health threat; the houses lacked indoor plumbing. As demand for metallurgical coke declined, the mine laid off workers and Segundo's population declined. After a major fire in 1929, CF&I left town and Segundo became practically a ghost town. A company store was typical in more isolated areas. It
720-550: A ballot reduced public support and made it easier for the government to use legal and police powers against the union without significant political consequences. The closed shop in the state-owned coal sector was ended when a breakaway union, the Union of Democratic Mineworkers , was formed mostly by miners in Nottinghamshire and South Derbyshire who felt betrayed by the NUM for insisting on
864-400: A better way could be found to remove the seed. Eli Whitney responded to the challenge by inventing the inexpensive cotton gin . A man using a cotton gin could remove seed from as much upland cotton in one day as would previously have taken two months to process, working at the rate of one pound of cotton per day. These advances were capitalised on by entrepreneurs , of whom the best known
1008-476: A change in the local balance of power. The main union, the Amalgamated Mine Workers of Nova Scotia , started in 1917 and won union recognition, wage increases, and the eight-hour day . The union mobilized its voters and took control of town councils. They challenged coal companies on the use of company police and assessment of taxes. The most dramatic change was the town council's success in restricting
1152-520: A cottage industry under the putting-out system . Occasionally, the work was done in the workshop of a master weaver. Under the putting-out system, home-based workers produced under contract to merchant sellers, who often supplied the raw materials. In the off-season, the women, typically farmers' wives, did the spinning and the men did the weaving. Using the spinning wheel , it took anywhere from four to eight spinners to supply one handloom weaver. The flying shuttle , patented in 1733 by John Kay —with
1296-583: A detailed account of the term. Economic historians and authors such as Mendels, Pomeranz , and Kridte argue that proto-industrialisation in parts of Europe, the Muslim world , Mughal India , and China created the social and economic conditions that led to the Industrial Revolution, thus causing the Great Divergence . Some historians, such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts , have argued that
1440-458: A fact-finding commission that suspended the strike. The strike never resumed, as the miners received more pay for fewer hours; the owners got a higher price for coal, and did not recognize the union as a bargaining agent. It was the first labor episode in which the federal government intervened as a neutral arbitrator. Between 1898 and 1908 the wages of coal miners, both in the bituminous and anthracite districts had doubled. Business leaders, led by
1584-412: A family newspaper, seem to point to exploitation. The attitudes carry over into the scholarly literature, which emphasizes that the company store was a monopoly." The stores served numerous functions, such as a locus for the government post office, and as the cultural, and community center where people could freely gather. Company stores became scarce after the miners bought automobiles and could travel to
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#17330863264601728-518: A frequent presence in industrial disputes with both the management and government. Coal miners' politics, while complex, has occasionally been radical, with a frequent leaning towards far-left political views. A number of far-left political movements have had the support of both coal miners themselves and their trade unions, particularly in Great Britain. In France, on the other hand, coal miners have been much more conservative. In India, Coal Miners Day
1872-426: A legal system that supported business; and financial capital available to invest. Once industrialisation began in Great Britain, new factors can be added: the eagerness of British entrepreneurs to export industrial expertise and the willingness to import the process. Britain met the criteria and industrialized starting in the 18th century, and then it exported the process to western Europe (especially Belgium, France, and
2016-515: A lockout from 1 May, miners would have to accept new terms of employment that included lengthening the work day and reducing wages between 10% and 25%, depending on various factors. The MFGB refused the wage reduction and regional negotiation. The 1926 United Kingdom general strike was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 May 1926 to 13 May 1926. It was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force
2160-498: A major strike in 1947 was repressed by the military on orders of the president the miners had elected. In Eastern Europe the coal miners were the most politicized element in society after 1945. They were the primary support group for the Communist governments and were heavily subsidized. Poland's miners were also critical supporters of the anti-Communist Solidarity movement of the 1980s. Although some deep mining took place as early as
2304-421: A mechanised industry. Other inventors increased the efficiency of the individual steps of spinning (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling) so that the supply of yarn increased greatly. Steam power was then applied to drive textile machinery. Manchester acquired the nickname Cottonopolis during the early 19th century owing to its sprawl of textile factories. Although mechanisation dramatically decreased
2448-633: A minimum wage. After a million men had walked out for 37 days, the UK Government intervened and ended the strike by passing a minimum wage law. This caused many problems with ships due to the shortage of fuel. As a result, many transatlantic crossings were cancelled and in some cases, passengers were transferred to the Titanic . Total coal output in Britain had been falling since 1914. Mine owners announced their intention to reduce miners' wages. The MFGB rejected
2592-708: A more even thickness. The technology was developed with the help of John Wyatt of Birmingham . Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham which used their rolling machine powered by a donkey. In 1743, a factory opened in Northampton with 50 spindles on each of five of Paul and Wyatt's machines. This operated until about 1764. A similar mill was built by Daniel Bourn in Leominster , but this burnt down. Both Lewis Paul and Daniel Bourn patented carding machines in 1748. Based on two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds, it
2736-599: A new headquarters building in Sheffield , which was completed in 1988. However, with membership declining, the union relocated again in 1992, to share the Yorkshire Area offices in Barnsley. Although weakened by the strike, the NUM was still a significant force into the early 1990s. A major scheme of closures of deep mines was announced by the government in 1992. The NUM ran a national ballot on possible strike action, and this
2880-406: A number of subsequent improvements including an important one in 1747—doubled the output of a weaver, worsening the imbalance between spinning and weaving. It became widely used around Lancashire after 1760 when John's son, Robert , invented the dropbox, which facilitated changing thread colors. Lewis Paul patented the roller spinning frame and the flyer-and- bobbin system for drawing wool to
3024-421: A range of stores. Being a miner in the 19th century meant long hours of continuous hard labor in the dark mines with low ceilings. Accidents were frequent. Young boys were used outside the mine to sort coal from rocks; they were not allowed underground until age 18. The breathing of coal dust caused black lung , whose effects few miners knew would have on their bodies. The United Mine Workers (UMWA) had won
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#17330863264603168-467: A report on 10 March 1926 recommending that in the future, national agreements, the nationalization of royalties, and sweeping reorganization and improvement should be considered for the mining industry. It also recommended a reduction of 13.5% of miners' wages along with the withdrawal of the government subsidy. Two weeks later, the prime minister announced that the government would accept the report provided other parties also did. A previous royal commission,
3312-581: A result, the socialist union (affiliated with the Social Democratic Party) competed with Catholic and Communist unions until 1933, when the Nazis took over all of them. After 1945 the socialists came to the fore. Until the middle of the 19th century coal mining in the Netherlands was limited to the direct surroundings of Kerkrade . The use of steam engines enabled exploitation of deeper lying coal seams to
3456-410: A reverberatory furnace, coal or coke could be used as fuel. The puddling process continued to be used until the late 19th century when iron was being displaced by mild steel. Because puddling required human skill in sensing the iron globs, it was never successfully mechanised. Rolling was an important part of the puddling process because the grooved rollers expelled most of the molten slag and consolidated
3600-568: A series of many extensive Mining accidents such as The Oaks explosion of 1866 and the Hartley Colliery Disaster of 1862. Most of the explosions were caused by firedamp ignitions followed by coal dust explosions. Deaths were mainly caused by carbon monoxide poisoning or asphyxiation. The Courrières mine disaster , Europe's worst mining accident, caused the death of 1,099 miners in Northern France on 10 March 1906. This disaster
3744-438: A simple, wooden framed machine that only cost about £6 for a 40-spindle model in 1792 and was used mainly by home spinners. The jenny produced a lightly twisted yarn only suitable for weft, not warp. The spinning frame or water frame was developed by Richard Arkwright who, along with two partners, patented it in 1769. The design was partly based on a spinning machine built by Kay, who was hired by Arkwright. For each spindle
3888-458: A store that miners had to use because they were often paid only in company scrip or coal scrip , redeemable at the store, which often charged higher prices than other stores. Many miners' homes were also owned by the mines. Although there were company towns that raised the prices of all goods and made eviction a constant threat, these conditions were not the norm for all coal towns—some owners were paternalistic and others were exploitative. Coal
4032-574: A strike after their area ballot had rejected strike action. In contrast, the Leicestershire area stayed in the NUM, as the area leader Jack Jones had kept good relations with the local miners by openly defying Scargill. After the end of the strike, the NUM took an active leadership role in working to align the labour movement in the UK more closely with LGBT rights issues. Following the Lesbians and Gays Support
4176-543: A sweeping victory in an 1897 strike by the soft-coal ( bituminous coal ) miners in the Midwest, winning significant wage increases and growing from 10,000 to 115,000 members. The UAW faced much stiffer opposition in the concentration of ownership in the small anthracite region. The owners, controlled by large railroads, refused to meet or to arbitrate with the union; the union struck in September 1900, with results that surprised even
4320-620: A variety of cotton cloth, some of exceptionally fine quality. Cotton was a difficult raw material for Europe to obtain before it was grown on colonial plantations in the Americas. The early Spanish explorers found Native Americans growing unknown species of excellent quality cotton: sea island cotton ( Gossypium barbadense ) and upland green seeded cotton Gossypium hirsutum . Sea island cotton grew in tropical areas and on barrier islands of Georgia and South Carolina but did poorly inland. Sea island cotton began being exported from Barbados in
4464-488: A weight. The weights kept the twist from backing up before the rollers. The bottom rollers were wood and metal, with fluting along the length. The water frame was able to produce a hard, medium-count thread suitable for warp, finally allowing 100% cotton cloth to be made in Britain. Arkwright and his partners used water power at a factory in Cromford , Derbyshire in 1771, giving the invention its name. Samuel Crompton invented
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4608-430: Is Arkwright. He is credited with a list of inventions, but these were actually developed by such people as Kay and Thomas Highs ; Arkwright nurtured the inventors, patented the ideas, financed the initiatives, and protected the machines. He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and he developed the use of power—first horsepower and then water power—which made cotton manufacture
4752-417: Is celebrated on May 4. From the mid-19th century onward, coal miners have often built strong connections with the organized labor movement, and sometimes as well with radical political movements. Coal miners were among the first groups of industrial workers to collectively organize to the protection of both working and social conditions in their communities. Beginning in the 19th century, and continuing through
4896-589: The Agricultural Revolution . Beginning in Great Britain , the Industrial Revolution spread to continental Europe and the United States , from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines ; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power ; the development of machine tools ; and
5040-496: The National Civic Federation , and political leaders such as Mark Hanna worked with the miners union on favorable terms. Nash notes that the coal operators saw that it was to the advantage to support the union policy of uniform wage rates, for it prevented cutthroat competition and falling prices. The UMW limited the propensity of miners to go on wildcat strikes. The UMW under its new young leader John L. Lewis called
5184-623: The National Coal Board (NCB) by Thatcher in 1983. In 1984, after secretly stockpiling coal at power stations, the NCB announced the closure of 20 pits. Local regions organised strikes but NUM President Arthur Scargill , without a national ballot of the union's membership, declared a national strike in March 1984, which was ruled illegal in England, making striking miners ineligible for benefits. Support for
5328-621: The National Coal Board (NCB). The industry declined steadily despite protests such as the UK miners' strike (1984–1985) . The 1980s and 1990s saw much change in the coal industry, with privatisation, the industry contracting, in some areas quite drastically. Many pits were considered uneconomic to work at then current wage rates compared to cheap North Sea oil and gas, and in comparison to subsidy levels in Europe. The NCB employed over 700,000 people in 1950 and 634,000 in 1960, but successive governments reduced
5472-520: The Sankey Commission in 1919, had failed to reach an agreement, producing four different reports with proposals ranging from complete restoration of private ownership and control, to complete nationalization. David Lloyd George , the then prime minister, offered reorganization, which was rejected by the miners. After the Samuel Commission's report, the mine owners declared that, on penalty of
5616-627: The electrical telegraph , widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s in the United Kingdom and the United States, were not powerful enough to drive high rates of economic growth. Rapid economic growth began to reoccur after 1870, springing from a new group of innovations in what has been called the Second Industrial Revolution . These included new steel-making processes , mass production , assembly lines , electrical grid systems,
5760-488: The spinning mule in 1779, so called because it is a hybrid of Arkwright's water frame and James Hargreaves 's spinning jenny in the same way that a mule is the product of crossbreeding a female horse with a male donkey . Crompton's mule was able to produce finer thread than hand spinning and at a lower cost. Mule-spun thread was of suitable strength to be used as a warp and finally allowed Britain to produce highly competitive yarn in large quantities. Realising that
5904-469: The 'old Left ' of British politics can trace its origins to coal-mining areas, with the main trade union being the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), founded in 1888. The MFGB claimed 600,000 members in 1908. (The MFGB later became the more centralised National Union of Mineworkers ). The national coal strike of 1912 was the first national strike by coal miners in Britain. Its main goal of securing
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6048-441: The 1650s. Upland green seeded cotton grew well on inland areas of the southern U.S. but was not economical because of the difficulty of removing seed, a problem solved by the cotton gin . A strain of cotton seed brought from Mexico to Natchez, Mississippi , in 1806 became the parent genetic material for over 90% of world cotton production today; it produced bolls that were three to four times faster to pick. The Age of Discovery
6192-486: The 1984–85 strike, and the subsequent closure of most of Britain's coal mines, it became a much smaller union. It had around 170,000 members when Arthur Scargill became leader in 1981, a figure which had fallen in 2023 to an active membership of 82. The Miners' Federation of Great Britain was established in Newport , Monmouthshire in 1888 but did not function as a unified, centralised trade union for all miners. Instead
6336-737: The 20th, coal miners unions became powerful in many countries, the miners becoming leaders of left or socialist movements (as in Britain, Poland, Japan, Canada, Chile and (in the 1930s) in the U.S.) Historians report that, "From the 1880s through the end of the twentieth century, coal miners across the world became one of the most militant segments of the working class in the industrialized world." The statistics show that from 1889 to 1921 British miners struck between 2 and 3 times more frequently than any other group of workers. Some isolated coal fields had long traditions of militancy and violence; those in Scotland were especially strike-prone. Coal miners formed
6480-515: The British coal-mining industry was profound. By the late 1930s, employment in mining had fallen by more than one-third from its pre-strike peak of 1.2 million miners, but productivity had rebounded from under 200 tons produced per miner to over 300 tons by the outbreak in 1939 of the Second World War. All the coal mines in Britain were purchased by the government in 1947 and put under the control of
6624-447: The British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 800,000 locked-out coal miners. Some 1.7 million workers went out, especially in transport and heavy industry. The government was prepared and enlisted middle-class volunteers to maintain essential services. There was little violence and the TUC gave up in defeat. The miners gained nothing. In the long run, there
6768-603: The German states) in the early 19th century. The United States copied the British model in the early 19th century, and Japan copied the Western European models in the late 19th century. The commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, beginning in the second half of the 18th century. By the 1830s, the following gains had been made in important technologies: In 1750, Britain imported 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton, most of which
6912-492: The Indian industry. Bar iron was the commodity form of iron used as the raw material for making hardware goods such as nails, wire, hinges, horseshoes, wagon tires, chains, etc., as well as structural shapes. A small amount of bar iron was converted into steel. Cast iron was used for pots, stoves, and other items where its brittleness was tolerable. Most cast iron was refined and converted to bar iron, with substantial losses. Bar iron
7056-425: The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830. Rapid adoption of mechanized textiles spinning occurred in Britain in the 1780s, and high rates of growth in steam power and iron production occurred after 1800. Mechanised textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and
7200-553: The Miners campaign of 1984–85, the organisation's Welsh chapters participated in London's 1985 Lesbian and Gay Pride parade, and at the Labour Party 's 1985 policy conference, the NUM's unanimous block voting support contributed to the successful passage of Composite 26, a resolution which formally committed the party to an LGBT rights platform. Long based in London, Scargill commissioned
7344-473: The National Union of Mineworkers. Within the organisation, each coalfield continued to exercise a degree of autonomy, having its own district association, president, general secretary, and headquarters. Originally, a national strike required a two-thirds majority in a ballot of members, however, this proved near impossible to achieve, and the majority was reduced to 55% in 1970, and to 50% in 1984. Regions of
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#17330863264607488-572: The Scottish inventor James Beaumont Neilson in 1828, was the most important development of the 19th century for saving energy in making pig iron. By using preheated combustion air, the amount of fuel to make a unit of pig iron was reduced at first by between one-third using coke or two-thirds using coal; the efficiency gains continued as the technology improved. Hot blast also raised the operating temperature of furnaces, increasing their capacity. Using less coal or coke meant introducing fewer impurities into
7632-495: The Second World War, after the Soviet Union was invaded by Germany in 1941 the union overnight became intense supporters of the war effort, and maximum output of coal. The rank and file miners, however, were primarily interested in regaining lost income, and began slow-downs to force the company to pay higher wages. When wages did go up, output fell as absenteeism increased and the younger men left for better-paying factory jobs, and
7776-619: The United States in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in Belgium and the United States and later textiles in France. An economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s when the adoption of the Industrial Revolution's early innovations, such as mechanised spinning and weaving, slowed as their markets matured; and despite the increasing adoption of locomotives, steamboats and steamships, and hot blast iron smelting . New technologies such as
7920-467: The Working Class in England in 1844 spoke of "an industrial revolution, a revolution which at the same time changed the whole of civil society". Although Engels wrote his book in the 1840s, it was not translated into English until the late 19th century, and his expression did not enter everyday language until then. Credit for popularising the term may be given to Arnold Toynbee , whose 1881 lectures gave
8064-594: The Yorkshire pits which supplied Sheffield were only about 300 feet deep. Northumberland and Durham were the leading coal producers and they were the sites of the first deep pits. In much of Britain coal was worked from drift mines , or scraped off when it outcropped on the surface. Small groups of part-time miners used shovels and primitive equipment. After 1790 output soared, reaching 16 million long tons by 1815. By 1830 this had risen to over 30 million tons The miners, less menaced by imported labor or machines than were
8208-509: The aftermath of pit closures. In popular culture this is reflected in Billy Elliot the Musical , a hit play based on the 2000 film Billy Elliot. British Coal (the new name for the national Coal Board), was privatised by selling off a large number of pits to private concerns through the mid-1990s. Because of exhausted seams and high prices the mining industry disappeared almost completely, despite
8352-490: The authority of the company police, who had often served as special, unpaid town police officers. The town councils also intervened in the strife of the 1920s, assisting the miners against the British Empire Steel Corporation's wage-cutting. The Amalgamated became Communist-led in the 1930s and promoted militancy, extreme rank-and-file democracy and radical resistance to company demands for wage cuts. During
8496-608: The availability of lower cost, often open-cast, coal mined in Australia, Colombia, Poland and the United States. The NCB saw three major national strikes. The 1972 and 1974 strikes were both over pay and both saw success for the National Union of Mineworkers . The miners' strike of 1984–1985 ended in victory for the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher and is still bitterly resented in some parts of Britain that suffered from
8640-418: The average mine's output had risen to 280,000 and the employment to about 1,400. The miners in the German areas were divided by ethnicity (with Germans and Poles), by religion (Protestants and Catholics) and by politics (Socialist, liberal and Communist). Mobility in and out of the mining camps to nearby industrial areas was high. The miners split into several unions, with an affiliation to a political party. As
8784-529: The catholic trade union leader Frans Dohmen . In 1974 the last coal mine was closed, which led to large unemployment in the region. French miners were slow to organize themselves. When they did organize, they avoided strikes if possible. They placed their faith in the national government to improve their lot through special legislation, and were careful to be moderate. Miner organizations were torn by internal difficulties, but they were all hostile to using strikes. The 1830s saw strikes, but they were not sponsored by
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#17330863264608928-471: The coal do not migrate into the metal. This technology was applied to lead from 1678 and to copper from 1687. It was also applied to iron foundry work in the 1690s, but in this case the reverberatory furnace was known as an air furnace. (The foundry cupola is a different, and later, innovation.) Coke pig iron was hardly used to produce wrought iron until 1755–56, when Darby's son Abraham Darby II built furnaces at Horsehay and Ketley where low sulfur coal
9072-505: The coal miners were "independent, tough, and proud" and became "among the most radical and militant laborers in an extremely polarized province." They were the core of the socialist movement; their strikes were frequent, long, and bitter. In Chile in the 1930s and 1940s, the miners supported the Communist Party as part of a cross-class alliance that won the presidency in 1938, 1942, and 1946. The long-run political gains were illusory, as
9216-409: The coke pig iron he made was not suitable for making wrought iron and was used mostly for the production of cast iron goods, such as pots and kettles. He had the advantage over his rivals in that his pots, cast by his patented process, were thinner and cheaper than theirs. In 1750, coke had generally replaced charcoal in the smelting of copper and lead and was in widespread use in glass production. In
9360-461: The column of materials (iron ore, fuel, slag) flowing down the blast furnace more porous and did not crush in the much taller furnaces of the late 19th century. As cast iron became cheaper and widely available, it began being a structural material for bridges and buildings. A famous early example is the Iron Bridge built in 1778 with cast iron produced by Abraham Darby III. However, most cast iron
9504-424: The company in advance of weekly cash paychecks, and gives credit to employees before payday. Fishback finds that: The company store is one of the most reviled and misunderstood of economic institutions. In song, folktale, and union rhetoric the company store was often cast as a villain, a collector of souls through perpetual debt peonage. Nicknames, like the "pluck me" and more obscene versions that cannot appear in
9648-561: The core of the political left wing of the Labour Party and the British Communist party . In Germany, the coal miners demonstrated their militancy through large-scale strikes in 1889, 1905, and 1912. However, in political terms, the German miners were middle-of-the-road and not especially radical. One reason was the formation of different unions—Socialist, liberal, radical, and Polish—that seldom cooperated. In British Columbia, Canada,
9792-491: The cost of cotton cloth, by the mid-19th century machine-woven cloth still could not equal the quality of hand-woven Indian cloth, in part because of the fineness of thread made possible by the type of cotton used in India, which allowed high thread counts. However, the high productivity of British textile manufacturing allowed coarser grades of British cloth to undersell hand-spun and woven fabric in low-wage India, eventually destroying
9936-487: The cotton textile industry in Britain was 2.6% in 1760, 17% in 1801, and 22.4% in 1831. Value added by the British woollen industry was 14.1% in 1801. Cotton factories in Britain numbered approximately 900 in 1797. In 1760, approximately one-third of cotton cloth manufactured in Britain was exported, rising to two-thirds by 1800. In 1781, cotton spun amounted to 5.1 million pounds, which increased to 56 million pounds by 1800. In 1800, less than 0.1% of world cotton cloth
10080-427: The country. Steam engines made the use of higher-pressure and volume blast practical; however, the leather used in bellows was expensive to replace. In 1757, ironmaster John Wilkinson patented a hydraulic powered blowing engine for blast furnaces. The blowing cylinder for blast furnaces was introduced in 1760 and the first blowing cylinder made of cast iron is believed to be the one used at Carrington in 1768 that
10224-629: The economic and social changes occurred gradually and that the term revolution is a misnomer. This is still a subject of debate among some historians. Six factors facilitated industrialisation: high levels of agricultural productivity, such as that reflected in the British Agricultural Revolution , to provide excess manpower and food; a pool of managerial and entrepreneurial skills; available ports, rivers, canals, and roads to cheaply move raw materials and outputs; natural resources such as coal, iron, and waterfalls; political stability and
10368-666: The entry for "Industry": "The idea of a new social order based on major industrial change was clear in Southey and Owen , between 1811 and 1818, and was implicit as early as Blake in the early 1790s and Wordsworth at the turn of the [19th] century." The term Industrial Revolution applied to technological change was becoming more common by the late 1830s, as in Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui 's description in 1837 of la révolution industrielle . Friedrich Engels in The Condition of
10512-460: The expiration of the Arkwright patent would greatly increase the supply of spun cotton and lead to a shortage of weavers, Edmund Cartwright developed a vertical power loom which he patented in 1785. In 1776, he patented a two-man operated loom. Cartwright's loom design had several flaws, the most serious being thread breakage. Samuel Horrocks patented a fairly successful loom in 1813. Horock's loom
10656-570: The federation represented and co-ordinated the affairs of the existing local and regional miners' unions whose associations remained largely autonomous. The South Wales Miners' Federation , founded in 1898, joined the MFGB in 1899, while the Northumberland Miners' Association and the Durham Miners' Association joined in 1907 and 1908, respectively. In January 1945, the MFGB was superseded by
10800-519: The first highly mechanised factory was John Lombe 's water-powered silk mill at Derby , operational by 1721. Lombe learned silk thread manufacturing by taking a job in Italy and acting as an industrial spy; however, because the Italian silk industry guarded its secrets closely, the state of the industry at that time is unknown. Although Lombe's factory was technically successful, the supply of raw silk from Italy
10944-400: The first successful cylinder for a Boulton and Watt steam engine in 1776, he was given an exclusive contract for providing cylinders. After Watt developed a rotary steam engine in 1782, they were widely applied to blowing, hammering, rolling and slitting. The solutions to the sulfur problem were the addition of sufficient limestone to the furnace to force sulfur into the slag as well as
11088-456: The food dollar and show inventiveness in clothing their families. Mining has always been dangerous, because of methane gas explosions, roof cave-ins, and the difficulty of mines rescue. The worst single disaster in British coal mining history was at Senghenydd in the South Wales coalfield . On the morning of 14 October 1913 an explosion and subsequent fire killed 436 men and boys. It followed
11232-501: The highest prestige and the best jobs, followed by the Irish. At a lower status stood recent immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe; recent arrivals from the Appalachian hills were lower status. The ethnic groups would stick together, seldom mingling. Blacks were sometimes brought in as strike breakers. There was little machinery apart from the railroad. Before mechanization began about 1910
11376-517: The iron industries during the Industrial Revolution was the replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with coal ; for a given amount of heat, mining coal required much less labour than cutting wood and converting it to charcoal , and coal was much more abundant than wood, supplies of which were becoming scarce before the enormous increase in iron production that took place in the late 18th century. In 1709, Abraham Darby made progress using coke to fuel his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale . However,
11520-401: The labor unions; rather they were spontaneous complaints against the unity of the owners. Zeldin says, "The miners were clearly backward looking, yearning nostalgically for the days of the small un-mechanized mines, run not by distant engineers but by gang leaders chosen of the men themselves." It was a failed strike in 1869 that undermined one new union. Union leadership insisted the best policy
11664-452: The large-scale manufacture of machine tools, and the use of increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories. The earliest recorded use of the term "Industrial Revolution" was in July 1799 by French envoy Louis-Guillaume Otto , announcing that France had entered the race to industrialise. In his 1976 book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society , Raymond Williams states in
11808-507: The larger coal towns to employ women. Religion was in high regard, as each group was fiercely loyal to its denomination. Schooling was limited. The aspiration of the boys was to get a job helping around the mines until they were old enough to work underground as "real" miners. Segundo, Colorado was a company town where the CF&;I coal company housed its workers. It offered adequate housing and promoted upward mobility through its sponsorship of
11952-597: The late Tudor period in North East England , and roughly the same time in the Stuart period along the Firth of Forth coast of Scotland, deep shaft mining in Britain began to develop extensively in the late 18th century, with rapid expansion throughout the 19th century and early 20th century when the industry peaked. The location of the coalfields helped to make the prosperity of Lancashire , of Yorkshire , and of South Wales ;
12096-695: The major causes of the Industrial Revolution. Developments in law also facilitated the revolution, such as courts ruling in favour of property rights . An entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution helped drive industrialisation in Britain, which after 1800, was emulated in Belgium, the United States, and France. The Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in history, comparable only to humanity's adoption of agriculture with respect to material advancement. The Industrial Revolution influenced in some way almost every aspect of daily life. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists have said
12240-467: The mass of hot wrought iron. Rolling was 15 times faster at this than a trip hammer . A different use of rolling, which was done at lower temperatures than that for expelling slag, was in the production of iron sheets, and later structural shapes such as beams, angles, and rails. The puddling process was improved in 1818 by Baldwyn Rogers, who replaced some of the sand lining on the reverberatory furnace bottom with iron oxide . In 1838 John Hall patented
12384-636: The mid-18th century, Britain was the world's leading commercial nation, controlling a global trading empire with colonies in North America and the Caribbean. Britain had major military and political hegemony on the Indian subcontinent ; particularly with the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal , through the activities of the East India Company . The development of trade and the rise of business were among
12528-439: The middle of the 1820s, and especially after 1830. The availability of cheap coal was a main factor that attracted entrepreneurs. Numerous works comprising coke blast furnaces as well as puddling and rolling mills were built in the coal mining areas around Liège and Charleroi . The leading entrepreneur was a transplanted Englishman John Cockerill . His factories at Seraing integrated all stages of production, from engineering to
12672-622: The militant protests of some miners. In 2008, the South Wales Valleys last deep pit mine closed with the loss of 120 jobs. The coal was exhausted. British coal mines employed only 4,000 workers at 30 locations in 2013, extracting 13 million tonnes of coal. Belgium took the lead in the industrial revolution on the continent, and began large scale coal mining operations by the 1820s using British made methods. Industrialisation took place in Wallonia (French speaking southern Belgium), starting in
12816-400: The miners relied on brute force, pick-axe, hand drills and dynamite to smash lumps of coal out of the wall, and shovel them into mule-drawn carts that hauled it to the weighing station, and the railroad cars. The culture held physical courage in high regard. Boxing was the favored sport. Opportunities for women were limited, until textile companies after 1900 started opening small factories in
12960-474: The mines gave miners significant control over underground operations. In addition, the cooperative nature of the work enabled the miners to forge close friendships. By contrast in another coalfield, where miners were largely unskilled, owners could replace men easily and undermine the unions. Women played an important, though quiet, role in support of the union movement in coal towns in Nova Scotia, Canada during
13104-401: The modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies. Economic historians agree that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in human history since the domestication of animals and plants. The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is
13248-454: The most important effect of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population in the Western world began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to improve meaningfully until the late 19th and 20th centuries. GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of
13392-587: The number of cotton goods consumed in Western Europe was minor until the early 19th century. By 1600, Flemish refugees began weaving cotton cloth in English towns where cottage spinning and weaving of wool and linen was well established. They were left alone by the guilds who did not consider cotton a threat. Earlier European attempts at cotton spinning and weaving were in 12th-century Italy and 15th-century southern Germany, but these industries eventually ended when
13536-476: The pace of economic and social changes . According to Cambridge historian Leigh Shaw-Taylor, Britain was already industrialising in the 17th century, and "Our database shows that a groundswell of enterprise and productivity transformed the economy in the 17th century, laying the foundations for the world's first industrial economy. Britain was already a nation of makers by the year 1700" and "the history of Britain needs to be rewritten". Eric Hobsbawm held that
13680-430: The picket lines as reluctant " scabs ". The strike ended on 3 March 1985 and the miners returned to work without agreement with the NCB. The strike was unsuccessful and its failure was an era-defining moment in British politics. Following the strike large numbers of collieries were closed. The strike's effectiveness was reduced because the NUM leaders refused to nationally ballot members on strike action and argued that it
13824-528: The pig iron. This meant that lower quality coal could be used in areas where coking coal was unavailable or too expensive; however, by the end of the 19th century transportation costs fell considerably. National Union of Mineworkers (Great Britain) The National Union of Mineworkers ( NUM ) is a trade union for coal miners in Great Britain, formed in 1945 from the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The NUM took part in three national miners' strikes, in 1972 , 1974 and 1984–85 . Following
13968-444: The problems of the mining industry. This decision became known as "Red Friday" because it was seen as a victory for working-class solidarity and Socialism. In practice, the subsidy gave the mine owners and the government time to prepare for a major labor dispute. Herbert Smith (a leader of the Miners' Federation) said of this event: "We have no need to glorify about victory. It is only an armistice." The Samuel Commission published
14112-472: The programme. Unofficial strikes were common in the coal industry. Following an unofficial strike in 1969 about the pay of surface workers, it was decided that the threshold for the ballot should be lowered. The NUM opposed membership of the European Economic Community , beginning with a unanimous conference vote in 1971. During the 1975 referendum, there was a debate within the NUM over
14256-579: The public called for ever stronger government action. Final agreement came after five weeks with the miners getting a 14% raise, far less than they wanted. The UMW was weakened by internal factionalism in the 1920s and lost members. Oil was replacing coal as the nation's main energy source and the industry was threatened. The number of coal miners nationwide fell from a peak of 694,000 in 1919 to 602,000 in 1929, and fell sharply to 454,000 in 1939 and 170,000 in 1959. Between 1917 and 1926 Cape Breton coal towns changed from company towns to labor towns, reflecting
14400-421: The radical card, saying Lenin and Trotsky had ordered the strike and were financing it, and some of the press echoed that language. Lewis, facing criminal charges and sensitive to the propaganda campaign, withdrew his strike call. Lewis did not fully control the faction-ridden UAW and many locals ignored his call. As the strike dragged on into its third week, supplies of the nation's main fuel were running low and
14544-444: The remaining men resisted any speedup. The union leaders were unable to control a dissatisfied and militant work force, as the miners fought both the company and their own union leaders. The political unity and radicalism of coal miners has traditionally been explained in terms of the isolation of a homogeneous mass of workers in conditions of economic and cultural deprivation. However local studies in Nova Scotia show that mechanizing
14688-408: The rest. In some areas, the NUM was militant and threatened strikes in 1981 when the government raised the issue. As the government was not ready for a confrontation, it negotiated a settlement with the union, and backed down from the closures. In what the NUM considered a confrontational move, Ian MacGregor , who had overseen cutbacks and closures at British Steel Corporation , was appointed head of
14832-437: The rise of the mechanised factory system . Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth . The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested. Many of the technological and architectural innovations were of British origin. By
14976-546: The size of the industry by closing geographically impaired or low productivity pits. Closures were originally concentrated in Scotland , but then moved into North East England , Lancashire , and South Wales in the 1970s. Closures in all coalfields began in the 1980s as demand for British coal was weakened by large subsidies that other European governments gave to their coal industries ( West Germany subsidised coal by four times as much and France by three times as much in 1984) and
15120-418: The slag from almost 50% to around 8%. Puddling became widely used after 1800. Up to that time, British iron manufacturers had used considerable amounts of iron imported from Sweden and Russia to supplement domestic supplies. Because of the increased British production, imports began to decline in 1785, and by the 1790s Britain eliminated imports and became a net exporter of bar iron. Hot blast , patented by
15264-457: The smelting and refining of iron, coal and coke produced inferior iron to that made with charcoal because of the coal's sulfur content. Low sulfur coals were known, but they still contained harmful amounts. Conversion of coal to coke only slightly reduces the sulfur content. A minority of coals are coking. Another factor limiting the iron industry before the Industrial Revolution was the scarcity of water power to power blast bellows. This limitation
15408-405: The sponsorship giving to Labour MPs in coalfields, given how many of them were campaigning in favour of membership and defying the NUM policy. The Yorkshire Area passed a resolution that tightened the conditions for sponsorship of MPs. In the 1980s, because many coal mines were overwhelmingly unprofitable, the Conservative government headed by Margaret Thatcher sought to close them and privatise
15552-567: The strike was not universal; in some areas such as North Wales , support was small but great in others such as South Wales . Also, Yorkshire was more enthusiastic about the strike than Nottinghamshire where many miners refused to strike. Margaret Thatcher described the strikers as the "enemy within", but Scargill was equally confrontational. Picket lines were stationed outside the pits and other industrial sites requiring coal and violent clashes with police were common. Strikers had no source of income and some were forced by circumstances to cross
15696-524: The supply of cotton was cut off. The Moors in Spain grew, spun, and wove cotton beginning around the 10th century. British cloth could not compete with Indian cloth because India's labour cost was approximately one-fifth to one-sixth that of Britain's. In 1700 and 1721, the British government passed Calico Acts to protect the domestic woollen and linen industries from the increasing amounts of cotton fabric imported from India. The demand for heavier fabric
15840-408: The supply of raw materials, as early as 1825. By 1830 when iron became important the Belgium coal industry had long been established, and used steam-engines for pumping. Coal was sold to local mills and railways as well as to France and Prussia. The first important German mines appeared in the 1750s, in the valleys of the rivers Ruhr, Inde and Wurm where coal seams outcropped and horizontal adit mining
15984-401: The terms: "Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day." The TUC responded to this news by promising to support the miners in their dispute. The Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin decided to intervene, declaring that they would provide a nine-month subsidy to maintain the miners' wages and that a royal commission under the chairmanship of Sir Herbert Samuel would look into
16128-455: The textile workers, had begun to form trade unions and fight their battle for control against the coal owners and royalty-lessees. In South Wales, the miners showed a high degree of solidarity. They lived in isolated villages where the miners comprised the great majority of workers. There was a high degree of equality in lifestyle; combined with an evangelical religious style based on Methodism this led to an ideology of equalitarianism. They forged
16272-471: The troubled 1920s and 1930s. They never worked for the mines but provided psychological support especially during strikes when the pay packets did not arrive. They were the family financiers and encouraged other wives who otherwise might have coaxed their menfolk to accept company terms. Women's labor leagues organized a variety of social, educational, and fund-raising functions. Women also violently confronted " scabs , policemen, and soldiers. They had to stretch
16416-429: The union could call their own strikes. Different areas varied as to how militant they were, and it was not uncommon for animosity to exist between areas. On formation, the NUM had the following areas: The NUM was strongly supportive of the Labour Party. During the first government of Harold Wilson , hundreds of pits closed and thousands of miners left the coal industry but the NUM leadership put up little resistance to
16560-573: The union had 1,855 members. In 2012 the union's general secretary, Chris Kitchen , admitted it was in decline after the investigative website Exaro revealed that in 2011 the Derbyshire branch had just one member who was not a paid official. Filings with the Trades Union Certification Officer showed that the NUM's Derbyshire branch had just four members, three of whom were paid officials. In 2012, it emerged in court cases between
16704-670: The union, as miners of all different nationalities walked out in support of the union. In the Coal Strike of 1902 the UMW targeted the anthracite coal fields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners were on strike asking for higher wages, shorter workdays and the recognition of their union. The strike threatened to shut down the winter fuel supply to all major cities (homes and apartments were heated with anthracite or "hard" coal because it had higher heat value and less smoke than "soft" or bituminous coal). President Theodore Roosevelt became involved and set up
16848-415: The use of low sulfur coal. The use of lime or limestone required higher furnace temperatures to form a free-flowing slag. The increased furnace temperature made possible by improved blowing also increased the capacity of blast furnaces and allowed for increased furnace height. In addition to lower cost and greater availability, coke had other important advantages over charcoal in that it was harder and made
16992-406: The use of roasted tap cinder ( iron silicate ) for the furnace bottom, greatly reducing the loss of iron through increased slag caused by a sand lined bottom. The tap cinder also tied up some phosphorus, but this was not understood at the time. Hall's process also used iron scale or rust which reacted with carbon in the molten iron. Hall's process, called wet puddling , reduced losses of iron with
17136-410: The water frame used a series of four pairs of rollers, each operating at a successively higher rotating speed, to draw out the fibre which was then twisted by the spindle. The roller spacing was slightly longer than the fibre length. Too close a spacing caused the fibres to break while too distant a spacing caused uneven thread. The top rollers were leather-covered and loading on the rollers was applied by
17280-448: The west. Until 1800 mineworkers were organised in small companies who exploited a seam. In the twentieth century the mining companies grew big. The Roman Catholic church actively engaged through Henricus Andreas Poels in the creation of a Roman Catholic miners trade union, to prevent the growing influence of socialism. Starting in 1965 coal mines were dismantled, initiated by social democrat minister Joop den Uyl and with active support of
17424-457: Was 7,800 tons and coke cast iron was 250,000 tons. In 1750, the UK imported 31,200 tons of bar iron and either refined from cast iron or directly produced 18,800 tons of bar iron using charcoal and 100 tons using coke. In 1796, the UK was making 125,000 tons of bar iron with coke and 6,400 tons with charcoal; imports were 38,000 tons and exports were 24,600 tons. In 1806 the UK did not import bar iron but exported 31,500 tons. A major change in
17568-407: Was a means of decarburizing molten pig iron by slow oxidation in a reverberatory furnace by manually stirring it with a long rod. The decarburized iron, having a higher melting point than cast iron, was raked into globs by the puddler. When the glob was large enough, the puddler would remove it. Puddling was backbreaking and extremely hot work. Few puddlers lived to be 40. Because puddling was done in
17712-466: Was an issue for each area to decide. In some areas that held ballots the majority voted against striking but were subject to picketing from areas that had declared a strike. The strike was deemed illegal by the courts on the basis that the NUM rulebook required a secret ballot for a national strike. Although working miners had instigated the legal action, the NUM leadership presented it as an attack on its right to conduct its own internal affairs. The lack of
17856-600: Was available (and not far from Coalbrookdale). These furnaces were equipped with water-powered bellows, the water being pumped by Newcomen steam engines . The Newcomen engines were not attached directly to the blowing cylinders because the engines alone could not produce a steady air blast. Abraham Darby III installed similar steam-pumped, water-powered blowing cylinders at the Dale Company when he took control in 1768. The Dale Company used several Newcomen engines to drain its mines and made parts for engines which it sold throughout
18000-496: Was company owned and sold a limited range of food, clothing and daily necessities to employees of a company. It is typical of a company town in a remote area where virtually everyone is employed by one firm, such as the coal mine. In a company town, the housing is owned by the company but there may be independent stores there or nearby. Company stores face little or no competition and prices are therefore not competitive. The store typically accepts "scrip" or non-cash vouchers issued by
18144-414: Was converted to wrought iron. Conversion of cast iron had long been done in a finery forge . An improved refining process known as potting and stamping was developed, but this was superseded by Henry Cort 's puddling process. Cort developed two significant iron manufacturing processes: rolling in 1783 and puddling in 1784. Puddling produced a structural grade iron at a relatively low cost. Puddling
18288-552: Was cut off to eliminate competition. In order to promote manufacturing, the Crown paid for models of Lombe's machinery which were exhibited in the Tower of London . Parts of India, China, Central America, South America, and the Middle East have a long history of hand manufacturing cotton textiles, which became a major industry sometime after 1000 AD. In tropical and subtropical regions where it
18432-403: Was designed by John Smeaton . Cast iron cylinders for use with a piston were difficult to manufacture; the cylinders had to be free of holes and had to be machined smooth and straight to remove any warping. James Watt had great difficulty trying to have a cylinder made for his first steam engine. In 1774 Wilkinson invented a precision boring machine for boring cylinders. After Wilkinson bored
18576-532: Was followed by a period of colonialism beginning around the 16th century. Following the discovery of a trade route to India around southern Africa by the Portuguese, the British founded the East India Company , along with smaller companies of different nationalities which established trading posts and employed agents to engage in trade throughout the Indian Ocean region. One of the largest segments of this trade
18720-569: Was grown, most was grown by small farmers alongside their food crops and was spun and woven in households, largely for domestic consumption. In the 15th century, China began to require households to pay part of their taxes in cotton cloth. By the 17th century, almost all Chinese wore cotton clothing. Almost everywhere cotton cloth could be used as a medium of exchange . In India, a significant amount of cotton textiles were manufactured for distant markets, often produced by professional weavers. Some merchants also owned small weaving workshops. India produced
18864-469: Was improved by Richard Roberts in 1822, and these were produced in large numbers by Roberts, Hill & Co. Roberts was additionally a maker of high-quality machine tools and a pioneer in the use of jigs and gauges for precision workshop measurement. The demand for cotton presented an opportunity to planters in the Southern United States, who thought upland cotton would be a profitable crop if
19008-632: Was in cotton textiles, which were purchased in India and sold in Southeast Asia , including the Indonesian archipelago where spices were purchased for sale to Southeast Asia and Europe. By the mid-1760s, cloth was over three-quarters of the East India Company's exports. Indian textiles were in demand in the North Atlantic region of Europe where previously only wool and linen were available; however,
19152-400: Was later used in the first cotton spinning mill . In 1764, in the village of Stanhill, Lancashire, James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny , which he patented in 1770. It was the first practical spinning frame with multiple spindles. The jenny worked in a similar manner to the spinning wheel, by first clamping down on the fibres, then by drawing them out, followed by twisting. It was
19296-468: Was little impact on trade-union activity or industrial relations. The miners maintained resistance for a few months before being forced by their own economic needs to return to the mines. By the end of November most miners were back at work. However, many remained unemployed for many years. Those that were employed were forced to accept longer hours, lower wages, and district wage agreements. The strikers felt as though they had achieved nothing. The effect on
19440-437: Was made by the bloomery process, which was the predominant iron smelting process until the late 18th century. In the UK in 1720, there were 20,500 tons of cast iron produced with charcoal and 400 tons with coke. In 1750 charcoal iron production was 24,500 and coke iron was 2,500 tons. In 1788, the production of charcoal cast iron was 14,000 tons while coke iron production was 54,000 tons. In 1806, charcoal cast iron production
19584-419: Was met by a domestic industry based around Lancashire that produced fustian , a cloth with flax warp and cotton weft . Flax was used for the warp because wheel-spun cotton did not have sufficient strength, but the resulting blend was not as soft as 100% cotton and was more difficult to sew. On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, spinning and weaving were done in households, for domestic consumption, and as
19728-413: Was overcome by the steam engine. Use of coal in iron smelting started somewhat before the Industrial Revolution, based on innovations by Clement Clerke and others from 1678, using coal reverberatory furnaces known as cupolas. These were operated by the flames playing on the ore and charcoal or coke mixture, reducing the oxide to metal. This has the advantage that impurities (such as sulphur ash) in
19872-530: Was passed by members. It worked with the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers to challenge the closures in the High Court ; the court imposed an emergency injunction against the closures and the strike action was called off. However, from mid-1993, the mines started closing; the number of working miners and therefore also the membership of the union continued to fall. In 2011
20016-547: Was possible. After 1815 entrepreneurs in Belgium launched the Industrial Revolution on the Continent by opening mines and associated iron smelters. In Germany (Prussia), the Ruhr Area coalfields opened in the 1830s. Railroads were built around 1850 and numerous small industrial centres sprang up, focused on ironworks , using local coal. The average output of a mine in 1850 was about 8,500 short tons; its employment about 64. By 1900,
20160-425: Was produced on machinery invented in Britain. In 1788, there were 50,000 spindles in Britain, rising to 7 million over the next 30 years. The earliest European attempts at mechanised spinning were with wool; however, wool spinning proved more difficult to mechanise than cotton. Productivity improvement in wool spinning during the Industrial Revolution was significant but far less than that of cotton. Arguably
20304-674: Was spun and woven by the cottage industry in Lancashire . The work was done by hand in workers' homes or occasionally in master weavers' shops. Wages in Lancashire were about six times those in India in 1770 when overall productivity in Britain was about three times higher than in India. In 1787, raw cotton consumption was 22 million pounds, most of which was cleaned, carded, and spun on machines. The British textile industry used 52 million pounds of cotton in 1800, which increased to 588 million pounds in 1850. The share of value added by
20448-582: Was surpassed only by the Benxihu Colliery accident in China on April 26, 1942, which killed 1,549 miners. Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution , sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution , was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded
20592-455: Was to seek gradual improvements through lobbying for national legislation. By 1897 there were numerous very small independent mining unions, that together comprised only a small fraction of the miners. When new mines opened up in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais, leadership passed to their unions, which also pursued a moderate policy. Miners in remote coal camps were often dependent upon the company store ,
20736-586: Was typically mined in remote areas, often mountainous. The miners lived in crude housing provided at low cost by the companies, and shopped in company stores. There were few amenities, and few alternative industries besides the railroads and saloons. The anthracite mines of Pennsylvania were owned by large railroads, and managed by bureaucrats. Scranton was at the center. Bituminous mines were locally owned. The social system revolved not so much on occupation (nearly all inhabitants were blue collar workers with similar incomes) but on ethnicity. Welsh and English miners had
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