Thematic Reflection Paper: Industrial Revolution and Consequences

This essay delves into the profound impact of the Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) on various industries and societal structures, with a particular focus on cotton, coal, steam, tea, silver, and opium. It examines the shift from traditional agricultural practices to factory-based production, driven by technological advancements and the increased use of coal and steam power. The essay highlights the transformation of the Indian textile industry, the rise of the British Empire's opium trade, and the social consequences of urbanization and changing lifestyles. Ultimately, it concludes that the Industrial Revolution significantly reshaped the global economy and established Britain as a dominant economic power, while also acknowledging the exploitation and social changes that accompanied this period of rapid industrial growth. The document is contributed by a student and available on Desklib, a platform offering study tools and resources for students.

WORLD HISTORY

ESSAY: 1
Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Industrial revolution..............................................................................................................................3
Impact on cotton, steam and coal industry.............................................................................................3
Impact on silver, tea and opium.............................................................................................................5
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

ESSAY: 2
Introduction
The report brings out the discussion on the impact of Industrial Revolution on the Textile
industry of India, Coal, Iron, Steam, Tea, Silver, Opium, and steam. Industrial revolution was
mainly based on the evaluation and engagement of technology in the operations. This
revolution helped to introduce new technology in coal and steam industry so that it can result
to more production of goods. The revolution established many industries along with the
changing lifestyle of the people that diverted lifestyle to the urbanisation. The transportation
system of the Britain was improved largely as the system demanded to manage the supply of
goods and raw materials.
Industrial revolution
The industrial revolution was an economic and cultural shift for cottage, traditional
agricultural and labour-based industry or the factory-based industry, which include complex
equipment, usage of energy sources, and development in transport system. By the time from
1750, the industrial revolution focused on the urban factories rather than rural area that can
contribute to continuous technological growth. It was a revolution to promote the mechanical
growth by eradicating the human power. The change or the transition removed hand
production systems to machines, iron production processes, and chemical manufacturing
(Allen, 2015). The revolution started in Britain where a series of mechanical inventions were
introduced to increase the production of manufactured goods. Entrepreneurs started using
more complex and expensive machineries, which can perform the tasks in a speedy and more
efficiently manner as compared to labour output (Clark, Rourke, & Taylor, 2014).
Impact on cotton, steam and coal industry
Industries who have started opting advance machines are powered and operated by steam and
coal. These machines turned massive amount of goods. Small-scale industries turned into
large establishments by employing large number of employees and labour force. This

ESSAY: 3
revolution marked as turning point of the history. The average income and the population
began to demonstrate extraordinary sustainable growth. Economists have noticed that
industrial revolution affected the standard of living of public. Industrial revolution was the
beginning of modern capitalist economy with high per-capita growth in capital economy
(Wilde, 2018).
Textile industry was the dominant industry during this phase in relation to employment;
capital invested, and output valuation. This industry was the first to employ modern
production methods. Before industrial revolution, India was internationally admired hub of
cotton industry and it was exported to different parts of the world including Middle East,
America and Europe. Indian textile industry boomed because of availability of easy access to
cheap labour with high quality goods. After the interruption of industrial revolution, textile
imports in Britain were restricted by the severe tariffs (Kim, & Brookshire, 2016).
The country had iron ore, coal, and raw material. Whereas other materials such as cotton
arrived from overseas colonies. The textile industry of Britain involved several fabrics before
the revolution, the dominating one was wool. Cotton was the most versatile fabric. Moreover,
the importance of cotton rose drastically that led historians to argue that development
encouraged by the flourishing industry such as trade, technology popped up the whole
revolution. The industrial revolution would not have happened without coal and iron. The
effect of cotton industry on America, the imports had become cheaper and of high quality
(Mokyr, Vickers, & Ziebarth, 2015).
The situation and enabling factor of Britain`s expansion of cotton industries had a faster
growth in the US as the plantation numbers of cotton soared. As Britain started to run and
produce iron. In the beginning, the country stated to engage more and more coal that was
needed to fuel furnaces and steam engines. The developing industries increased the demand

ESSAY: 4
for coal to improve the steam engine (Moritake, 2018). Steam and coal obviously had impact
in generating demand because to operate the steam engines, it needed coals. New equipment
were introduced during revolution that needed more and more power to operate. Until 18th
century, England generates more of its energy from waterwheels that are run by the water
flows.
At the initial stage, iron makers strived to figure out the way to extract pure iron from the iron
ore. Industries use coke that are purer than coal to melt the ore. As an outcome, the
production of iron increased during the starting of 19th century, which was needed to produce
the goods that people needs such as machine frames, rails, and water pipes. The coalmines of
England developed and emerged during industrial revolution. Miners dug deeper in the earth
to figure out that much coal was needed to run the steam engines. England become and
emerged as the world`s largest producing country. The technology helped to produce
improved coal and the ability to increase as coal experienced a considerable escalation. From
1700 to 1750, production increased by half volume and by the end of 1800, it was around 100
percent increase in production (Sharma, Sharma, Mullick, & Kandpal, 2017).
Impact on silver, tea and opium
A major impact was the change in the lifestyle of the people who lived in a drastic way.
Urbanisation enforced the youth to shift to urban areas in search of employment. Same as the
industrial revolution led to increase in Britain’s population because people has good housing
and medical care services in the city. Due to increasing population explosion in the urban
areas, the demand of coal had increased (Budetti, 2018).
The growth of opium trade was favourable for India, which allows EIC to exploit the
resources to derive an economic gain. The rise in Indian exports marked as a change in the
colonial-economic attitude of Britain especially in Textile exports. Britain forces to India to
provide them with raw materials such as cotton. During 19th century, British became a nation

ESSAY: 5
of tea drinkers resulting into increase in demand (Trueman, 2015). The East India Company
was allotted with the monopoly and privileges for the Trade in 1830s, the free trade already
had started between the countries. The demand of tea increased the expenses of exporting the
goods also increased. England was facing the short of flow of silver for the industrial
revolution, they asked for more silver even for American Independence. To solve the
problem, east India Company had a great idea of exporting woollen fabric to India which
exported opium from India to china that is called ‘Triangle trade’ (Dong, Xu, Yang, Fang, Li,
& Kang, 2015).
Conclusion
From the above abstract, it can be concluded that Britain was earning a large proportion of
profit from the investments in tea. Due to increasing demand preferences of tea in the
Britain`s global trade systems. The tea trade of Indian manufacturing had positively affected
the British Colonial enterprise. Apart from the tea, industrial revolution had a great and
immense influence on the textile industry. The cotton textile industry of India was influenced
by the revolution. It resulted to turn the Britain into the world`s strong economy. Moreover,
the revolution had smoothened the way of operating the industries by availing new
technology.

ESSAY: 6
References
Allen, R. C. (2015). The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: a restatement. The
Economic History Review, 68(1), 1-22.
Budetti, D. W. (2018). From Silver to Opium: A Study of the Evolution and Impact of the
British-Chinese Trade System from 1780 to 1842. Retrieved from:
https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://
www.google.co.in/&httpsredir=1&article=1113&context=ulra
Clark, G., O'Rourke, K. H., & Taylor, A. M. (2014). The growing dependence of Britain on
trade during the Industrial Revolution. Scandinavian Economic History Review, 62(2),
109-136.
Dong, L., Xu, C., Yang, Q., Fang, J., Li, Y., & Kang, F. (2015). High-performance
compressible supercapacitors based on functionally synergic multiscale carbon
composite textiles. Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 3(8), 4729-4737.
Kim, S. Y., & Brookshire, J. E. (2016). How Did Industrial Products Change a Society?
Historical Evidence of Imported Cotton Cloth in Korea, 1882–1910. Clothing and
Textiles Research Journal, 34(2), 109-126.
Mokyr, J., Vickers, C., & Ziebarth, N. L. (2015). The history of technological anxiety and the
future of economic growth: Is this time different?. Journal of Economic
Perspectives, 29(3), 31-50.
Moritake, T. (2018). The opium war and tea. Retrieved from:
http://www.o-cha.net/english/teacha/history/opiumwar.html

ESSAY: 7
Sharma, A. K., Sharma, C., Mullick, S. C., & Kandpal, T. C. (2017). GHG mitigation
potential of solar industrial process heating in producing cotton based textiles in
India. Journal of cleaner production, 145, 74-84.
Trueman, C. N. (2015). The Cotton Industry and the Industrial Revolution. Retrieved from:
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/britain-1700-to-1900/industrial-revolution/the-
cotton-industry-and-the-industrial-revolution/
Wilde, R. (2018). Coal in the Industrial Revolution. Retrieved from:
https://www.thoughtco.com/coal-in-the-industrial-revolution-1221634