Industrialization

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AP European History › Industrialization

Questions 1 - 10
1

Which of these European nations was the second to begin industrializing its economy after Great Britain?

Belgium

France

The Netherlands

Germany

Sweden

Explanation

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, but by 1807, a British entrepreneur named William Cockerill had created a textile-machine-manufacturing business in Belgium that helped spread the Industrial Revolution first around Belgium, then to France, and finally around the European continent. Cockerill was particularly important because at the time, Britain was engaged in a war with Napoleonic France and most of Europe was cut off from British industrial production and innovation.

2

The harsh working conditions of the Factory System in England during the Industrial Revolution led to __________.

social and political reform

rebellion in the English Civil War

a decline in British imperial power

an economic recession

the rise of atheism

Explanation

Life for factory workers during the Industrial Revolution was grueling and extremely harsh. Many people worked six days a week, for fourteen hours a day, in cramped and unhealthy conditions for little pay. Work was dangerous, and if you were injured and unable to continue working you were given no compensation. From about 1830 onwards, the nineteenth century in Britain was defined by constant social and political reform. Working conditions were slowly improved, and political suffrage rights were expanded to more and more men.

3

Which of the following inventions was NOT developed in Britain during the eighteenth century?

The cotton gin

The flying shuttle

The spinning jenny

The water frame

The power loom

Explanation

The driving force of the Industrial Revolution's early years was the English textile manufacturing industry, which gained phenomenal success on the back of a number of innovations to the production methods used for textiles. Included among such British inventions were the spinning jenny, the water frame, the power loom, and the flying shuttle, all of which mechanized and sped up the process of weaving and producing cloth. The cotton gin, which sped along the process by which cotton was separated from its seeds, was an American invention of the 1790s.

4

Which of these industries was the first to be revolutionized by the Industrial Revolution?

Textiles

Mining

Ship building

Railroad construction

Farming

Explanation

The farming industry had already been revolutionized by the Agricultural Revolution in the eighteenth century, so the first industry to be revolutionized by the Industrial Revolution was the textile industry. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, textiles were extremely laborious and inefficient (by our standards) to produce and were primarily manufactured by family units called “cottage industries”; however, with the introduction of machinery, the production of textiles skyrocketed.

5

The construction of a ship canal in the late nineteenth century led to the emergence of __________ as a major port city of Great Britain and contributed to the decline of __________.

Manchester . . . Liverpool

Liverpool . . . Manchester

Birmingham . . . Bristol

Bristol . . . Birmingham

Cardiff . . . Swansea

Explanation

For much of the nineteenth century, Manchester and Liverpool were both major centers of the Industrial Revolution; however, Manchester was thirty miles inland and companies in Liverpool controlled the access to raw resources that arrived via the port. In an attempt to overcome what they viewed as excessive charges, the companies of Manchester sought to build the Manchester Ship Canal to allow goods to be transported directly to Manchester, bypassing the city of Liverpool. The canal was completed in 1894 and led almost immediately to the rise of Manchester and the decline of Liverpool as industrial and economic powerhouses.

6

All of the following were tensions caused by the Industrial Revolution except ___________.

fights between imperial agents and their home offices as imperial agents saw the declining importance of empire to the industrializing colonial nations

disagreements between managers and workers over the celebration of "Saint Monday"

debates between Liberals and Socialists over the need for government intervention in the regulation of factories

the increased conflict between the language of domesticity and the need for most working-class women to work outside the home

middle and working class fears over loose morality in working class life in the city

Explanation

The empire grew in importance during the Industrial Revolution as industrializing nations called on the empire to produce the raw materials needed to manufacture goods. All of the other answers describe tensions that existed during the period.

7

The Combination Acts concerned __________.

the ability of workers to strike and form unions

the ill-treatment of workers in the factory system

the extension of voting rights to the growing middle class created by the Industrial Revolution

the extension of voting rights to the working class who were dissatisfied with life during the Industrial Revolution

the protection of British agricultural industry in the face of foreign competition

Explanation

The original Combination Acts were passed in Great Britain in 1799 and 1800 to prohibit workers from forming unions and to prevent workers from striking at a time when the British government was engaged in war. The Acts were repealed in 1824, but a series of debilitating strikes followed, and the British government reinstated the policy the following year. The primary goal of the acts was to prohibit the formation of unions and to limit the ability of workers to campaign collectively for better wages and treatment through coordinated strikes.

8

The process of industrialization reshaped the production of which of the following goods first?

Textiles

Ships

Books

Cars

Buildings

Explanation

The first great wave of industrialization in the eighteenth century focused on the production of textiles. Technological improvements such as the flying shuttle and spinning jenny greatly improved productivity in textiles. These technological improvements also led to the replacement of the artisanal putting-out system with the centralized factory system of production. This process of factories coming to replaced artisans would come to be a defining characteristic of industrialization.

9

Industrialization in Europe involved all of the following except ___________.

the end of agriculture

the mechanization of labor

the use of new technology to improve transportation

the rise of cities

the development of working- and middle-class identities

Explanation

The Industrial Revolution did not end the need for agriculture. In fact, in most places in Europe during most of the nineteenth century, the majority of the population continued to work in agriculture.

10

German steel production exceeded that of Britain by __________.

1900

1840

1860

1880

1920

Explanation

The Industrial Revolution, as you likely know, began in Great Britain at the dawn of the nineteenth century; however, it was relatively slow to take hold in Germany (apart from Prussia) due to the disunified nature of the German-speaking world until Prussian-led German Unification in 1871. Following unification, the German government embarked on a massive project of economic and industrial overhaul that led to the German Industrial Revolution, particularly in the production of steel, which surpassed the British production of steel by the turn of the twentieth century. Germany and the United States would be the dominant industrial powers of the early twentieth century.

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