This month we get to know the first wave of socialist thinkers – the Utopian socialists – including Robert Owen, Étienne Cabet, Jean Claude Leonard de Sismondi, Henri de Saint-Simone, Charles Fourier, and more. We also get to see how Radical associations in Britain – like the trade unions, co-ops, and Chartists – paved the way for a socialist movement.
Historians have generally had two very different takes on the Industrial Revolution. One take is that it left workers with a lot of grime, exploitation, and suffering. The other take is that it led to workers realizing greater material well-being, greater opportunity, and greater empowerment. Today we dig deeper into the lives of workers in the First Industrial Revolution – to tell the whole story. We’ll discuss pay and working conditions, the state of the social safety net, the roles of women a...
From 1830 to 1848, a surge of liberalism swept through the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. It not only brought new political and economic reforms, it established the norms that still influence our politics and economic systems today.
At the tail-end of the First Industrial Revolution, a flurry of new goods and tools were invented by professional and hobbyist inventors alike, hoping to get rich in this new era of opportunity. Among the most significant of these breakthroughs were three tools I'm going to tell you about in this episode.
Advancements made in paper-making, printing, and lithography during the First Industrial Revolution led to many other developments. Among them: They set the foundation for modern advertising. This week we discuss some of the many characters from France, Great Britain, and the United States who gave rise to this new industry.HOLIDAY BONUS EPISODE COMING!Come back next week for the first Holiday Special of the Industrial Revolutions. We'll be talking about the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. If...
In 1839, inventors in England and France simultaneously introduced the world to photography, putting “a new force in the hands of man.” We’ll learn about the scientists who made it possible, the initial experiments, and the impact it has had from the 19th Century to today.Support the Industrial Revolutions on Patreon: https://patreon.com/indrevpod
Without advancements in artificial light, much of the economic development and material improvement of the Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have been possible. So, in the days before electric lighting was possible, the people of the time needed to come up with alternatives. And innovators from Germany, France, the UK, and the modern-day US and Canada figured out other ways to illuminate the world around them.#ThankYouPatrons! If you want to join these Industrial Revolutionaries and become a sustai...
This week, we discuss the development and impact of the electric telegraph – a new means of communicating through metal wires at the end of the First Industrial Revolution. This episode covers: The possibilities made by Alessandro Volta’s battery The early telegraph systems made by von Sömmerring, Ronalds, and Schilling The first functional telegraph made by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone The life of Samuel Morse and his more successful telegraph The economic and political impacts of the t...
This week we explore the lives and careers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Cornelius Vanderbilt – two of industrial history’s most prolific individuals. One was from the UK, one was from the US. One cared little about profits, the other cared for nothing but profits. But both men had a major impact on the Transport Revolution, spreading railroads across their respective countries and steamships across the world.Support the Industrial Revolutions on Patreon: https://patreon.com/indrevpod...
At the start of the 19th Century, the U.S. economy was very similar to the cash-crop export economies of the soon-to-be-independent countries of Latin America. But a half century later, the U.S. was the second largest economy in the world, with industrial productivity on par with – or even greater than – Great Britain. How did it happen? This week, we discuss the causes and results of American industrialization, including: The Erie Canal and other transport infrastructure Industry in Cincinnati ...
This week, we’re stepping away from Europe and the United States to look at the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the rest of the world. Among other places, we’ll be visiting Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, India, China, and Australia.Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod
This week we discuss how railroads rapidly spread across Great Britain, the United States, and Continental Europe between 1830 and 1848. In particular, we’ll focus on the unique ways railroads developed in each country, the civil engineers who built them, and the economic and social impacts of Railway Mania.Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod
By the 1820s, canal transport could no longer keep pace with the efficiencies of mass production in British factories. It would take a new machine – built by impressive (and often colorful) characters – to move freight and passengers on railways at previously unimaginable speeds.Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod
The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain made the surprising success story of the Rothchilds possible. And the Rothschilds, in turn, made the Industrial Revolution possible across the rest of Europe. In this episode, we’ll cover: Mayer Amschel Rothschild’s business in the Frankfurt ghetto Nathan Rothschild’s activities in industrial Manchester The big gamble the Rothschilds made against Napoleon How Salomon and James Rothschild brought the railroads and other industry to the Continent And more...
Please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon. Your support helps pay for the audio hosting service, the website, research materials, and other costs of delivering the podcast. Plus there are special perks available only to Patreon supporters, including footnotes, book reviews, special recognition, and more.Visit https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod today. Thank you!This week we discuss the so-called “Classical” school of economics, and the various ideas about capitalism, free trade, and labor du...
Going back to the 1600s, the development of modern financial systems transformed life on planet earth. Debt markets and stock markets helped industrialization spread and remain ever-growing. They’ve also created a new phenomenon: The boom-and-bust cycle. And it seems that we, as a species, have decided that the key benefits of financial modernization – technological progress and mostly continuous economic growth – outweigh the anxieties and the risks of it.Support the podcast on Patreon: https:/...
The practice of slavery was as old as the written word. But in the age of Europe’s global empires, it took a racist and even more sinister turn. Then, in the years between 1807 and 1819, with the rise of liberalism and industrialization, western powers began to end the transatlantic slave trade as a first step to ending slavery. In this episode, we’ll discuss how it happened in France, Great Britain, and the United States.Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod...
As chemistry advanced in the 18th Century, it was applied to perhaps the all-time greatest dream of humankind: Learning how to fly. In this episode, we meet the men who made it possible as “Balloonmania” took off in France, and then across the industrializing world.Support the Industrial Revolutions on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod
The Industrial Revolutions is on Patreon! Become a sustaining supporter today: https://patreon.com/indrevpodThe Industrial Revolutions store is live! Get your t-shirts or sticker here: https://industrialrevolutionspod.com/storeAs capitalists invested in machine technology, they put many of their traditional competitors out of business, forcing them into the factories as deskilled workers. Then, between falling incomes and rising prices, those began to strike back. And the Luddites – a shadowy ne...
One of the world’s first coal-powered factories was the Albion Mills, smack-dab in the heart of London. Built by Boulton & Watt, it put the competition out of business. Its eventual destruction was a source of inspiration, not only for a burgeoning labor movement, but for one of Britain’s most important poets – and England’s unofficial national anthem.
First came the French, led by Napoleon, ending feudal economic traditions across Europe. Then came the British, bringing their knowledge of new, industrial production methods and business practices. And as a result, the first Industrial Revolution spread to pockets of France, the Low Countries, Germany, and Eastern Europe. Characters in this episode include: John Holker, a former Jacobite who spied on the British for French industry Jacques-Constantin and Auguste Charles Perier, who built steam ...
If you compare the histories of Great Britain and France in the 16th through 18th Centuries, you see how they led to very different transitions into modernity. For Britain it was the Industrial Revolution. For France it was the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. This is what Eric Hobsbawm called the “dual revolution.” Today, we explore Hobsbawm further as we step over to France and see how the chaos of these years transformed the political, religious, and economic orders of Continental ...
As the first President of the United States, George Washington appointed two cabinet secretaries who went to war with each other. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson fought on many fronts, but perhaps the most significant front was Hamilton’s economic agenda. Looking to the recent success of Great Britain, Hamilton tried to bring the Industrial Revolution to America – and Jefferson tried to stop him. In this episode, we’ll discuss the intricacies of Hamilton’s plan, why he fought for it, and...
In this episode, we explore the underlying intellectual reasons for the American Revolution, and how that Revolution reshaped those ideas into a philosophy that would take over the world as industrialization spread.
In the late 18th Century, increasing religious freedom led to violent rioting in London and Birmingham. The Quakers, meanwhile, kicked a gun manufacturer out of their denomination. And without knowing it, Enlightenment thinkers started to develop a brand-new religion – a religion that most of the world believes in today.
After the suppression of the Puritans, religiosity died down in Great Britain and British America. Then, in the mid-18th Century, a revival of nonconformist churches swept over the English world. And it had a profound impact on the coming Industrial Revolution. In this week’s episode, we’ll talk about the two main Protestant forces behind this first Great Awakening – the Baptists and the Methodists – and how they shaped the new, industrial working class.
As the first Industrial Revolution was beginning to turn the world upside down, the Age of Enlightenment produced scientists whose breakthroughs helped shape that upside-down world. Today we discuss three of them: Antoine Lavoisier; Dr. Edward Jenner; and Sir Humphrey Davy.
The Industrial Revolutions were made possible thanks to the Scientific Revolution, which began centuries earlier as militaries needed to invest in new ways to gain an edge in battle. With it came the Scientific Method and advancements in chemistry. Starting in the mid-18th Century, a few individuals took those chemistry lessons out of the laboratory and applied them to industry. These are their stories.In this episode, we’ll cover: John Roebuck and his works mass-producing sulfuric acid; Nicolas...
To support the National Alliance on Mental Illness: NAMI.orgWhen Joseph Bramah hired Henry Maudslay to help him make locks, little did he know his assistant would go on to change the world. Maudslay hired and trained a new generation of engineers who gave us everything from standardized tools to the powerful industrial machines of the future.
To support the Independent Labrador Retriever Rescue of Southern California (or to adopt a dog if you live there): http://www.indilabrescue.org - To get your favorite team’s apparel AND support the podcast, use this link: https://industrialrevolutionspod.com/fanatics - The principles of mass production at large worksites – through a combination of technological innovations and improved methods of organizing labor – was applied to a variety of industries in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries....
