How the Industrial Revolution Transformed The World
Trains changed how we perceive the world
The Industrial Revolution was one of the most significant societal upheavals in human history. Not only did it completely, and perhaps irrevocably, change how economies function, the material situation of humanity, local ecosystems, and the global climate, but how humans perceive the world around them. Innovations of the industrial revolution gave us a whole new conception of the world and reality; the train is perhaps the best example of this.
Britain was the epicenter of the Industrial Revolution. Despite losing the United States to revolt, it still had the largest empire in the world in the late eighteenth century. These colonies allowed British capitalists seemingly limitless quantities of cheap, raw materials, as well as millions literally captive consumers.
Cotton was the material that drove the industrial revolution. It was available as a cheap and relatively abundant raw material thanks to British colonial holdings, most importantly India. British capitalists transformed this raw material into a finished cloth and sold it at home and abroad. The cotton industry was the perfect industry to evolve first; the technological innovations that made textile manufacture more efficient was, for the most part, already there, it just needed to be implemented in new ways.
This innovation, of course, was possible because of the exploitation of the colonies, where the British were able to both but raw materials at dirt cheap rates and undercut local manufactures because of their ever-evolving manufacturing processes. Imperialism and industrialism fed went hand in hand; they drove the expansion of one another. At the metropole, capitalists were able to employ cheap, unskilled labor, notably the labor of women and children, to churn out manufactured goods. These socio-economic conditions allowed for industrialization; as the historian Eric Hobsbawm notes, the Industrial Revolution could not “exist without hopelessness and hunger.” It could also not exist without England’s high concentration of coal, the energy source that would power the Industrial Revolution.
These conditions allowed for the rise of efficiency and profits at an astronomically high rate, which further incentivized technological innovation and implementation in both the cotton industry and other sectors, most notably the chemical and engineering industries. The cotton industry catalyzed changes across the industry, indirectly growing the coal and iron industries, leading to the steam engine, the locomotive, and gaslighting; all of these innovations were motivated by the promise of increased efficiency and profit.
The rapid rise of industry and technology drastically changed how Britons experienced the world around them. The train and gas lights changed how people perceived travel, distance, and time.
Before the train came along, travel was done by ship, animal, or one’s two feet. Traveling my animal or by foot was an organic and involved experience. Travelers were limited by the endurance of the horse. Horses had to be switched out and fed every few hours of riding; in fact, high grain prices during the advent of the train further incentive its adoption... Travel times were unpredictable. The traveler was exposed to the heat, cold, wind, or rain during travel.
The train represented an “emancipation from nature;” wood was no longer the primary source for fuel and construction. It was replaced by coal and iron, exemplified by the steam locomotive. Trains separated humans from the visceral experience of travel. Trains were inorganic and were far removed from nature. They ran on schedules, didn’t need to take a break, and the traveler was physically separated from the conditions. Steam-powered locomotives were “characterized by regularity, uniformity, duration [,] and acceleration”, historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch writes.
Trains created a sense of a “shrinking of the natural world” as humans could travel anywhere faster and more efficiently than ever before without nature’s natural limits. Places that seemed distant became much closer as the travel time got shorter and shorter. Some embraced this shift, and others lamented it; some were soon nostalgic for the more intimate relationship between person and travel that animal transportation provided.
While not at first, trains eventually democratized travel. Trains allow people to travel distances short and far relatively economically and quickly. In Europe especially, trains can take you anywhere you need to go. The industrialization of Europe, in a sense, made Europe a smaller continent, as it was more easily navigated. The emergence of a continental rail network would change everything, to travel, logistics, and warfare; it made all of these activities faster, more efficient, and cheaper.
Eric Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the present day. (London: Penguin, 1999.)
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Space and Time in the Nineteenth Century, (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1977.)
