AP Board 10th Class Social History Notes 4th Lesson The Age of Industrialisation
→ The figures ‘Dawn of the Century’ and Two Magicians’ offer the triumphant account of the modern world.
→ The modern world is associated with rapid technological change and innovations, machines and factories railways and steamships.
→ The history of industrialisation becomes the story of development.
→ The modern age appears as a wonderful time of technological progress.
→ There was a large scale industrial production even before the establishment of factories.
→ In the 17th and 18th centuries, the merchants from the towns in Europe moved to the countryside.
→ The poor peasants worked for merchants.
→ Many producers worked in their family farms, not in factories.
→ The merchants sold the cloth in the international market.
→ London beetle a finishing centre.
→ The earliest factories in England came up by 1730s.
→ By the late eighteenth century the number of factories multiplied.
→ The inventions increased production.
→ Richard Arkwright created the cotton mill.
→ The most dynamic industries in Britain were cotton and metals.
→ By 1873 Britain exported steel worth about 77 million pounds.
→ James Watt improved the steam engine produced by Newcomen.
→ There was no shortage of human labour in Victorian Britain, the 19th century
→ Many products were produced only with hand.
→ Machines produced uniforms and standardised goods for mass market.
→ In countries with labour shortage, mechanical power was used.
→ There were more workers; less work in many industries work was seasonal.
→ The workers got jobs if they had friends, in the city, working in companies.
→ The Spinning Jenny reduced labour demand in cotton mills.
→ The workers attacked the companies; mainly because their wives lost work to spinning! engines.
→ The discussion is primarily to textile industries in this part.
→ Silk and cotton goods from India dominated the international market.
→ Sea trade operated in the coloniaTports : They were Surat and Masulipatnam.
→ The European companies gradually gained power; got monopoly rights to trade.
→ Surat and Hoogly ports decayed. Bombay and Calcutta grew.
→ The East India Company eliminated the existing traders. It appointed a paid gomastha to supervise weavers, collect supplies and examine the quality of cloth.
→ The weavers who took loans had to hand-over the cloth to him. They could not take it to any other trader.
→ The gomasthas used sepoys and peons against the workers and punished for delays in supply. As a result there were clashes between weavers and gomasthas.
→ Many weavers closed down their workshops and settled as agricultural labour.
→ The weavers faced new problems by the turn of the nineteenth century.
→ There was a decline of textile exports from India when industries developed in England.
→ The cotton weavers in India faced two problems : the export market collapsed and the local market reduced.
→ During the American Civil War cotton supplies of the U.S were cut off. Britain turned to India for raw cotton exports.
→ The weaves in India had to buy raw cotton at exorbitant prices.
→ Factories in India began production. Many weavers became workless.
→ The first cotton mill cameup in Bombay in 1854.
→ The first jute mill was set up in 1855 in Calcutta.
→ Elgin Mill was started in Kanpur in 1860.
→ The first spinning and weaving mill of Madras began production by 1874.
→ In Bengal, Dwarakanath Tagore set up six Joint Stock Companies in 1830s and 1840s. His business collapsed in the business crises of the 1840s.
→ In Bombay Dinshaw Petit and Jamsetjee Nusserwanjee built huge industrial empires.
→ Seth Hukumchand set up the first Indian jute mill in Calcutta in 1917.
→ The grandfather and father of G.D Birla also started business.
→ Till the First World War, European Managing Agencies controlled a large sector of Indian industries. Three of the biggest ones were Bird Heiglers & Co., Andrew Yule and Jardine Skinner & Co., By 1946 the number of workers in Indiem factories were 2,436,000.
→ The workers came from the neighbouring districts and villages. They returned to their village homes during harvests and festivals.
→ The industrialists usually employed a jobber to get new recruits.
→ The jobber was an old and trusted worker. He gave Jobs to workers and gave money whenever the workers were in need: So he became a person of authority and power.
→ The Jobber began demanding money and gifts for his favour and controlled the lives of workers.
→ The European Managing Agencies established tea and coffee plantations. They invested in mining, indigo and jute also.
→ The Indian merchants avoided competition with the Manchester goods in the Indian Market. They produced coarse cotton yarn. It was used by the handloom weavers in India or exported to China.
→ By the first decade of the twentieth century, the Swadeshi movement gathered momentum and foreign cloth was boycotted.
→ During the First World War, the Indian mills were busy. They supplied the war needs : jute bags, cloth, army uniforms etc.
→ After the war, Manchester could never recapture its old position in the Indian market. The economy of Britain crumbled.
→ Within the colonies, the local industrialists consolidated their position. They captured ; the home market substituting foreign manufacturers.
→ Large industries formed a small segment of the economy. So the small-scale industries ; continued to predominate.
→ Handloom cloth production, which trembled between 1900 and 1940, expanded steadily.
→ By the second decade of the twentieth century looms were fitted with flyshuttles and as a result the production improved.
→ There was a lot of demand for the fine Varieties of cloth manufactured in India. Banarasi and Baluchari saris were bought by the rich people. More over mills could not imitate the specialised weaves.
→ Though the production expanded, the weavers did not prosper. The entire household had to work hard for long hours to survive. Their life and labour was integral to the process of industrialisation.
→ The manufacturers began to attract the consumes with a variety of advertisements, The advertisements played a big role in expanding the markets for products.
→ The label was also a mark of quality when the buyers saw the label ‘Made in Manchester , they felt confident of buying the cloth.
→ Images of gods, and goddesses and figures of important persons attracted the buyers very much.
→ The manufacturers printed calendars with attractive figures. Those who hung the calendars would see the advertisements and buy those goods.
→ The Indian manufacturers advertised the nationalist message to attract the customers.
→ Their message is If you care for the nation, then buy products that Indians produce’.
→ Thus the advertisements became useful to market goods of the manufacturers.
→ Orient : The countries to the East of the Mediterranean, usually referring to Asia. The term arises out of a western viewpoint that sees this region as pre modern, traditional and mysterious.
→ Proto : It indicates the first or early form of something.
→ Stapler : A person who staples or sorts wool according to its fibre.
→ Fuller : A person who fulls – that is gathers cloth by pleating.
→ Carding : The process in which fibres, such as cotton or wool are prepared prior to spinning.
→ Spinning Jenny: It is devised by James Hargreaves in 1764. This machine speeded up the spinning process and reduced labour demand. By turning one single wheel, a worker could set in a number of spindles and spin several threads at the same time.
→ Sepoy : The British pronounced the word ‘Sipahf as Sepoy’. It means an Indian soldier in the service of the British.
→ Fly shuttle : It is a mechanical device used for weaving, moved by means of , ropes and pullies. It places the horizontal threads (called the werp) into the vertical threads (called the warp). The invention of the fly shuttle made it possible for weavers to operate large looms and weave wide pieces of cloth.
→ Weft : (in weaving) the horizontal threads
→ Warp : (in weaving) the vertical threads
→ Jobber : A person employed by the industrialists to get new recruits; he was an old and trusted worker.
→ Entrepreneur : A person who starts a commercial enterprise (trade) Involving financial risk.