The Industrial Revolution (^) ‹ 135
The Factory System and the Division of Labor
The factory system was created in order to better supervise labor. In the old, rural manu-
facturing system (or cottage industry) that characterized European proto-industrialization,
peasants were left on their own to work at the spinning wheel or the loom. Both the quality
and the efficiency of their work depended on factors that were beyond the entrepreneur’s
control. In contrast, under the factory system, workers came to a central location and
worked with machines under the supervision of managers.
The factory system employed a technique that has come to be known as the division
of labor, whereby formerly complex tasks that required knowledge and skill were broken
down into a series of simple tasks, aided by machines. Additionally, larger, centralized fac-
tories allowed entrepreneurs to take advantage of power sources required to operate new
machines. The division of labor had several simultaneous effects:
• It replaced skilled craftsman with unskilled labor, thereby increasing the supply of labor
and decreasing the wages that needed to be paid.
• It increased the volume that manufacturers could produce, thereby allowing them to sell
products for less and still increase profits.
• It initially drew more women and children into the workforce.
• As machines did more and more of the work, the number of workers needed decreased,
creating unemployment and competition for jobs.
• The centralized nature of factories resulted in the growth of urbanization, with popula-
tion migrating away from rural areas in search of work.Iron and Steel
The iron and steel industry helped to drive the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth
century. The new machines of the textile industry created increased demand for the iron
from which they were partly constructed. New, larger armies demanded more iron for guns,
cannon, and ammunition. The growing population required even more iron for nails and
tools.
Traditionally, the fuel for the iron-smelting process was charcoal, which came from
wood. By the eighteenth century, dwindling forests limited the charcoal supply, and
steel was smelted in blast furnaces, using coal as the fuel. In the 1850s, Henry Bessemer,
an English engineer, discovered a way to manufacture steel more cheaply and in larger
quantities. The use of the Bessemer process (as it came to be called), together with the use
of the steam engine to power smelting furnaces, increased the supply of iron and steel to
the point at which it could meet ever-growing demand. In 1860, Great Britain, France,
Germany, and Belgium produced approximately 125,000 tons of steel. By 1913, they
produced nearly 32 million tons.New Sources of Power
Coal
Coal mines provided the most important fuel of the Industrial Revolution. Initially,
coal was used to heat homes and to fuel the blast furnaces of the expanding iron and17_Bartolini_Ch17_133-142.indd 135 27/04/18 1:55 PM