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Period: to
Industrial Revolution
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Spinning Jenny
A British carpenter and weaver named James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764. This machine had changed the whole textile industrey dramaticly. It contined many more spindles worked by one wheel, then just a single spindle. This made clothing and other essentilas made alot quicker. -
Steam Boat
Robert Fulton was a famous inventor and engineer. During the 1780s, he became the first American to build a steam-powered engine. This engine was used to power steamboats all over the United States. He built a paddle steamboat, the Clermont, that traveled from New York to Albany on the Hudson River. The steam engine was a great invention because it was important to the transportation industry. With steamboats traveling all of the United States's major rivers, they became the fastest way of trans -
Cotten Gin
Eli Whitney was an American inventor who created the Cottin Gin. He revolutionized the relationship between the North and South. The North established better manufacturing and the South established better methods of harvesting and utalizing slavery. -
Steam Engine Locomotive
Richard Trevithick, an English mining engineer, developed the first steam-powered locomotive -
Peterloo Masscare
After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, the government introduced legislation - the 'Corn Laws' - to limit the amount of cheap wheat that could be imported, so that the price of cereals and bread would be kept artificially high and so protect farmers' profits. In 1816, a bad harvest pushed prices so high that there were strikes and food riots all over the country. The Corn Laws fuelled the clamour for parliamentary reform. Again, rather than make any concessions, the authorities tried to suppre -
Factory act
In 1833 the Government passed a Factory Act to improve conditions for children working in factories. Young children were working very long hours in workplaces where conditions were often terrible. The basic act was as follows: No child workers under 9 years of age. Employers must have a medical or age certificate for child workers. Children between the ages of 9-13 to work no more than 9 hours a day. Children between 13-18 to work no more than 12 hours a day. Children are not to work at night. T -
Women and the pits
"I go down between three and four in the morning and sometimes I have done by five o'clock in the afternoon, and sometimes sooner." These are the words of Rosa Lucas, a coalminer at Lamberhead Green in 1841. Before the passing of the Coal Mining Act of 1842 women could work down the mines in Great Britain. This website includes sections on 'Women Working Underground and On the Surface', 'The Coal Mining Act of 1842: Effects on Women' and 'Female Mining Deaths and Injuries'.
