{"slug":"cbse-class-10-social-science-the-age-of-industrialisation","title":"The Age of Industrialisation","description":"Proto-industry and factories in Britain, why hand labour persisted, what colonial rule did to Indian weavers, and how Indian industry grew.","board":"CBSE","grade":"Class 10","subject":"Social Science","chapter":"The Age of Industrialisation","url":"https://www.flipnlearn.app/deck/cbse-class-10-social-science-the-age-of-industrialisation","studyUrl":"https://www.flipnlearn.app/deck/cbse-class-10-social-science-the-age-of-industrialisation/study","cards":[{"id":"proto-industrialisation","kind":"term-definition","front":"Proto-industrialisation","back":"The phase of large-scale industrial production for an international market before factories, in which town merchants supplied money to peasants and artisans in the countryside to produce goods in their homes. It was controlled by merchants, not based in factories."},{"id":"why-merchants-turned-to-the-countryside","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why did European merchants in the 17th and 18th centuries employ peasants and artisans in villages rather than in towns?","back":"Powerful urban crafts and trade guilds controlled production, regulated competition and prices, and blocked new entrants, and rulers gave guilds monopoly rights. Meanwhile enclosure of the commons left poor peasants needing extra income, so they eagerly took merchants' advances."},{"id":"guilds","kind":"term-definition","front":"Guilds","back":"Town associations of producers. They trained craftspeople, controlled how much was produced, fixed prices and limited competition, and kept newcomers out of the trade. Rulers gave them monopoly rights over particular products."},{"id":"why-cotton-mills-mattered","kind":"concept-question","front":"What did Richard Arkwright's cotton mill change about production?","back":"Cloth production had been spread across village households. In the mill, costly new machines were set up and all processes were brought under one roof and one management, allowing closer supervision of production, a watch over quality, and regulation of labour."},{"id":"pace-of-industrial-change-in-britain","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why is it misleading to think British industrialisation was rapid and factory-based?","back":"Cotton and later iron and steel were dynamic, but less than 20 per cent of the workforce was in advanced sectors even by 1900. Much textile output was made in homes, traditional industries grew through small innovations, and new technology spread slowly because it was costly and unreliable."},{"id":"slow-adoption-of-steam-engine","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why was even the steam engine slow to be adopted by British industrialists?","back":"New technology was expensive, machines broke down often, repairs were costly, and they were less effective than claimed. James Watt patented his improved engine in 1781, but Matthew Boulton found few buyers: by 1800 England had only 321 steam engines, mostly in cotton, mining, canals and iron works."},{"id":"why-industrialists-preferred-hand-labour","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why did some industrialists in 19th-century Britain prefer hand labour over machines?","back":"Labour was plentiful and wages low, so machines requiring large capital were unattractive. Seasonal industries such as gas works, breweries and printers hired hands for peak periods. Intricate, varied goods needed human skill, and the upper classes preferred refined handmade products."},{"id":"spinning-jenny","kind":"term-definition","front":"Spinning Jenny","back":"A machine devised by James Hargreaves in 1764 that speeded up spinning and reduced the need for labour: turning one wheel set many spindles in motion, spinning several threads at once."},{"id":"why-women-attacked-spinning-jenny","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why did women workers in Britain attack the Spinning Jenny?","back":"Women who survived on hand spinning feared losing their work, because the Jenny let one worker spin many threads at once and so reduced the demand for manual labour. Fear of unemployment made workers hostile to new technology."},{"id":"life-of-workers-in-britain","kind":"concept-question","front":"What was life like for workers in 19th-century Britain?","back":"Getting a job depended on networks of friends and kin; others waited weeks, sleeping under bridges or in night refuges. Seasonal work meant long spells without work, rising prices cut real wages, and in slumps like the 1830s unemployment reached 35 to 75 per cent in some regions."},{"id":"indian-textile-trade-before-colonial-rule","kind":"concept-question","front":"How was India's textile export trade organised before European companies gained control?","back":"Indian silk and fine cottons dominated world markets. Armenian and Persian merchants carried goods overland to Central Asia, and ports such as Surat, Masulipatam and Hoogly linked India by sea. Supply merchants gave weavers advances and brought cloth to ports, where brokers sold to export merchants."},{"id":"decline-of-surat-and-hoogly","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why did the ports of Surat and Hoogly decline by the late 18th century?","back":"European companies gained concessions and then monopoly trading rights, so exports through the old ports fell, credit dried up and local bankers went bankrupt; Surat's trade fell from Rs 16 million to Rs 3 million. Trade shifted to Bombay and Calcutta under European control."},{"id":"gomastha","kind":"term-definition","front":"Gomastha","back":"A paid servant appointed by the East India Company to supervise weavers, collect supplies and examine the quality of cloth, replacing the traders and brokers who had earlier linked weavers to the market."},{"id":"how-company-controlled-weavers","kind":"concept-question","front":"How did the East India Company ensure a regular supply of cotton and silk from Indian weavers?","back":"After gaining political power, it eliminated existing traders and brokers and appointed gomasthas to control weavers directly. Through advances, loans for raw material, it bound weavers to sell only to the Company. Outsider gomasthas often flogged weavers for delays and paid miserably low prices."},{"id":"manchester-comes-to-india","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why did Indian cotton weavers face decline in the 19th century?","back":"British industrialists got import duties on Indian cloth in Britain and pushed Manchester goods into India. Weavers' export market collapsed while cheap machine-made imports glutted the home market. In the 1860s, when the American Civil War sent British demand to Indian raw cotton, prices soared and weavers were starved of supplies."},{"id":"early-indian-entrepreneurs","kind":"concept-question","front":"How did early Indian entrepreneurs accumulate capital to set up industries?","back":"Many made fortunes in the China trade, financing and shipping opium and tea, such as Dwarkanath Tagore in Bengal, Parsis like Dinshaw Petit and J.N. Tata in Bombay, and Seth Hukumchand. Others traded with Burma, the Middle East and East Africa, or financed trade within India."},{"id":"european-managing-agencies","kind":"term-definition","front":"European Managing Agencies","back":"Firms such as Bird Heiglers, Andrew Yule and Jardine Skinner that controlled a large sector of Indian industry until the First World War. They mobilised capital, set up and managed joint-stock companies, and took all business decisions, even when Indians supplied the capital."},{"id":"jobber","kind":"term-definition","front":"Jobber","back":"An old, trusted worker employed by industrialists to recruit new mill workers, often from his own village. He found them jobs, helped them settle and lent money in crises, which gave him power: he began demanding money and gifts and controlling workers' lives."},{"id":"first-world-war-and-indian-industry","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why did industrial production in India increase during the First World War?","back":"British mills were busy with war production, so Manchester imports into India fell and Indian mills gained a vast home market. Indian factories were also called on to supply war needs such as jute bags, uniform cloth, tents, boots and saddles, so new factories opened and old ones ran multiple shifts."},{"id":"why-handloom-production-expanded","kind":"concept-question","front":"Why did handloom cloth production in India expand in the 20th century despite factory competition?","back":"Weavers adopted affordable technology such as the fly shuttle, which raised productivity; by 1941 over 35 per cent of handlooms used it. Fine weaves bought by the well-to-do had stable demand, and mills could not copy specialised weaves such as woven-border saris or Madras lungis."}]}