where did cotton come from during the industrial revolution
History of cotton The Lancashire textile mills were major parts of the British industrial revolution. Their workers had poor working conditions: low wages, child labour, and 18-hour work days. Richard Arkwright created a textile empire by building a factory system powered by water, which was occasionally raided by the Luddites, weavers put out of business by the mechanization of textile production. In the 1790s, James Watt's steam power was applied to textile production, and by 1839 200,000 children worked in Manchester's cotton mills. Karl Marx, who frequently visited Lancashire, may have been influenced by the conditions of workers in these mills in writing Das Kapital.[24]
Industrial Revolution The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes.[11][12][13][14] Eric Hobsbawm held that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s,[11] while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.[12] Rapid industrialization first began in Britain, starting with mechanized spinning in the 1780s,[15] with high rates of growth in steam power and iron production occurring after 1800. Mechanized textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in Belgium and the United States and later textiles in France.[1]