---
title: 'History Professor Answers Industrial Revolution Questions | Tech Support | WIRED'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=8mkrHaLcxcA'
video_id: '8mkrHaLcxcA'
date: 2026-08-04
duration_sec: 1132
---

# History Professor Answers Industrial Revolution Questions | Tech Support | WIRED

> Source: [History Professor Answers Industrial Revolution Questions | Tech Support | WIRED](https://youtube.com/watch?v=8mkrHaLcxcA)

## Summary

In this video, history professor Jonathan Rees answers questions about the Industrial Revolution, covering topics from key inventions like the spinning jenny and assembly line to social impacts such as child labor and the origins of the weekend. He provides historical context and analogies to modern issues like AI and Amazon warehouses.

### Key Points

- **Spinning Jenny and Textile Innovations** [00:13] — The spinning Jenny, along with the flying shuttle and power loom, automated textile manufacturing, making it cheap and central to the Industrial Revolution.
- **AI and Industrial Revolution Parallels** [01:07] — Rees draws parallels between AI's current limitations and early industrial machines, noting that AI writing is often terrible, similar to how early machines produced poor quality goods.
- **Canaries in Coal Mines** [02:16] — Canaries were used to detect dangerous gases in mines; their death signaled the need to evacuate, illustrating early workplace safety measures.
- **Amazon Warehouses and Industrial Discipline** [02:44] — Amazon warehouses remind Rees of industrial-era time management, where workers were timed to maximize productivity, similar to Taylorism.
- **Origins of the Weekend** [03:24] — Labor unions fought for the eight-hour day and weekends, providing workers with leisure time amidst long work weeks.
- **Great Smog of London 1952** [04:08] — The smog, a result of industrial pollution, was initially seen as a sign of progress before its harmful effects became apparent.
- **Colonialism and Industrial Revolution** [04:50] — Colonialism contributed to wealth that fueled industrialization, but it was not the sole factor; other elements like technology and resources also played roles.
- **Assembly Line as Key Innovation** [05:18] — Rees considers the assembly line, introduced by Ford, as the most important innovation, enabling mass production across industries.
- **Child Labor in Factories** [06:39] — Children worked in factories, such as breaker boys in coal mines, performing dangerous tasks for low pay, reflecting harsh labor conditions.
- **Luddites and Machine Breaking** [07:35] — Luddites destroyed machines that threatened their jobs, an early form of resistance to technological change.
- **Consumers of Industrial Goods** [08:18] — Mass production lowered prices, making goods affordable to a wider population, as Henry Ford intended with the Model T.
- **Steel Making Challenges** [09:02] — Bessemer's process and the Open Hearth process made steel production cheaper and more efficient, enabling railroads and other industries.
- **Canals as Transportation** [09:58] — Canals were a brief but important mode of transport for goods before railroads, using horse-drawn barges.
- **Most Important Industrial Facility** [10:41] — Rees argues that Ford's factories were the most important, as they demonstrated mass production techniques adopted worldwide.
- **Monopolies and Antitrust** [11:26] — Industrialists used profits to grow businesses, leading to monopolies, which prompted antitrust laws like the Sherman Act, though enforcement was inconsistent.
- **Conspicuous Consumption** [12:26] — Thorstein Veblen coined the term to describe buying goods to display wealth, a result of new money from industrialization.
- **Historian Consensus on Causes** [12:58] — There is no consensus; theories include slavery wealth, enclosure, and technological innovation, with multiple factors at play.
- **Benefits of Industrial Revolution** [13:28] — Goods became cheaper, making items like clocks and clothing accessible to the middle class, enabling leisure.
- **Division of Labor and Mechanization** [14:10] — Division of labor and mechanization changed skill sets, with workers needing to adapt as machines took over tasks.
- **Neurasthenia and Industrial Stress** [15:37] — Doctors invented neurasthenia to describe stress from industrialization, leading to treatments like electric stimulation, but it was often a luxury for the wealthy.
- **Farm to Factory Migration** [16:34] — In Britain, enclosure forced people off land into cities; in America, factory towns like Lowell attracted workers with promises of safety and opportunity.
- **Number of Industrial Revolutions** [17:28] — Rees views the Industrial Revolution as one long process with multiple boosts, such as textiles, steel, and mass production, rather than distinct revolutions.

### Conclusion

The Industrial Revolution was a transformative period with profound economic and social changes, many of which resonate today. Understanding its complexities helps contextualize modern technological and labor issues.

## Transcript

- Hi, I'm Jonathan Rees, history professor and researcher. This is Industrial Revolution Support. [upbeat music]
who the fuck is spinning Jenny?" The spinning Jenny is one of the technological innovations to automate the textile manufacturing process.
There is a thing called the flying shuttle that comes first and the power loom together make it possible all in a single building and put out sheets
in individual homes and have it take, you know, All of them together make textile manufacturing both cheap
and help make the industrial revolution possible Creators virtual asks. of panic during the industrial revolution
And it's hard not to think about the Industrial Revolution The thing that I keep coming back to when I think about the history that predates AI,
the machines that made stuff, Cobblers made terrible shoes. The thing about AI that gets me
at least at this point in its evolution, AI writing for example, all the time is terrible writing.
but nevertheless, there are still coders are employed can't be done by AI. and it keeps messing up people's orders.
by AI unless it can get better at what it's doing. I'm a historian, I can't handle that.
Dun Magank asks, explain it to me like I'm five. Canaries go into coal mines they know that there's dangerous gas in the mine
So, that was a signal to evacuate the mine immediately. "Amazon warehouses really remind me when mother was losing fingers
The thing about Amazon warehouses and during the Industrial Revolution, the machines controlled your time and how you work
Literally, there were people who would come behind you and try to measure how long it took you to do just minute tasks so that they can get you to work
in the one best way possible in order to be more productive. is that if they go in as individuals and say, somebody is just gonna find someone who's more desperate
If they go in together and say, this work is very difficult then at least they have a fighting chance. are literally the people who invented the weekend.
and will eventually win the eight hour day. And they'll do things like take and have at least something that they can look forward
to during their very difficult 40-plus-hour work week. "What caused the great smog in London 1952 question mark?" is well after the Industrial revolution,
which comes out of the Industrial Revolution. has an absolutely enormous impact This is where all of the smog starts.
smog was seen as a sign of progress before it got everywhere My adopted hometown of Pueblo, Colorado used that they sold to tourists.
because that was supposed to be the greatest thing Burn account_A, asks, could happen without colonialism?"
He wrote in the 1940s that the wealth generated for having the industrial revolution happen. but it was absolutely a factor.
But there are other factors as well that make that possible. Your homicidal ape asks "Most important inventions I think the thing that I would probably privilege
isn't an actually invention, it's the assembly line introduced in the Ford Motor Company When they used the assembly line
people in all sorts of different industries go, oh, in order to manufacture anything. is in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit,
where they have this thing called the Exploded Model T Ford. but they're all slightly separated by each other And the reason love that exhibit so much
just by looking at the parts that put it together is one person does that one thing,
and you can think about that abstract principle But you could manufacture a washing machine that way. It turns out you could manufacture anything that way.
even if it's not a specific invention. XX Gertrude asks, "Did mothers work at the same factories I think that question probably
where there are children and women working In America, probably the most legendary example of child labor is young breaker boys working
for different purposes. they're picking through giant slag piles in order to find usable pieces of coal out of the refuse
they're are actually under the looms fixing broken threads. for particular jobs.
is that, you know, in a free country, even if they're a child? "Luddites were the OG Tesla Vandalizes."
in the textile industry of the Industrial Revolution. the Luddites broke the machines that threatened their jobs.
is that they're willing to destroy property The funny thing about the Luddites and there continues to be strong opposition,
to all kinds of industrial innovations ever since. "If vast majority who was actually buying all the stuff they produced?"
from an economic standpoint the price of it is going to drop. Henry Ford, famously wanted his Model T cars
and they were because he could produce them so much cheaper Low prices meant that even if you don't have as much money that those factories produced.
Accelerator231 asks, "Why was steel so difficult "What were the main stumbling blocks?" but the more you automate it,
So, if you go back to the late 1700s, who are basically stirring this giant mush of metal What Bessemer did is he figured out a way
and make those earlier very expensive skills, And the Open Earth process from the 1890s, I think it's also worth noting that steel's really important
In the United States, that makes the growth of railroads possible The steel making process is also important
people make cars out of steel. to all these different industries. "Did canals of the Industrial Revolution
Canals where the barges are driven by horses and the 1850s or '60s,
So, canals are just a really narrow period during both in England and America, canals are a way to transport the goods
that factories produced to lots of different places and intermittent technology between horses and railroads. in world history until about 1800,
The really important driver of the industrial revolution AusPrideAlways asks, If you ask most historians
I would say it would be Henry Ford's, and he was very open about his ideas And they looked at the way Ford built cars and they said,
just about everywhere, and in any industry. that you can manufacture anything that way, I would say that Ford's facilities are the most important.
to large corporations rather than small scale producers adopting the technology and continued to exist." is that once you make money
if you put the profits from that back into your business, that will just make your business that much more successful.
monopolies become a problem in the late 19th century in different industries from these technologies that they control huge sections of that industry
America comes up with something called that's supposed to crack down on those kinds of companies, Even then it's still just enforced intermittently.
but what you get in the Industrial Revolution A term invented by the economist Thorstein Veblen Conspicuous consumption is buying things
That's a direct result of what they used to call new money, and just trying to impress their friends. "Is there any consensus among historians
of the Industrial Revolution?" The causes of the Industrial Revolution There's an argument that the wealth created by slavery
There's an argument that enclosure in order to work in these factories. and why it takes so much longer
Seldom Sensible asks, The biggest way the Industrial Revolution benefited is that the price of goods dropped considerably.
and if you could make it cheaper Clocks became available to people, who are absolutely middle class in the United States.
clothing that you didn't have to manufacture yourself, and to experience leisure. or that the benefits outweighed the cost
This one's from Quora. to change their skill sets?" The first one is the division of labor
Instead of having one person do all the pieces at that job, The second piece of this is mechanization. Where a machine is invented in order to do that job.
Division of labor tends to come earlier industrialization, to creating a machine that can do that job. So, when the job you once did becomes mechanized,
because we have a machine that will do it better. maybe they'll let you do another part of the job, There's always has to be workers
to at least move different parts around the factory. But the jobs, as they become more and more mechanized, an enormous amount on wages.
if not actually stop these kinds of innovations. the only way to fight downward mobility. doctors invented a disease
Neurasthenia is basically a way of describing People who are sort of fed up and resorts just to slow down and decompress.
that the electric stimulation It's not so much a fake disease, but it's the first measure that industrialization
The problem with all the treatment from neurasthenia the people who had money to buy these kinds of things. because they don't put up
with even a very anxiety-producing job "Did leaving the farm and going to work to 19th century farmers?"
was doing and what country they lived in. In Great Britain, there's a big problem with lack of access Enclosure in Great Britain happens
when landowners wanted to keep the land for themselves And there had been people on those public lands So, they're forced to go from the countryside into the city,
they're willing to take difficult jobs in factories In America, it's more of a draw. Lowell in Massachusetts is set up as a wonderful place
but women could go and have a safe place I think it's safe to say it got worse and worse for the workers,
and the pay decreased and the hours increased. "Wait, how many Industrial Revolutions have we had?" is that because it's a very long process,
there are periods where you get lots of different boosts, and I think some people sometimes mistake boosts So, in Britain in the 1700s,
So, that might be a first industrial revolution. a lot of the innovation deals with steel making.
The Henry Ford's assembly line known as mass production perhaps that's the third. you might argue that the internet
I just tend to think of it as one long technological process that are worth talking about together
of that long window. I hope you'll learn something. [bright music]