The Wobblies

During the Industrial Revolution, factories used machines, investment, and specialized labor to produce goods on a scale that had previously been difficult to achieve. Adam Smith's economic ideas help explain how specialization, trade, competition, and self-interest can coordinate production. However, economic growth did not automatically guarantee good working conditions or equal bargaining power. Workers and employers could disagree over wages, working hours, safety, and who should benefit from increased production.

In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto. They argued that modern industrial society was divided into classes with conflicting economic interests. More than half a century later, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), founded in 1905, sought to unite workers across industries to challenge employers' power and improve workers' lives. The IWW shared some ideas with Marxist labor movements, although it had its own traditions and goals.

How did Karl Marx explain the conflict between factory owners and workers, and how does his argument help us understand the Wobblies?

I Pencil

Imagine you are holding an ordinary pencil. How many people do you think helped make it, from obtaining raw materials to delivering it to a store?

A simple pencil connects thousands of people, natural resources, specialized jobs, and businesses. Nobody needs to control the entire process for all those people to contribute to making the finished product. This helps illustrate the economic idea known as the invisible hand, associated with Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith.

How can people working in their own self-interest cooperate to produce something that none of them could make alone?

The invisible hand is a metaphor for how people pursuing their own interests in a market can sometimes produce benefits for others, even when helping society was not their primary goal.

For example, a pencil manufacturer wants to earn a profit. To do so, the company must attract customers by offering a pencil people are willing to buy. The manufacturer consequently helps supply a product that other people want.

Smith did not claim that self-interest always produces good results. Markets can also produce unfair outcomes, pollution, exploitation, and other problems. His idea gives us a way to investigate how markets work—not a guarantee that they always work well.

1. In your own words, define Adam Smith's invisible hand.
2. Explain how I, Pencil demonstrates specialization and cooperation.
3. Give one example of how a person's pursuit of self-interest can benefit other people.
4. Explain one reason markets might fail to produce a good outcome for everyone.
5. Final challenge: If you had to explain the invisible hand to a sixth grader using an example other than a pencil, what example would you choose and why? (a smartphone, a pair of sneakers, a slice of pizza, or a school backpack) Identify at least five different people, jobs, or industries involved in producing and delivering it, explain what motivates two of those participants, and describe how the participants depend on one another.

Adam Smith: The Invisible Hand

What did Adam Smith actually mean?

Adam Smith is considered to be the father of modern economics. He wrote a book called The Wealth of Nations. He described his ideas about the free market and how it worked. This book influenced governments and other economists for centuries.

Smith was born in a small village in Scotland. He went to the University of Glasgow at age 14, but this was normal for the time. At age 17 he went to Oxford University in England. He said later that the professors there did almost no teaching, and he ended up teaching himself.

Smith then became a professor in Glasgow. He spent his evenings with other well-known Enlightenment thinkers and scientists. Together, they talked over important ideas. During this time, Smith wrote his first major book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. It was one of the books in which he used the phrase, “the invisible hand.” He would become well known for this phrase. He said that even though people seemed to put themselves first, often good things would come out of it for society. It was like an invisible hand was guiding them.

Smith then got a better-paying job. He spent two years tutoring the son of a duke and traveling around Europe, meeting more intellectuals. He began writing The Wealth of Nations during this time. He returned to Scotland in 1766 and published the book in 1776. In it, he described how people were born mainly wanting to do things to help themselves, such as earning money. But, this would end up helping society, too. People who got a job would produce things that other people wanted. People who wanted to own businesses would create jobs (such as in a factory). This would provide income to others. Again, it was like they were guided by “the invisible hand” to produce something that wasn’t their original goal.

He also described how nations’ economies had changed and developed throughout history. He predicted that they would continue to become wealthier by the division of labor. He meant that people would learn to do one small part of a big job and would do it over and over (and this came true). He said that when businesses can compete with each other for customers, it would allow the invisible hand to work. The government didn't need to get involved, because people would only pay so much for a product, and so they would really be deciding what the prices would be. Wages for employees would work the same way. However, he did believe that the government should regulate some things and should provide public services.

Smith was appointed commissioner of customs in 1778 and died in 1790. He left no direct descendants.


1. What did Smith mean when he said, "the invisible hand?"

2. What did Smith mean by a division of labor?

3. What did Smith think about government involvement in the economy?

All Aboard!

 

One of the hallmarks of the Industrial Revolution was the steam powered locomotive. With the invention of the steam engine, as well as improved iron production techniques, iron rails were laid down across the industrialized world. Steam-powered locomotives, fueled by coal and water, carried people, goods, and technology faster than before. Perishable goods, like food and dairy products, could be shipped from the countryside and arrive in developing cities before they spoiled. Raw materials could be sent quickly to growing factories.

1) How did the transition from human/animal labor to steam-powered machinery fundamentally change the daily lives of workers (02:06-02:24)?

2) Why was the shift from canal-based transport to the railway considered a "revolutionary step" for global trade and local industry (02:36-03:51)?

3) What were the technical innovations (like George Stevenson's Rocket) that made trains more efficient, and why was public confidence in these new machines so important (07:52-08:32, 09:35-10:02)

4) How did the advent of affordable train travel change the social habits of ordinary people, such as the concept of the "vacation" or "holiday" (17:25-18:17)?

5) How did railways force a shift from "local time" to a unified national time, and why was this necessary for a modern society (19:16-19:53)?

6) In what ways did the mass production of locomotives, such as the 4-4-0 in America, influence other industries (29:06-29:43)?

Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014 is the world's largest and only operating 4-8-8-4 articulated steam locomotive, managed via the Union Pacific Steam Program.

Sold for Silk

Imagine you are a 11-year-old girl leaving your family to work in a Japanese textile factory in the early 1900s. How much are you willing to sacrifice to help your family and your country?

1) Which details in the video are supported by historical evidence?

2) How does the video use vivid language and an imagined individual story to influence the viewer's emotions?

3) What is the difference between showing that some workers experienced terrible conditions and proving that those conditions were typical?

4) How could we use this video alongside the textbook documents to compare female mill workers in England and Japan?

5) What additional sources would we need before accepting the video's claims about contracts, debt, illness, and death?

Is Japan the most modern and advanced country in the world? Well, Japan is certainly at the top, but it wasn't always that way. Before the Meiji Restoration (1868) Japan was closed to the outside world. Before 1868, it was the time of the samurai and feudal society.After 1868, Japan started to compete internationally for the first time during the industrial revolution. At the time, the most sought after good with the MADE IN JAPAN label was ... SILK.

Oliver!

If a society becomes wealthier but some people become poorer, is that progress?

The Industrial Revolution increased production, expanded cities, and helped transform the economy. But industrialization also created serious problems involving poverty, working conditions, inequality, pollution, and urban life.

The 1968 musical film Oliver! provides a useful lens for examining the social consequences of industrial-era Britain. Based on Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, the film depicts poverty, child vulnerability, social class, and life in nineteenth-century London. Use its scenes as historical evidence while distinguishing dramatic storytelling from the broader historical record.

Clip investigation A: The workhouse and “Food, Glorious Food”

1) What does the scene suggest about poverty, hunger, and how society treats poor children?
2) Why might a society with growing wealth still have hungry people?
3) Is this scene evidence about factory conditions, or about poverty and the treatment of the poor more broadly?


Clip investigation B: Oliver meets the Artful Dodger and Fagin's group

4) What choices are available to children living in poverty?
5) How does the film portray the relationship between poverty, survival, and crime?
6) What might a historian need to learn before concluding that industrialization caused crime?


Clip investigation C: “Consider Yourself” and London street life

7) What advantages might a growing city offer—jobs, markets, trade, and entertainment?
8) What problems might arise when a city's population grows faster than its housing and sanitation systems?
9) Does a lively city necessarily mean that everyone living there has a good life?

Dayton, Ohio

 

What makes a city successful?

Why was Dayton, Ohio such an innovative and important city of the Industrial Revolution?  

What can Dayton teach us about how cities stay competitive in today's global economy?

Dayton, Ohio, transformed from a small river trading post into one of America's most inventive and productive industrial powerhouses before facing a major manufacturing decline in the late 20th century. Dayton had more patents per capita than any other U.S. city, and one in six of the nation’s corporate executives had spent part of their career at the legendary National Cash Register Co. Beginning in the mid-1800s, Dayton rose as a hub of manufacturing and entrepreneurship. Companies such as NCR, the Barney & Smith Car Company, McCall’s Publishing, DELCO, the Wright Company, and the Huffy Corporation set the city apart as a center of innovation and forward-thinking.