Skip to Main Content

Industrial Revolution: 3. Entrepreneurs, Factory Owners, Bourgeoisie

Modern World History

Day 4 - Final Products

As a group, you must create a written response to the following:

  • Craft a DBQ response to the following question:
    • Is your family better off now in 1850, after the Industrial Revolution, than it was in 1750, before the Industrial Revolution? Respond with a thesis and three pieces of evidence from your research.

As a group, you must choose one of the following creative products: 

  1. a presentation of your lives as new members of the wealthy middle class or bourgeoisie
  2. a tour of the London sites, museums, and theatres you visit frequently - Google Earth recommended

**Each group member will submit a Google Doc that has their written requirement on the first page and a link to their creative product on the second page to Canvas!**

Examples of London sites you can include:

  • Victoria and Albert Museum
  • British Museum
  • Royal Albert Hall
  • Criterion Theatre
  • Savoy Theatre
  • Old Vic Theatre
  • National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square

Day 1 → 1750-1800

As a moderately wealthy businessman living in London, you are always on the lookout for new economic opportunities. You notice there is a market for cotton textile clothing in India, the crown jewel of British colonies. Getting a loan from the Bank of England, you begin to buy up large quantities of cotton to spin into wool for clothes. You then “put out” your cotton to local tenant farmers who spin it into clothes for you with their families.

Entrepreneur key terms:

-Putting-out system

-capital

-joint-stock companies

Day 2 → 1800-1850

“Putting out” raw materials to farmers to work on in their own homes proves to be inefficient. Taking out another loan from the Bank of England, you purchase a large warehouse and a powerful water frame to create a textile mill. You then begin to hire newly landless tenant farmers from the countryside to work in your mill. You find that your new labor force is unaccustomed to rigid work schedules, so you create a list of restrictive rules and penalties docking pay for workers who violate them.

Factory owner key terms:

-Water frame

-power loom

-Richard Arkwright

Day 3 → 1850-1900

Your little textile mill has grown into a profitable factory enterprise over the past few decades, and has passed down in ownership from father to son. With the wealth your business has brought you, you now have the opportunity to move into the English peerage system, buying up land in the countryside and titles of nobility from Queen Victoria herself! Recent reforms undertaken by the British government have even enabled you to participate in elections and run for the House of Commons!

Bourgeoisie key terms:

-Great Exhibition of 1851

-Reform Act of 1832

-Factory Act of 1833

Day 4 - Programs to use

Blue Valley Library Media | Blue Valley School District #229 | Overland Park, KS 66223