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Chapter Thirteen of The Atlantic World focuses on industrialization. During this time, many aspects of the world flourished. Nothing happened over night, but “the transformation of the mercantile capital into industrial capital” and “the transportation of hundreds of thousands of impoverished men and women from the British Isles to the United States” changed the world in such a great way that industrialization “[shrank] the Atlantic.. in the mid-nineteenth century” (427).
Industrialization began with textiles. Weaving was a domestic role done by farmers’ wives. They were paid by the piece and marketed by merchants. The demand of cotton affected the Atlantic world. Cotton was not grown in English latitudes; therefore, there was a shift from cottage work to water-powered mills. The British ships brought millions of pounds of cotton from various parts of the world such as the United States and the Caribbean. Britain’s massive demand for cotton enabled the United States to “sustain a non capitalist, slave based society” (429). In 1793, the cotton gin was created and allowed for the United States to keep up with the demand of cotton like in India with new modern technology. Now the idea of a commodity changing the landscape of the world is not new. Sugar demand changed the world. In Tyler Mendoza’s post, it discusses this idea. Mitz’s work discusses the rise of sugar and its meaning to different classes. Aristocrats thought it enhanced their status whereas those who had less money saw it as survival, giving them calories. Also, sugar fed into the slave trade like cotton did.
Technology also affected migration. New technologies allowed those mostly in Britain to travel quicker and faster among the Atlantic. Due to various groups of people travelling, it meant that those places created laws in order to approve or deny entry or citizenship.