The five major livelihood issues of 'clothing, food, housing, transportation, and use', with clothing and food being the priority.
After more than sixty years of rapid and continuous development, China's manufacturing industry has become globally recognized as the 'world's factory'. The textile industry is no exception. China's textile industry has developed into the 'world's factory', forming a grand pattern of 'clothing the world'.
Looking back into history, why did the textile industry develop first during the Industrial Revolution, leading later industrialized countries to follow its industrialization process, thus driving other industries towards modernization?
The technological iteration of the cotton textile industry accelerated the demand for machines and mechanical power.
In 1733, mechanic Kay invented the 'flying shuttle', greatly increasing the speed of weaving, leading to a sudden demand for spinning.
In 1765, weaver Hargreaves invented the 'Spinning Jenny', which first triggered a chain reaction of machine inventions and technological innovations in the cotton textile industry.
In 1768, Kay invented the water-powered spinning machine, and in 1779, Crompton combined the advantages of two spinning machines to invent the mule, which was later improved into an automatic cotton spinning machine.
In 1785, Reverend Edmund Cartwright invented the power loom and built the first power loom factory in 1791. Subsequently, other textile machines were invented, achieving mechanized production in the textile industry.
Soon, many industrial sectors such as coal mining and metallurgy also gradually adopted machine production. As machine production increased, the original power sources like stored energy, water power, and wind power could no longer meet the demand.
In 1785, the improved steam engine made by Watt was put into use, providing more convenient power, leading to rapid promotion and greatly advancing the popularization and development of machines. Human society thus entered the 'steam age'.
The coincidence of the textile industry entering the industrial age.
The history of the cotton textile industry in Britain is not very long; the wool textile industry, rooted in wool, was actually the one that received more attention in Britain.
Why did the wool textile industry, which was far more important than the cotton textile industry at that time, not experience the Industrial Revolution first? The wool textile industry originated in the Middle Ages and is one of the most important and oldest industries in British industry, thus being more protected and regulated than any other industry. Arthur Young wrote in 1767: 'Wool has long been regarded as a sacred thing, the foundation of all our wealth, so that to express an opinion that does not contribute to its independent development is somewhat dangerous.'
A long list of laws and regulations aimed to protect, support, and ensure the superiority of its products and its high profits. Under mercantilism protection, the driving force for technological iteration in the wool textile industry was not so strong.
Cotton was first cultivated in India and later spread to Mediterranean countries, reaching Flanders in the 14th century. At the end of the 16th century, some workers from Flanders migrated to England, bringing the cotton textile industry to England. Before the 18th century, cotton cloth in England was mainly imported from India and was considered a luxury item, favored by the upper class, including the queen. The cotton textile industry in England was established in the 17th century by immigrants from the Netherlands (now the Netherlands). The cotton textile industry was an emerging industrial sector, relatively less constrained by guilds and government regulations, which facilitated its development.
Factors of the nature of the cotton textile industry.
Due to the need for clothing, the cotton textile industry had already achieved partial industrialization with the help of stored energy, water power, and human power. It required little investment and small scale, needing only a small workshop and several inexpensive machines. For example, the famous British utopian socialist Robert Owen started a factory with just £200. Moreover, the textile industry belongs to light industry, making it most suitable for a gradual transition from manual labor to industrial machine labor. The natural demand for clothing led to mature inventions and improvements in hand-spinning machines, facilitating efficiency innovations in components, which in turn accelerated the improvement of steam engines. This is also why the development of the textile industry was the easiest to establish in later industrialized countries. At the same time, the textile industry is a labor-intensive industry that can prioritize solving employment issues.
Demand determines supply.
In the British wool textile industry, there was industry discourse power, and the cotton textile industry was initially rejected by the wool textile industry and faced competition from imported goods, with raw materials needing to be imported from the Americas, making its situation difficult. For example, in 1700, to prevent competition from foreign goods, Parliament issued a decree strictly prohibiting the import of printed cloth from India, Persia, and China.
To survive, the cotton textile industry urgently needed to improve productivity and reduce costs, which meant it had to innovate technology.
In the market, cotton products were widely welcomed by people from all walks of life in British society, and market demand continued to grow. To improve productivity and meet market needs, many people were striving for technological innovation in the cotton textile industry, leading to a wave of technological innovation in this field. In 1733, weaver and mechanic John Kay invented the flying shuttle, an important invention in the cotton textile industry. The use of the flying shuttle saved labor, increased speed, and greatly improved work efficiency. However, this only reformed the components of hand tools, not the invention of machines. In 1765, Hargreaves invented the spinning machine that could spin eight threads simultaneously—the Spinning Jenny, which was later improved to spin even more threads simultaneously.
Geographical advantages.
At that time, a key location for the cotton textile industry was very cleverly chosen: Lancashire. This city had two advantages: first, it was close to Liverpool. Liverpool is an important port in Britain, allowing cotton raw materials to be transported here with minimal shipping costs. Moreover, the development of the Americas at this time also provided important favorable conditions.
At this time, places like China and India were no longer the only cotton-growing regions. Cotton cultivation was developing vigorously in the Americas. Moreover, unlike the former, China and India only exported their surplus, while all the harvests from the Americas were shipped to various ports in Europe, thus eliminating raw material issues.
The demonstration effect of the Industrial Revolution.
The British Industrial Revolution began with the cotton textile industry, and the industrial revolutions in France, Italy, and Germany also coincidentally started with the textile industry.
From the 1920s to the late 1940s, it was the first phase of the industrial revolution in France. During this period, various production sectors, mainly the textile industry, began to use machines in large quantities. By 1848, the number of steam engines had increased from 65 in 1820 to 5,000. The development of light industry, especially the cotton textile industry, was the fastest. By the late 1940s, France had 566 cotton textile factories, with a total of 116,000 spinning machines and 3.5 million spindles, consuming more than 60 million kilograms of cotton annually.
The industrial revolution in Germany also began with the textile industry. By 1846, there were 313 spinning mills and 750,000 mechanical spindles in the member states of the customs union, and there were also 450,000 mechanical spindles in Prussia's wool spinning industry. Hand production still dominated the entire textile industry.
The reason why later industrial revolution countries and regions chose the textile industry is inevitably related to the role of the cotton textile industry in the British industrial revolution.
The cotton textile industry spans both agriculture and industry, and is an industry that an agricultural country must inevitably experience in its structural transformation towards becoming an industrialized nation. Historically, hand weaving began with mechanical weaving, transitioning from human power, stored energy, and natural forces to mechanical power. Since farmers have naturally experienced thousands of years of textile labor, the transition from farmers to factory workers is also the easiest to achieve.
It is the most representative of production technology iteration and labor-intensive in light industry. The textile industry belongs to light industry and is most suitable for a gradual transition from manual labor to industrial machine labor. Starting from the improvement of components like the flying shuttle, the technological iteration of components and power continues to deepen, allowing any practitioner to make iterative updates to components based on experience. The first issue that the industrial revolution needs to address is the employment gap for farmers who have lost their land. This industry can absorb labor while not requiring complicated training, allowing workers to start immediately.
An industrial system that can be independently established and started. The raw materials, technology, and labor required for the cotton textile industry can be accumulated within the country or region. In the later industrial revolution starting countries, it is possible to intensively produce cotton yarn without relying on external sources, gathering industrial workers through labor policies. Later countries can also closely follow advanced countries in power technology through latecomer advantages, thus solving the problem of insufficient early accumulation of power technology.
