Professor Brophy
History 102

Agricultural and Demographic Revolutions (18th. Century)

I. Definitions
-structural changes on two important social fronts
-two critical preconditions for understanding urbanization and industrialization

II. The Improving Landlords
-incentive for change
-removing fallow fields
-improved crop rotation: clover & turnips
-role of fertilizer; stall feeding of livestock
-Charles ‘Turnip’ Townshend; Thomas Coke’s four-crop rotation
-new crops: sugar beets and potato
-technology: scythe, iron plow, seed drills
-Brit. vs. Fr. acre: 2.5 more
resumé:  three-fold increase of food (1700-1850)

III. Structural and Social Changes of Agriculture Revolution
-closing commons; end of open-field farming
-final phases of enclosure, 1760-1815: a fourth of all Eng. arable land brought under plow
-ramifications of enclosure; rise of cottage weaving, wage labor, rural privation, yeoman class wanes; communal ties loosen
-a‘world we have lost’: an unsentimental view of the end of early modern agricultural life
-agricultural capitalism’s winners and losers

IV.  The Demographic Revolution
-end of cyclical population growth from 1350 to 1750: why pop. increase after 1750?
-lower mortality rate:  improved sewage, marsh drainage, decline of plague
-index: Eng. infant mortality: 1700, 50%; 1800, 25 percent
-expanding food markets: diminution of famine and epidemic
-Thomas Malthus’ skepticism

V. New Demographics
-pop. of Prussia and Spain double; Hungary triples
-England: 1700, 5.5 million; 1800, 9 million
-France: 1700, 20 million; 1800, 26 million
-Europe: 1700, 120 million; 1800, 190 million
-urbanization not immediate!
-life expectancy increased: 1500, 30s; 19th cen. 50s; 20th cen., 60s/70s

VI. Sexual Revolution
-rising fertility after 1750—why?
-better nutrition lowers age of menarche
-land inheritance no longer necessary
    cottage industry & domestic service
-cottage industry encouraged large families
-village codes no longer control courtship
-the potato can sustain larger families per acre

VII.  Summary
-factors for gradual decline in death rate
-increase in food supply
-new farming and land clearance raise production and population; altered rural life
-new staples (potato) offer better nourishment
-reduction of epidemics; rise in birth rates
-new perception of infinite resources after 1850
-mass urbanization after 1850; 80 million peasants leave countryside