ABSTRACT
In the field of economic history as well as that of economic theory there has been a tendency to overemphasize the factor of supply. The theory is simple. It may be briefly stated thus: necessary concomitants of the growth of large-scale production, and especially of its initial stages, are changes in shape of the demand schedule, to use Marshallian terminology; a shift in the demand schedules of the group, or an increase in demand; the introduction of new wants; and mobility of individuals within and between the various classes of the population. The social and economic milieu of eighteenth-century England formed the background for the first appearance of Industrial Revolution. From a country predominantly rural, with the greater part of industry carried on in the homes of the workers under various forms of the putting-out system, it was transformed by the end of the century into a country of growing industrialism with factories supplanting the home as the producing unit.
