A term usually associated with the accelerated pace of economic change, the associated technical and mechanical innovations, and the emergence of mass markets for manufactured goods. It began in Britain in the last quarter of the 18th-c with the mechanization of the cotton and woollen industries of Lancashire, C Scotland, and the West Riding of Yorkshire. After the harnessing of steam power, cotton and woollen factories were increasingly concentrated in towns, and there were hugely increased rates of urbanization. A rapid population increase, stimulated by greater economic opportunities for early marriage, is also associated with this type of economic growth. The mechanization of heavier industries (iron and steel) was slower, but sustained the Industrial Revolution in its second phase from c.1830. In the second half of the 19th-c, Britain's early industrial lead was increasingly challenged by Germany and the United States. The use of machines was central to the new economics, making possible the division of labour, which greatly increased productivity. Marx believed that industrialization, in separating the workers from their products, made them alienated and less than human. However, he still believed in the uprecedented power of technological advance, condemning the idiocy of rural life. Other economic historians have highlighted the importance of technological invention and commercial enterprise.
The Industrial Revolution was the major shift of technological, socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the late 18th and early 19th century that began in Britain and spread throughout the world. It began with the mechanisation of the textile industries and the development of iron-making techniques, and trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways. The introduction of steam power (fuelled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity. The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries.
The period of time covered by the Industrial Revolution varies with different historians.
The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world.
The first Industrial Revolution merged into the Second Industrial Revolution around 1850, when technological and economic progress gained momentum with the development of steam-powered ships, railways, and later in the nineteenth century with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation.
It has been argued that GDP per capita was much more stable and progressed at a much slower rate until the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, and that it has since increased rapidly in capitalist countries.
Nomenclature
The term Industrial Revolution applied to technological change was common in the 1830s. Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 spoke of "an industrial revolution, a revolution which at the same time changed the whole of civil society".
In his book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Raymond Williams states in the entry for Industry: The idea of a new social order based on major industrial change was clear in Southey and Owen, between 1811 and 1818, and was implicit as early as Blake in the early 1790s and Wordsworth at the turn of the century.
Credit for popularising the term may be given to Arnold Toynbee, whose lectures given in 1881 gave a detailed account of the process.
Innovations
The invention of the steam engine was the most important innovation of the Industrial Revolution. James Watt, later to be a member of the Lunar Society, developed the idea of using steam to power machines into a practicality thus enabling rapid development of efficient semi-automated factories on a previously unimaginable scale. Earlier improvements in iron smelting and metal working based on the use of coke rather than charcoal allowed Watt and others before him to exploit the possibilities of using steam as a form of power. Earlier in the 18th century, the textile industry had harnessed water power to drive improved spinning machines and looms. These textile mills became the model for the organisation of human labour in factories, epitomised by Cottonopolis the name given to the vast collection of mills, factories and administration offices based in Manchester.
Besides the innovation of machinery in factories, the assembly line greatly improved efficiency.
Transfer of knowledge
Knowledge of new innovation was spread by several means. During the whole of the Industrial Revolution and for the century before, all European countries and America engaged in study-touring;
Another means for the spread of innovation was by the network of informal philosophical societies—like the Lunar Society of Birmingham—in which members met to discuss science and often its application to manufacturing.
There were publications describing technology. Cyclopaedia contains an enormous amount of information about the science and technology of the first half of the Industrial Revolution, very well illustrated by fine engravings.
Periodical publications about manufacturing and technology began to appear in the last decade of the 18th century, and many regularly included notice of the latest patents.
Industry
Mining
Coal mining in Britain, particularly in South Wales started early. Before the steam engine, pits were often shallow bell pits following a seam of coal along the surface which were abandoned as the coal was extracted. The introduction of the steam engine greatly facilitated the removal of water and enabled shafts to be made deeper, enabling more coal to be extracted. These were developments that had begun before the Industrial Revolution, but the adoption of James Watt's more efficient steam engine with its separate condenser from the 1770s reduced the fuel costs of engines, making mines more profitable.
Metallurgy
The major change in the metal industries during the era of the Industrial Revolution was the replacement of organic fuels based on wood with fossil fuel based on coal. Much of this happened somewhat before the Industrial Revolution, based on innovations by Sir Clement Clerke and others from 1678, using coal reverberatory furnaces known as cupolas.
This was followed by Abraham Darby, who made great strides using coke to fuel his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale in 1709. However, the coke pig iron he made was used mostly for the production of cast iron goods such as pots and kettles.
Bar iron for smiths to forge into consumer goods was still made in finery forges, as it long had been. From 1785, perhaps because the improved version of potting and stamping was about to come out of patent, a great expansion in the output of the British iron industry began.
Up to that time, British iron manufacturers had used considerable amounts of imported iron to supplement native supplies. However, from 1785, imports decreased because of the new iron making technology, and Britain became an exporter of bar iron as well as manufactured wrought iron consumer goods.
Since iron was becoming cheaper and more plentiful, it also became a major structural material following the building of the innovative Iron Bridge in 1778 by Abraham Darby III.
An improvement was made in the production of steel, which was an expensive commodity and used only where iron would not do, such as for the cutting edge of tools and for springs.
The supply of cheaper iron and steel aided the development of boilers and steam engines, and eventually railways. Improvements in machine tools allowed better working of iron and steel and further boosted the industrial growth of Britain.
Chemicals
The large scale production of chemicals was an important development during the Industrial Revolution.
The production of an alkali on a large scale became an important goal as well, and Nicolas Leblanc succeeded in 1791 in introducing a method for the production of sodium carbonate.
These two chemicals were very important because they enabled the introduction of a host of other inventions, replacing many small-scale operations with more cost-effective and controllable processes.
The development of bleaching powder (calcium hypochlorite) by Scottish chemist Charles Tennant in about 1800, based on the discoveries of French chemist Claude Louis Berthollet, revolutionized the bleaching processes in the textile industry by dramatically reducing the time required (from months to days) for the traditional process then in use, which required repeated exposure to the sun in bleach fields after soaking the textiles with alkali or sour milk.
Steam power
The development of the stationary steam engine was an essential early element of the Industrial Revolution; however, for most of the period of the Industrial Revolution, the majority of industries still relied on wind and water power as well as horse and man-power for driving small machines.
The industrial use of steam power started with Thomas Savery in 1698. This machine used steam at 8 to 10 atmospheres (120-150 psi and did not use a piston and cylinder but applied the steam pressure directly on to the surface of water in a cylinder to force it along an outlet pipe. It was used as a low-lift water pump in a few mines and numerous water works, but it was not a success since it was limited in the height it could raise water and was prone to boiler explosions.
The first successful machine was the atmospheric engine, a low performance steam engine invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. His engines used a piston and cylinder, and it operated with steam just above atmospheric pressure which was used to produce a partial vacuum in the cylinder when condensed by jets of cold water. The engine produced a succession of power strokes which could work a pump but could not drive a rotating wheel. They were successfully put to use for pumping out mines in Britain, with the engine on the surface working a pump at the bottom of the mine by a long connecting rod. These were large machines, requiring a lot of capital to build, but produced about 5 hp. Despite using a lot of fuel, Newcomen engines continued to be used in the coalfields until the early decades of the nineteenth century because they were reliable and easy to maintain.
By 1729, when Newcomen died, his engines had spread to France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Sweden.
Its working was fundamentally unchanged until James Watt succeeded in making his Watt steam engine in 1769, which incorporated a series of improvements, especially the separate steam condenser chamber. The Watt steam engine's ability to drive rotary machinery also meant it could be used to drive a factory or mill directly.
The development of machine tools, such as the lathe, planing and shaping machines powered by these engines, enabled all the metal parts of the engines to be easily and accurately cut and in turn made it possible to build larger and more powerful engines.
Until about 1800, the most common pattern of steam engine was the beam engine, which was built within a stone or brick engine-house, but around that time various patterns of portable (readily removable engines, but not on wheels) engines were developed, such as the table engine.
Richard Trevithick, a Cornish blacksmith, began to use high pressure steam with improved boilers in 1799. This allowed engines to be compact enough to be used on mobile road and rail locomotives and steam boats.
In the early 19th century after the expiration of Watt's patent, the steam engine had many improvements by a host of inventors and engineers.
Textile manufacture
In the early 18th century, British textile manufacture was based on wool which was processed by individual artisans, doing the spinning and weaving on their own premises.
Use of the spinning wheel and hand loom restricted the production capacity of the industry, but incremental advances increased productivity to the extent that manufactured cotton goods became the dominant British export by the early decades of the 19th century.
Lewis Paul and John Wyatt of Birmingham patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system for drawing wool to a more even thickness. Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by a donkey. fifty spindles turned on five of Paul and Wyatt's machines proving more successful than their first Mill and operated until 1764. Lewis Paul also invented the hand driven carding machine. Lewis's invention was later developed and improved by Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton, although this came about under great suspicion after a fire at Daniel Bourn's factory in Leominster which specifically used Paul and Wyatt's spindles. The output of an individual labourer increased dramatically, with the effect that the new machines were seen as a threat to employment, and early innovators were attacked and their inventions destroyed.
To capitalize upon these advances, it took a class of entrepreneurs, of which the most famous is Richard Arkwright. Arkwright nurtured the inventors, patented the ideas, financed the initiatives, and protected the machines. He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and he developed the use of power — first horse power, then water power and finally steam power — which made cotton manufacture a mechanized industry.
Factories
Industrialisation also led to the creation of the factory.
Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton were other prominent early industrialists.
The factory system was largely responsible for the rise of the modern city, as workers migrated into the cities in search of employment in the factories. Nowhere was this better illustrated than the mills and associated industries of Manchester, nicknamed Cottonopolis, and arguably the world's first industrial city. For much of the 19th century, production was done in small mills, which were typically powered by water and built to serve local needs.
The transition to industrialisation was not wholly smooth.
One of the earliest reformers of factory conditions was Robert Owen.
Machine tools
The Industrial Revolution could not have developed without machine tools, for they enabled manufacturing machines to be made. The mechanical parts of early textile machines were sometimes called 'clock work' because of the metal spindles and gears they incorporated. The manufacture of textile machines drew craftsmen from these trades and is the origin of the modern engineering industry.
Machines were built by various craftsmen—carpenters made wooden framings, and smiths and turners made metal parts. A good example of how machine tools changed manufacturing took place in Birmingham, England, in 1830. The invention of a new machine by William Joseph Gillott, William Mitchell and James Stephen Perry allowed mass manufacture of robust, cheap steel pen nibs; Because of the difficulty of manipulating metal and the lack of machine tools, the use of metal was kept to a minimum. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, machines with metal frames became more common, but they required machine tools to make them economically. Before the advent of machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools of hammers, files, scrapers, saws and chisels. Small metal parts were readily made by this means, but for large machine parts, production was very laborious and costly.
Apart from workshop lathes used by craftsmen, the first large machine tool was the cylinder boring machine used for boring the large-diameter cylinders on early steam engines. The planing machine, the slotting machine and the shaping machine were developed in the first decades of the 19th century. Although the milling machine was invented at this time, it was not developed as a serious workshop tool until during the Second Industrial Revolution.
Military production had a hand in the development of machine tools. Henry Maudslay, who trained a school of machine tool makers early in the 19th century, was employed at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, as a young man where he would have seen the large horse-driven wooden machines for cannon boring made and worked by the Verbruggans. He later worked for Joseph Bramah on the production of metal locks, and soon after he began working on his own. These were all metal and were the first machines for mass production and making components with a degree of interchangeability. The lessons Maudslay learned about the need for stability and precision he adapted to the development of machine tools, and in his workshops he trained a generation of men to build on his work, such as Richard Roberts, Joseph Clement and Joseph Whitworth.
James Fox of Derby had a healthy export trade in machine tools for the first third of the century, as did Matthew Murray of Leeds. Roberts was a maker of high-quality machine tools and a pioneer of the use of jigs and gauges for precision workshop measurement.
Transportation
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, inland transport was by navigable rivers and roads, with coastal vessels employed to move heavy goods by sea.
The Industrial Revolution improved Britain’s transport infrastructure with a turnpike road network, a canal, and waterway network, and a railway network.
Navigable rivers
All the major rivers of the United Kingdom were made more navigable during the Industrial Revolution. The Severn, in particular, was used for the movement of goods to the Midlands which had been imported into Bristol from abroad, and for the export of goods from centres of production in Shropshire such as iron goods from Coalbrookdale.
Coastal sail
Sailing vessels had long been used for moving goods round the British coast. Transporting goods onwards within Britain by sea was common during the whole of the Industrial Revolution and only fell away with the growth of the railways at the end of the period.
Canals
Canals began to be built in the late eighteenth century to link the major manufacturing centres in the Midlands and north with seaports and with London, at that time the largest manufacturing centre in the country.
Britain's canal network, together with its surviving mill buildings, is one of the most enduring features of the early Industrial Revolution to be seen in Britain.
Roads
Much of the original British road system was poorly maintained by thousands of local parishes, but from the 1720s (and occasionally earlier) turnpike trusts were set up to charge tolls and maintain some roads.
Railways
Wagonways for moving coal in the mining areas had started in the 17th century and were often associated with canal or river systems for the further movement of coal. The construction of major railways connecting the larger cities and towns began in the 1830s but only gained momentum at the very end of the first Industrial Revolution.
After many of the workers had completed the railways, they did not return to their rural lifestyles but instead remained in the cities, providing additional workers for the factories.
Railways helped Britain's trade enormously, providing a quick and easy method of transport.
Social effects
In terms of social structure, the Industrial Revolution witnessed the triumph of a middle class of industrialists and businessmen over a landed class of nobility and gentry.
Ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of labour dominated by a pace set by machines. Harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the industrial revolution took place as well. Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel—child labour, dirty living conditions and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.
Child labour
Child labour had existed before the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase. Industrial workers were better paid than those in agriculture.
Politicians and the government tried to limit child labour by law, but factory owners resisted; In 1833, the first law against child labour, the Factory Act of 1833, was passed in England: Children younger than nine were not allowed to work, children were not permitted to work at night, and the work day of youth under the age of 18 was limited to twelve hours.
Housing
Living conditions during the Industrial Revolution varied from the splendour of the homes of the owners to the squalor of the lives of the workers.
Poor people lived in small houses in cramped streets. The Industrial Revolution created a larger middle class of professionals such as lawyers and doctors.
Luddites
The rapid industrialisation of the English economy cost many craft workers their jobs. The textile industry in particular industrialized early, and many weavers found themselves suddenly unemployed since they could no longer compete with machines which only required relatively limited (and unskilled) labour to produce more cloth than a single weaver. Many such unemployed workers, weavers and others, turned their animosity towards the machines that had taken their jobs and began destroying factories and machinery.
Organization of Labour
Conditions for the working class had been bad for millennia. The Industrial Revolution, however, concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, and this facilitated the organisation of trade unions to help advance the interests of working people.
The main method the unions used to effect change was strike action.
In England, the Combination Act forbade workers to form any kind of trade union from 1799 until its repeal in 1824.
In 1842, a General Strike involving cotton workers and colliers and organised through the Chartist movement stopped production across Great Britain.
Other effects
The application of steam power to the industrial processes of printing supported a massive expansion of newspaper and popular book publishing, which reinforced rising literacy and demands for mass political participation.
During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically.
The Industrial Revolution had significant impacts on the structure of society.
However, the need for a large workforce and resulting wages also enticed many women into industrial work, where they were often paid much less in relation to men.
Intellectual paradigms
Capitalism
The advent of The Enlightenment provided an intellectual framework which welcomed the practical application of the growing body of scientific knowledge — a factor evidenced in the systematic development of the steam engine, guided by scientific analysis, and the development of the political and sociological analyses, culminating in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. One of the main arguments for capitalism is that industrialisation have increased wealth for all, as evidenced by raising life expectancy, reduced working hours, and no work for children and the elderly.
Criticism
Marxism
According to Karl Marx, industrialisation polarised society into the bourgeoisie (those who own the means of production, the factories and the land) and the much larger proletariat (the working class who actually perform the labour necessary to extract something valuable from the means of production).
Romantic Movement
Concurrent with the Industrial Revolution there developed an intellectual and artistic hostility towards the new industrialisation known as the Romantic Movement. The movement stressed the importance of "nature" in art and language, in contrast to the 'monstrous' machines and factories.
Second Industrial Revolution
The insatiable demand of the railways for more durable rail led to the development of the means to cheaply mass-produce steel. Steel is often cited as the first of several new areas for industrial mass-production, which are said to characterize a "Second Industrial Revolution", beginning around 1850. This second Industrial Revolution gradually grew to include the chemical industries, petroleum refining and distribution, electrical industries, and, in the twentieth century, the automotive industries, and was marked by a transition of technological leadership from Britain to the United States and Germany.
The introduction of hydroelectric power generation in the Alps enabled the rapid industrialisation of coal-deprived northern Italy, beginning in the 1890s.
By the 1890s, industrialisation in these areas had created the first giant industrial corporations with burgeoning global interests, as companies like U.S. Steel, General Electric, and Bayer AG joined the railroad companies on the world's stock markets.
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