The Industrial Revolution 2.0

The Industrial Revolution:
Industrial Revolution, in modern history, was

the process of change from a handicraft economy to
one dominated
by industry and machine manufacturing. These
technological changes introduced novel ways of
working and living and fundamentally transformed
society. This process began in Britain in the 18th
century and from there spread to other parts of the
world. Although used earlier by French writers, the
term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the
English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–83)
to describe Britain’s economic development from 1760
to 1840. Since Toynbee’s time the term has been more
broadly applied as a process of
economic transformation than as a period of time in a
particular setting. This explains why some areas, such
as China and India, did not begin their first industrial
revolutions until the 20th century, while others, such
as the United States and western Europe, began
undergoing “second” industrial revolutions by the late
19th century.
The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution
were technological, socioeconomic, and cultural.
The technological changes included the following:
(1) the use of new basic materials,chiefly iron and steel
(2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels
and motive power, such as coal, the steam
engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal
combustion engine
(3) the invention of new machines, such as
the spinning jenny ( The spinning jenny is a multi-
spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key
developments in the industrialization of textile
manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It
was invented in 1764 or 1765 by James Hargreaves in
Stan hill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England ) and
the power loom ( a loom powered by water, steam, or
electricity rather than by hand ). The first power loom
was designed in 1786 by Edmund Cartwright and first
built that same year. the textile industry's increasing
use of power looms. that permitted increased
production with a smaller expenditure of human
energy.
(4) A new organization of work known as the factory
system, which entailed increased division of labour and
specialization of function
(5) important developments in transportation and
communication, including the steam locomotive
steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio.
(6) the increasing application of science to industry.
These technological changes made possible a
tremendously increased use of natural resources and
the mass production of manufactured goods.
Important inventions of the Industrial Revolution
included the steam engine, used to power steam
locomotives, steamboats, steamships, and machines in
factories; electric generators and electric motors; the
incandescent lamp (light bulb); the telegraph and
telephone; and the internal-combustion engine and
automobile, whose mass production was perfected
by Henry Ford in the early 20th century.
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, business
magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and
chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass
production.
Important inventors of the Industrial Revolution
included James Watt, who greatly improved the steam
engine; Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson,
who pioneered the steam locomotive; Robert Fulton,
who designed the first commercially successful paddle
steamer; Michael Faraday, who demonstrated the first
electric generator and electric motor; Joseph Wilson
Swan and Thomas Alva Edison, who each
independently invented the light bulb; Samuel Morse,
who designed a system of electric telegraphy and
invented Morse Code; Alexander Graham Bell, who is
credited with inventing the telephone, and Gottlieb
Daimler and Karl Benz, who constructed the first
motorcycle and motorcar, respectively, powered by
high-speed internal-combustion engines of their own
design.
The Second Industrial Revolution was a period of

groundbreaking advancements in manufacturing,
technology, and industrial production methods,
particularly in the United States, from around 1870 to
1914.
Factory Automation
While factory automation and productivity had been
improved by the limited use of First Industrial
Revolution inventions such as the steam engine,
interchangeable parts, the assembly line, and mass
production, most late 19th century factories were still
water-powered. During the c, newly developed
resources like steel, petroleum, and railroads, along
with the superior new power source of electricity,
allowed factories to increase production to unheard-of
levels. Combined with these, the development of
machines controlled by rudimentary computers, gave
rise to automated production. By the late 1940s, many
of the assembly line factories of the First Industrial
Revolution quickly evolved into fully automated
factories.
Steel
Invented in 1856 by Sir Henry Bessemer, the Bessemer
process allowed for the mass-production of steel.
Stronger and cheaper to produce, steel soon replaced
iron in the building industry. By making it cost-effective
to build new rail lines, steel enabled the rapid
expansion of America’s railroad network. It also made
it possible to build larger ships, skyscrapers, and
longer, stronger bridges.
In 1865, the open-hearth process enabled the
production of steel cable, rods, plates, gears, and axels
used to build the higher-pressure steam boilers needed
for more powerful factory engines. With World War I
on the horizon by 1912, steel made it possible to build
larger, stronger, and more powerful warships, tanks,
and guns.
Electrification:
In 1879, famed American inventor Thomas Edison
perfected his design for a practical electric lightbulb. By
the late 1880s, the first efficient commercial electrical
generators made large-scale transmission of electrical
power to the public possible. Called “the most
important engineering achievement of the 20th
century” by the National Academy of Engineering,
electric lighting greatly improved working conditions
and productivity in factories. By replacing the fire
hazards of gaslighting, the initial cost of converting to
electric lighting was quickly offset by reduced fire
insurance premiums. In 1886, the first DC (direct
current) electric motor was developed, and by 1920, it
powered passenger railways in many cities.
Development of Railroads
Much of the explosion of economic production in
America during the Second Industrial Revolution has
been attributed to the expansion of the railroads.
By the 1860s, the increased availability and lower cost
of Bessemer process steel finally allowed the railroads
to utilize it in quantity. Early U.S. railroads had used
wrought iron rails imported from Britain. However,
being soft and often full of impurities, iron rails could
not support heavy locomotives and required frequent
repair and replacement. As a far more durable and
readily available material, steel soon replaced iron as
the standard for railroad rails. Not only did the longer
sections of steel rails allow for tracks to be laid far
faster, more powerful locomotives, which could pull
longer trains, which greatly increased the productivity
of the railroads.
First used to report the current location of trains, the
telegraph further facilitated the growth of the
railroads, as well as financial and commodity markets
by reducing the cost of transmitting information within
and between firms.
During the 1880s, America’s railroads laid more than
75,000 miles of new track, the most anywhere in
history. Between 1865 and 1916, the transcontinental
network of railroads, America’s “magic carpet made of
steel,” expanded from 35,000 miles to over 254,000
miles. By 1920, rail had become the dominant means
of transportation, resulting in a steady decrease in the
cost of shipping lasting throughout the rest of the
century. The railroad soon became the main way by
which companies transported raw materials to their
factories and delivered final products to consumers.
Social and Economic Shifts

Within just a few decades, the Second Industrial
Revolution transformed the United States from a
mainly rural agricultural society to a booming industrial
economy centered in major cities. Since rural areas
were now connected to large urban markets by a well-
developed transportation network, unavoidable crop
failures no longer doomed them to poverty. At the
same time, however, industrialization and urbanization
drastically reduced the share of the population
engaged in agriculture.
Between 1870 and 1900, almost all industrialized

nations enjoyed booming economies that led to
dramatically lower consumer prices, resulting in greatly
improved living conditions.
While it was a period of unprecedented progress and
innovation that propelled some people into vast
wealth, it also condemned many to poverty, creating a
deep social chasm between the industrial machine and
the working middle class that fueled it.
Thanks to the development of sewage systems in cities
along with the passage of drinking water safety laws,
public health improved greatly and rates of death from
infectious diseases fell. However, the overall health of
the working class declined due to the many hours
spent toiling in the harsh and unhealthy conditions of
the factories.
For working-class families, prosperity was often
followed by poverty as the availability of work rose and
fell depending on the demand for goods. As
mechanism reduced the demand for labor, many
people who had first been drawn from farms to cities
to work in the factories lost their jobs. No longer able
to compete with the lower cost of mass-produced
goods, many artisans and craftsmen lost their
livelihoods.
Between the Civil War and WWI, over 25 million
people from Europe, as well as Russia and Asia,
immigrated to the United States drawn by the prospect
of well-paid factory jobs. By 1900, the U.S. Census
revealed that 25% of the American population was
foreign-born.
Child Labor
Perhaps the most tragic negative aspect of the Second
Industrial Revolution was the growth of unregulated
child labor. To help their impoverished families,
children, often as young as four years old, were forced
to work long hours for little pay in factories under
unhealthy and unsafe conditions. By 1900, an
estimated 1.7 million children under the age of fifteen
were working in American factories.
Conclusion:
The Industrial Revolution led to many new theories,
especially in social, economic, and scientific areas.
Many of these theories had positive effects, but quite a
few had negative effects. The new scientific theories
were mostly positive because many resulted in
inventions that improved the quality of life for most
people. Social changes had both positive and negative
impacts. However, many of the negative impacts, such
as poor working conditions and child labor were
reformed through formation of labor unions and
passage of child labor laws. Economic changes were
also mostly positive. However, the inequality between
coutries began to grow, depending on if the country
was industrialized or not.

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The Industrial Revolution:

Industrial Revolution, in modern history, was

The Second Industrial Revolution was a period of

Social and Economic Shifts

Between 1870 and 1900, almost all industrialized

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