The
Industrial Revolution, now also known as the
First Industrial Revolution, was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States, in the period from about
1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from
hand production methods to
machines, new
chemical manufacturing and
iron production processes, the increasing use of
steam power and
water power, the development of
machine tools and the rise of the
mechanized factory system. The Industrial Revolution also led to an unprecedented rise in the rate of population growth.
Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial Revolution in terms of employment, value of output and
capital invested. The
textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods.
The Industrial Revolution began in
Great Britain, and many of the technological
innovations were of British origin. By the mid-18th century Britain was the world's leading commercial nation, controlling a global trading empire with
colonies in North America and the Caribbean, and with political influence on the
Indian subcontinent, particularly
Bengal Subah, through the activities of the
East India Company. The development of trade and the rise of business were among the major causes of the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say that the major effect of the Industrial Revolution was that the
standard of living for the general population in the western world began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries.
GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern
capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita
economic growth in capitalist economies. Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the
history of humanity since the
domestication of animals and plants.
Although the
structural change from agriculture to industry is widely associated with the Industrial Revolution, in the United Kingdom it was already almost complete by 1760.
The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and
social changes.
Eric Hobsbawm held that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while
T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830. Rapid
industrialization first began in Britain, starting with mechanized spinning in the 1780s, with high rates of growth in steam power and iron production occurring after 1800.
Mechanized textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging
in Belgium and the United States and later textiles in France.
An economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s when the adoption of the original innovations of the Industrial Revolution, such as mechanized spinning and weaving, slowed and their markets matured. Innovations developed late in the period, such as the increasing adoption of locomotives, steamboats and steamships,
hot blast iron smelting and new technologies, such as the
electrical telegraph, widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s, were not powerful enough to drive high rates of growth. Rapid economic growth began to occur after 1870, springing from a new group of innovations in what has been called the
Second Industrial Revolution. These new innovations included new steel making processes,
mass-production,
assembly lines,
electrical grid systems, the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the use of increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution .
The
Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the
Technological Revolution,was a phase of rapid
industrialization from the
late 19th century into the
early 20th century. The
First Industrial Revolution, which ended in the middle of 19th century, was punctuated by a slowdown in important inventions before the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870. Though a number of its characteristic events can be traced to earlier innovations in
manufacturing, such as the establishment of a
machine tool industry, the development of methods for manufacturing
interchangeable parts and the invention of the
Bessemer Process to produce
steel, the Second Industrial Revolution is generally dated between
1870 and 1914 (the beginning of
World War I).
Advancements in manufacturing and production technology enabled the widespread adoption of technological systems such as
telegraph and
railroad networks, gas and
water supply, and
sewage systems, which had earlier been concentrated to a few select cities. The enormous expansion of rail and telegraph lines after 1870 allowed unprecedented movement of people and ideas, which culminated in a new wave of
globalization. In the same time period, new technological systems were introduced, most significantly
electrical power and
telephones. The Second Industrial Revolution continued into the 20th century with early factory
electrification and the
production line, and ended at the beginning of
World War I.