Hello, history buffs and curious minds! Have you ever marveled at the world around you—the bustling cities, the technological marvels, and the complex economies—and wondered how it all came to be? The Industrial Revolution stands as one of the pivotal moments in human history, a period that transformed societies from agricultural economies into industrial powerhouses. We’re going on a fascinating journey back in time to explore a brief history of the Industrial Revolution.
The foundation of the Industrial Revolution was laid in the United Kingdom, and some of the most significant technological inventions were from Britain. The revolution took place in 1815 and continued till the next century. Steam power was a breakthrough in this revolution. The engine transformed water vapor thermal energy into mechanical energy. This invention revolutionized society like never before. The steam engine was mainly used in transportation and factories.
The use of the steam engine changed object manufacturing completely. These objects previously made in small workshops were now produced in big factories. For this reason, small workshops practically disappeared. This helped the economy to prosper.
Steam engines were also used in transportation trade, commerce, and long-distance traveling became more effortless. Freight trains could transport heavy cargo at a speed too high for that climb, almost 40 km/h. Steamships were a breakthrough because navigating wouldn’t have to depend on or be interrupted by weather conditions for the first time in history.
We’ll uncover the innovations that sparked this era, the impact on society and the workforce, and how they laid the foundation for the modern world as we know it. Whether you’re a student of history, a technology enthusiast, or simply intrigued by the evolution of human societies, this exploration promises to offer insights, surprises, and a deeper appreciation for the forces that have shaped our current way of life. So, let’s turn back the pages of history and dive into the story of the Industrial Revolution.
A Brief History of The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution began in England in the 18th century with James Watts’s steam engine. The idea was mainly to pump water from the English iron and coal mines. Also, this artificial power rapidly converted into a driving force for the coming century. This invention was used in textile production, mining, iron smelting, and many other industrial quests in years to come.
The beginning of the 19th century witnessed another invention after the steam engine: railroads. The steam engines also directed the invention of the first steamboats and then steamships. It made regular journeys across the ocean, radically decreasing the time to travel overseas. Many factors that led to the Industrial Revolution can be taken into consideration. However, there are three main factors in which this industrial age could be entrenched:
- Steam.
- Iron.
- Coal.
Coal was used to fire the steam engines and was produced in huge quantities in England. These mechanical devices and other machines were designed and forged out of iron. The vagaries that started in the Industrial Revolution never actually ended. The roots of this revolution date back to a thousand years ago.
The beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been labeled as the most significant occurrence in the history of humankind. Between 1840 and 1870, technology and the economy progressed rapidly, embracing steam transport and mass production of machine tools. Machines in factories were powered by steam. So, the First Industrial Revolution evolved into the Second Industrial Revolution.
In 1837, Samuel Morris invented the Telegraph in Boston. This device enabled people to communicate over long distances. In addition, Morse created a code in which letters were represented by sound signals nowadays known as the Morse code. The first telegraph message from Washington, DC, to Baltimore was sent seven years later. Both cities were 60 kilometers apart. A few years after that, telegraph lines connected the continents of America and Europe.
Iron revolution
History speaks of the Iron Age, which began in 1000 B.C. when man carved weapons and tools of iron. The Iron Age sustains as we are still dependent on this essential metal. The effects of the Industrial Revolution persist in amending modern economies, creating undulations in the industrialized world. The Industrial Revolution symbolized a key turn-off in history.
Nearly every facet of day-to-day life was swayed in some way. Specifically, average revenue and populace began to display extraordinarily constant progress. Many economists say that this revolution’s main effect was that people’s standard of living rose steadily for the first time in history. However, others say it did not progress until the late 19th and 20th centuries.
At about the same time the Industrial Revolution happened, Britain experienced an agricultural revolution, which expanded the standard of living. In the early 19th century, mechanized textile production spread from Great Britain to Europe, France being the home to the most important centers. A vital iron manufacturing center established in Belgium, industrialization has spread fast throughout the world since its inception.
The exact start and end date of the Industrial Revolution is still argued by historians, as is the stride of social and economic change. GDP per capita was approximately steady before the revolution. Also, with the advent of the modern capitalist economy, capitalist economies witnessed an age of per capita economic growth in the capitalist economies.
Coal revolution
During the many wars in the century, particularly the Seven Years’ War, Britain extended their control over many colonies across the seas. England’s main rival, France, lost control of Canada and India to the English mid-century. The English navy commanded powerful trading ships spread across the world. They faced many problems on various fronts. The British Isles’ population multiplied quickly, leading to a shortage of wood and cloth.
People replaced wood for coal and used wood to cook and heat homes for smelting and blacksmithing. Huge demands for coal lead to extensive mining. Miners dug deep to supply the people with coal, and finding coal on the surface was no longer possible. Deep mines posed a problem because water seeped into them, and something needed to be done to pump out the water from the mines.
The solution was soon invented: steam-powered pumps. These machines forced water from the flooded coal mines, making them mineable again. The English used wood to smelt iron, which they soon replaced with coal. First, they used charcoal to heat iron and remove its carbon impurities.
But later in the 18th century, these smelting industries started using coke. It was a greyish, hard substance produced when soft coal was heated in an air-tight oven, removing the coke gas and coal tar as the fuel for smelting iron. This expanded the business of coal mining in England.
Since the Middle Ages, England has been home to the wool trade. The English men raised sheep and spun thread into woolen clothes and garments. The growing population now requires clothes to overcome this shortage. Many new machines took over the old system of cloth production.
Cotton revolution
When the English expanded their trade to Egypt and India, they were introduced to a new material: cotton. Thousands of women worked on spinning wool and now cotton. However, since the requirement was too much, they lagged in mass production.
The old ways of using the spinning wheel could not keep up with the demand. Two things required more quantity and better quality. Two things were needed: good machines and building faster. These setups required bigger space and more extensive facilities. It led to the establishment of factories, which was also the result of the Metal Revolution.
Revolution of the metal industry
Once coal replaced wood and other natural fuels, a drastic revolution in the metal industries came. When given a certain amount of heat, coal needed less labor in mining than chopping wood and turning it into charcoal. Coal was naturally obtainable and plentiful.
Coal gained its importance in 1678 when Sir Clement Clerke. A few other inventors started using it in reverberatory furnaces called cupolas. These domes were operated by controlling flames on the charcoal, coke mixture, and ore, which reduced the oxide to metal.
The advantage of using this mechanism was that the impurities like sulfur ash did not combine with the metal. Later, the same technology was applied to smelt lead and copper in 1678 and 1687. Later, in 1709, Abraham Darby successfully fuelled his blast furnaces at Coalbrookdale with coke.
The coke iron that he manufactured was used to make cast-iron products like kettles and pots. He had patented his cast and hence had an advantage over his rivals because the pots Darby manufactured were thinner and cheaper than his competitor’s products.
Darby’s sons established two furnaces at Ketley and Horsehay, which produced bar iron in the mid-1750s. Coke pig iron was now cheaper than charcoal pig iron. Since the iron cast was also affordable and was available in plenty, it was used as material to build new structures like the Iron Bridge of 1778. The ironsmiths still used the finery forges to make daily consumer products from the bar iron. But with time, new procedures were developed and implemented in the years to come.
The earlier methods were potting and stamping, later modified by Henry Cort’s pudding process. The court made two important iron-producing processes:
- 1783, he developed the rolling process, and in 1784, he made the puddling process.
To consolidate wrought iron and remove scum, hammering was replaced by rolling. It was about 15 times faster than hammering. Initially, the rolling mills were used to make sheets, but later on, the process was used to roll structural shapes like rails and angles.
The pig iron was decarburized using slow oxidation. Iron ore was used as a source of oxygen. The process was known as puddling, as it was stirred manually with the help of a long rod. Decarburized iron has a higher melting point compared to cast iron. So it was scraped into blobs by the puddler, and once the blob was big enough, the puddler removed it.
It was not easy to puddle in such high temperatures in the reverberatory furnace. There were only some puddlers who made it to the age of 40. Puddling was used till the 19th century when steel was slowly replacing iron. The puddling process could never be mechanized as it needed the skills of a human to sense the iron blobs.
Till the 17th century, British iron manufacturers used substantial quantities of iron. It was imported to add to the local provisions, mostly from Sweden and Russia. Later, in 1785, they stopped importing iron from the countries.
The most important development of the 19th century was the hot blast made and patented by James Beaumont Neilson. The process saved energy in the process of making pig iron. The combustion air was preheated by using waste exhaust heat. So, the fuel required to make one unit of pig iron decreased by around one-third. If coal was used and two-thirds of coke was used, the effectiveness increased every time the technology was bettered.
Hot blasts kept the furnaces’ temperatures high and helped grow their capacity. The less coke or coal was used the fewer impurities in the pig iron. It also meant that anthracite or lower-quality coal could be used where coking could not be done. Or the process was too expensive to be performed.
Steel revolution
Nevertheless, transportation costs fell extensively by the end of the 19th century. About twenty years before the Industrial Revolution laid its foundations, steel production. An expensive commodity that was improved and used to make products like springs and cutting-edge tools, such as iron, couldn’t be used to make such commodities.
In the 1740s, Benjamin Huntsman developed a crucible steel technique that used blister steel as raw material from the cementation process. Inexpensive steel and iron helped many nails, wires, hinges, and hardware products. Improvements in machine tools made it easy to work with iron because it was used to make machines and engine parts.
Revolution of textile industries
For years, England was the spearhead in the making and extension of the Industrial Revolution. There are some essential reasons for England’s sudden shift from being dependent on agriculture to increased industrialization.
For example, in the 1700s, Britain was led by parliamentarians and ministers who reacted compassionately to commerce, trade, and industrial expansion. Their lands were rich with raw materials such as coal, iron ore, and cheap human labor. Financial institutions like banks and lending houses helped raise capital to purchase steam engines, make factories, construct mills, and employ workers. Moreover, England had many overseas markets. They had to be ready with products used for trading, like coal, iron, textiles, or other things.
One of the causes of the Industrial Revolution originated in the textile industry. When cotton material was introduced to England in the 1600s, it completely changed, producing cotton thread and cotton materials. A series of improvements and creations brought about the change.
An English weaver, John Kay from Lancashire, invented the flying shuttle in 1733. A handloom could be operated by a single person instead of two. However, the masses were not entirely happy with the invention as they thought the new machine could leave many unemployed.
The angry crowd attacked Kay’s home and demolished it. Kay’s flying shuttle took time to gain recognition, which helped improve the production speed of a single weaver. But the one-person loom needed thread from four to five spinners to keep a loom worker busy.
In 1765, a carpenter from Lancashire, James Hargreaves, invented the spinning machine that could spin eight threads at a time. He named the machine “Jenny” after his wife.” He patented his new invention in 1770. However, the number of threads a spinning machine could produce slowly increased to 100. The cloth worker’s reception of such new inventions was slow. Hargreaves, too, faced the same consequences as Kay. His house was attacked, and his newly invented spinning jenny was burned.
These beautiful devices transformed the cotton thread industry. The spinners were now spinning around 20000 spinning jennies by 1778. This machine cut down the working hours spent spinning thread and yarn. Earlier, one had to work 1000 hours to make about 22 pounds of cotton thread. In comparison, the spinning jenny lowered the spinning hours to 400 and further improved. It came down to 20 hours!
Lancashire seemed to be home to many inventors. In 1769, Richard Arkwright, a barber from the same place, held the patent to the water frame. These rollers were powered by water with spindles to produce coarse but strong thread.
Some years later, Samuel Crompton, a tinkerer from Lancashire, produced fine and strong cotton thread by combining Hargreaves spinning and Arkwright’s water frame. They called it Spinning Mule. These machines brought about a revolution in the textile industry to the English. They spun about 8 million pounds of thread in 1770 and started spinning 37 million pounds of cotton by 1790.
The quantity kept increasing, and in 1815, the English reached the 100 million pound mark. By 1850, the English weavers boasted of spinning around 250 million pounds of cotton. Edmund Cartwright had built two factories that were destroyed and burned down by his workers. Cartwright’s machine design had many faults, especially thread breaks. In 1813, Samuel Horrocks patented a better loom that proved to be fairly good and successful.
Richard Roberts bettered his loom in 1822, and Roberts, Hill & Co. manufactured these looms in huge numbers. The increasing demand for cotton was a good prospect for the Southern United States planters if they could easily remove the seed.
Steam engine revolution
What drove the Industrialization Age was primarily the exploitation of natural power sources. It was steam! The innovative minds of the ancient ages also understood the marvelous power of steam. In A.D. 60, a Greek tinkerer, the Hero of Alexandria, made a small machine of metal spheres with sprouting jets and mounted it on the center shaft.
When the water in the sphere was heated using fire, the ball moved when steam spurted out of the jets. It cannot be called a perfect device as it did not serve any cause. It was more like a toy, and the rudimentary device was named an aeolipile.
The device was built many years later, but it was for a specific purpose this time. Increased demands for coal required the English to dig deeper into mines, which drove water into them. These devices were used to pump out the water to eliminate this problem. The deeper the mines, the more acute the problem became. The water problems closer to the earth’s surface were solved using horse gins. It was the short word for the engine.
The method involved horses who walked in circles with a massive drum tied to a pulley and a bucket. Since the mines were deep, so the horse gins could not solve this problem. So a new technology was required.
A British citizen, Thomas Savery, came to the rescue of this problem. In 1698, he invented a low-power steam engine that functioned as a pump. The water pump, branded by Miners Friend, produced around one horsepower. It was put to work for many water-related works and coal mines. Savery’s pump was very cost-effective but was susceptible to the explosion of its boiler for large horsepower ranges.
As an English metal, these pumps were sustained in the market until the late 18th century. Iron salesman Thomas Newcomen built his piston steam engine in 1712 in the Midlands near Dudley Castle near Coalbrookdale. The engines were productively used in the deep mines, blocked by water. Since these engines were kept on the surface, they were huge, needed a lot of investment to be built, and produced five horsepower.
If we look at the machine from our perspective, it was incompetent as per our modern standards. But if they were set on pit heads where the coal was cheap, it gave way to deep coal mining. Despite a few disadvantages, the engines of Newcomen were easy to maintain and dependable, too. Hence, they continued to provide their services to the coal mines till the early 19th century.
By Newcomen’s death, his work had spread far and wide, beginning with Hungary, Austria, Sweden, and Germany. According to the records, an aggregate of 110 engines was built by 1733 after the joint patent expired, 14 of which were abroad. An engineer, John Smeaton, built many large and improved engines within years. Also, the total number of engines built reached 1,454 by 1800.
James Watt from Scotland brought about an essential variation in the operating principles. Englishman Matthew Boulton had almost perfected his steam engine by 1778, assimilating manimportantal enhancements. The most noticeable thing was that the upper part of the cylinder was sealed off, enabling the low-pressure steam engine to drive the top of the piston in place of the atmosphere. There was a separate chamber for the condenser and the use of a steam jacket.
The cooling water, inserted right into the cylinder to cool it and used to waste steam, was removed because of a separate condenser. Including steam, the jacket retained the steam from condensing in the cylinder. It also improved the competence of the engine. Watts and Boulton now integrated better ways and processes into the steam engine. It used 20 to 25 percent more coal per horsepower per hour than Newcomen’s engine.
Watts and Boulton manufactured such engines in the Soho Foundry, which was established in 1795. By 1800, the Watts steam engine could drive the rotary machinery of a mill or a factory. It had been completely transformed into a double-acting rotative type. Watts engines were profitable and popular. Boulton & Watts had made 496 engines, 24 serving blast furnaces, 164 driving pumps, and 308 powering mill machinery. Almost all the engines produced 5 to 10 horsepower!
Many metal machinery tools played an essential role in making these powerful engines. Engine planning, milling, lathe, and shaping machines were power-driven by these engines, enabling the accurate cutting of the metal parts. The steam engine design until 1800 was based on a beam engine, made as an essential part of a brick or stone engine house.
But soon, many different outlines of a self-sufficient rotative engine, like the table engine, were produced. At the beginning of the 19th century, Richard Trevithick, a Cornish engineer, and Oliver Evans, an American, built non-condensing high-pressure steam engines, fatiguing against the atmosphere. The engines were solid enough for rail locomotives, mobile roads, and steamboats.
Machine tools revolution
The many machines being developed increasingly required machinery to cut metal parts. The watch and other small instrument repairers developed some small tools earlier. Before machine tools were invented, many hand tools like files, scrapers, hammers, chisels, and saws were used. Metal was hardly used, and the wood products would split or crack with weather changes.
With the revolution, metal frames and parts became famous and had soaring high prices because of the hard labor to achieve meticulousness. Many artisans gave their input by crafting windmills, wooden frames, etc. The first big machine tool built was the cylinder boring machine that bore the large-diameter cylinders on the earlier built steam engines. The planning, shaping, and milling machines followed.
In the early parts of the 19th century, Joseph Bramah, an inventor and locksmith who had patented a lathe similar to that of a slide rest lathe, hired Henry Maudslay to produce high-security metal locks, which required meticulous workmanship. Maudslay was a perfectionist in the slide rest lathe, which could perfectly cut screws with various thread pitches using variable gears between the lead screw and the spindle. Later, Maudslay set up his shop and trained many men on this machine.
Chemicals revolution
John Roebuck has been credited with producing the first chemical sulphuric acid, which he did using the lead chamber process in 1746. He replaced the expensive glass containers with compartments made of lead and produced large quantities, around 100 pounds. Alkali and sodium carbonate production followed, which Nicholas Leblanc produced in 1791. He also introduced the Leblanc process, in which sodium chloride reacted with sulphuric acid to produce hydrochloric acid and sodium sulfate.
Sodium carbonate was used in industries like soap, paper, textiles, and glass. Earlier, sulphuric acid was used to remove rust from iron and bleach clothes. Based on the discoveries of Claude Louis in 1800, Charles Tennant improved the production of bleaching powder. Earlier, the process had required months, which he now reduced to days.
His factory in North Glasgow had become the biggest chemical factory globally. Later, in the 1860s, Germans took the lead in producing dye, and many ambitious chemists rushed to Germany to learn the procedure. British did not set up universities as an alternative to employing German chemists.
Revolution in other trades
Cement: A British, Joseph Aspdin, patented Portland cement in 1824. Portland Cement constructed the London sewerage system and the Thames tunnel.
Gas Lighting: William Murdoch was the person who brought in this revolution, and in London, between 1812 and 1820, the first gas lighting utilities were set up. Gaslighting played a crucial role in industrial organizations as the factories and other sets could remain open longer because of light.
Paper Machine: Nicholas Louis Robert invented a machine that made continuous sheets of paper, and the machine was named Fourdrinier. Although many alternatives have been made, this paper production method is still used.
Glass Making: In 1832, Lucas and William Chance (Chance Brothers) first used the cylinder to make glass sheets. The continuous sheets of glass helped in freely planning many interiors.
Agriculture: The primary machines that helped agriculture were the Dutch plough, threshing machine, and seed drill. In 1701, Jethro Tull invented a better seed drill, but it was expensive. Joseph Foljambe Rotherham made the first marketable plow in 1730, and Andrew Meikle made the threshing machine in 1784. The threshing machine brought about riots and revolts as manual threshing required a lot of labor, and many laborers lost jobs, causing the agricultural rebellion in the Swing Riots.
Transportation: The turnpike road network, railway lines, waterways, and canals were all improved because of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Moving products, commodities, and raw materials speedily, quickly, and lower was now easy. Better transportation helped new ideas to spread fast.
Canals: The first canal, Bridgewater Canal in North West England, was built in the 18th century, and most of the funds came from the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. Many canals followed soon. Thames, Severn Canal, Leeds, and Liverpool Canal were the most noticeable. Later, the Manchester Ship Canal was the largest global canal and was inaugurated in 1894.
Roads & Railways: Before the revolution could start, roads were not properly kept. Later on, after 1720, turnpike trusts were set up to maintain the roads. John McAdam, Thomas Telford, and John Metcalf were responsible for engineering the streets. They did not disappoint their fellow countrymen.
The first steam-run public railways began in 1825 with Stockton and Darlington Railways. In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester Railways were opened to the public. Railways took pace in 1829 when a hot blast was developed earlier, lessening the fuel intake of iron.
Social revolution
Industrial Revolution was a roller coaster in the lives of those who witnessed it. However, the changes were for good in the long term. Many suffered from modern machinery and inventions of various machines and products. The cottage industry practically applied in every home, where a farmer and his family mainly produced goods.
The spinning jenny was reasonably priced and could be afforded, but the products that replaced it were costly. The only thing a man could do was get a job in the factory. The factory laborers were poorly paid. It was not until the late 1980s that the standard of living for the common masses improved. Most of the population constituted the poorer class, who endured many declines in their living standards.
The wages were increased only by 15% in the late 1780s. Many died of hunger and malnutrition in France and Britain; on average, people lived only for about 35 years. This was because of the increasing population with the Industrial Revolution, things became cheaper, and food prices decreased.
People during these times lived in extremes. Factory owners had beautiful houses, whereas the laborers of the factories did not even have properly enclosed homes that lacked sanitation facilities. People shared small rooms and slept on sawdust. Unhygienic situations gave rise to many diseases. Many diseases were caused by water, like typhoid and cholera, which are common among children. Conditions improved only in the 19th century when many health regulations were followed, and conditions improved.
Industrial Revolution in other countries
Many countries have been active participants in this revolution. However, it all started with Great Britain, which slowly moved to America, Europe, and the rest of the continent. Great Britain Heads the Way Earlier. The English had become one of the most powerful nations in the world. Early in the 18th century, overseas trade made Britain a wealthy country.
Traditional rural living way of life and the countryside owned by the aristocracy lost their importance during the Industrial Revolution. In the urban class emerges the Bruges Ozzie. These factory owners had become wealthy peasants, forming the so-called proletariat. Wage-earners worked in the factories for very little money. They were poor, and their working conditions were dreadful. But a century passed, and workers started trade unions and associations that helped improve their situation.
Belgium
Only some parts of the British inventions were adopted. Ted was in many situations as their locally available resources differed from the English. Many mining areas were built in Liege and Charleroi. John Cockerill set up a factory in Seraing, which had all the processes from production to supply.
Historians have also stated many iron-making developments, especially in Sambre, Haine, and Meuse Valleys. The revolution was considered to be quite traditional. It didn’t affect most of the population except those near the coal mining and iron-making areas.
United States of America (USA)
While other countries were experiencing Industrialization, America continued to be an agricultural economy. Railways, roads, waterways, and canals were essential to moving agricultural products and nature, especially in a vast but thinly populated country. America saw the Industrial Revolution with the invention of the cotton gin and the making of interchangeable parts.
The invention of machine tools and interchangeable parts laid the foundations for the industrial revolution. Oliver Evans made an automatic four-mill that required no labor from loading the grain to the flour discharge.
Later, in 1787, Cabot Brothers and Thomas Somers founded the biggest cotton mill, Beverly Cotton Manufactory. The American Industrial Revolution was set on the banks of the Blackstone River. Its tributaries and around 1100 mills functioned in this valley.
In 1854, Waltham Watch Company, situated in Waltham, Massachusetts, was recognized for bringing industrialization to the watch industry. Samuel Slater set up the Slater Mill in 1793. He mastered his skills in Derbyshire, England, and moved to New York. In 1789, he later owned 13 textile mills after founding the Slater Mill by breaking the British skilled workers’ emigration laws.
Germany
The Germans were excellent chemists, and they flourished in their chemistry. People flocked to study at their universities and learn new ways of dyeing. Earlier, the Germans lagged in building efficient roads and railways because of unity. But Britain’s rapid development buckled them up, and they soon constructed railways and roads.
Sweden
Sweden experienced two revolutions, the Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, simultaneously. They had large estates, new farming tools, and crops and developed a system of proto-industrialization where the farmers could grow their crops. When they were free after the harvest in the winter, they could move to the industries to earn wages.
The Industrial Revolution focused on their local markets, circling on paper making, textiles, mechanical engineering, and power utilities. The country prospered with trade and commerce when it opened the gates for free business and exported wood, steel, and crops.
Japan
The leaders from the Meiji period helped bring about an industrial revolution in Japan in 1870. They sent thousands of youngsters to Europe and the United States to learn their ways. They employed over 3,000 experts from the Western world to learn their language, technology, mathematics, and modern science. The Iwakura Mission of Japan was a breakthrough in their revolution, and Japan quickly caught up with the others.
In 1882, the Bank of Japan was founded and used taxes to set up textile factories and model steel. Japan’s first modern industries came up in textiles, which comprised cotton and the famous silk. Silk was made in many workshops at home, mainly in rural areas. History has experienced much turmoil, and revolution has contributed much to it. This phase saw the most intelligent people who set based on modern machines, tools, and techniques.
Effects and causes of Industrial Revolution
In the late 1700s, most people worked in the fields on land they did not own. Those who owned the aristocrats’ land lived refined lives, an elegant manor, housed servants, raised children, and did housework. The landowners and the people who worked for them depended upon each other. It was a system that had existed for centuries.
In towns across England and the United States, extraordinary innovations would alter how people lived and worked for the next 150 years. Inventors have found new ways to harness nature’s energy. They built new machines powered by water, steam, and coal. The new machines replaced hand power tools. They did the same work, only cheaper and faster.
Much of the work was done outside the home in specially designed buildings. Mechanization began in England’s textile mills, where one machine attached to a spinning wheel could do the work of 50 people, and fuel, clothing, and food became more affordable. With the development of locomotives and steamboats, manufactured goods could now be sold halfway around the world. Families moved from the villages of their ancestors to new industrial towns. A new class of people emerged as workers who produced goods.
Industrialists, the people who owned the factories, employed hundreds, sometimes thousands. They made enormous profits in their industrial centers. But while the Industrial Revolution brought wealth to some and jobs to others, it came with a price tag.
Pollution from coal-powered factories turned the city black. The lack of housing created the first urban slums. The demand for more and more goods and higher profits brought about the exploitation of workers, including children. Some of the worst conditions were seen in New England’s textile mills.
It was hiring children, some as young as five years old. Workers throughout the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundred outraged the public. Workers and reformers protested. They formed unions and associations and fought for government regulations to limit the workday and protect children. These laws helped address many of the abuses brought on by the Industrial Revolution.
Conclusion
Historians have varied opinions about the Industrial Revolution, which cannot be summed up easily. Capitalism was caused when science was booming, and developments brought societal upgrades. The machines helped people work easily and provided jobs to everyone in the factories. It increased wealth, and only the adults worked while the children and adults were free.
Socialism came up as an evaluation of capitalism. According to Karl Marx, the Industrial Revolution divided society into two:
- Bourgeoisie was who possessed the means of production, the land, and the factories.
- The other was the proletariat, the laborers who performed in the factories under the bourgeoisie.
He saw the industrialization procedure as the rational dialectical development of feudal economic modes, essential for the complete growth of capitalism, which he saw as a required predecessor to the growth of socialism and, ultimately, communism.
The debate can be endless; however, it can be concluded that the Industrial Revolution was a significant era. Humankind is still evolving with those fundamental principles of inventions during that period. Today, we are in the middle of another revolution, a technological revolution. We live in a global village because we can connect with people worldwide as if they lived next door. We can now work anytime and anywhere. Also, we will have to wait and see where this new revolution leads.
This exploration has not only shed light on the origins of our modern industrial landscape but has also highlighted the resilience, ingenuity, and ambition of humanity to reshape the world. As we part ways, let’s carry forward the lessons and inspirations from the Industrial Revolution, remembering the power of innovation and the importance of adapting to change. Thank you for joining me on this enlightening voyage through history. Until our next adventure into the past, keep exploring, keep questioning, and never stop learning about the fascinating journey of human progress.
Read More:
Evolutional History Of Earth’s Life
References:
Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A Brief Global History. Vol. II: Since 1500, Ch. 18: “Revolutions of Industrialization, 1750–1914.”
Uglow, Jenny. The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
Allen, Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Marks, Robert B. The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
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