Industrial+Revolution

The **Industrial Revolution** was a period from 1750 to 1850 where changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times. It began in the [|United Kingdom], then subsequently spread throughout [|Western Europe] , [|North America] , [|Japan] , and eventually the rest of the world. The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. Most notably, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. In the two centuries following 1800, the world's average per capita income increased over tenfold, while the world's population increased over sixfold. [|[2]] In the words of Nobel Prize winner [|Robert E. Lucas, Jr.], "For the first time in history, the living standards of the masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth ... Nothing remotely like this economic behavior has happened before". [|[3]] Great Britain provided the legal and cultural foundations that enabled entrepreneurs to pioneer the industrial revolution. [|[4]] Starting in the later part of the 18th century, there began a transition in parts of Great Britain's previously manual labour and draft-animal–based economy towards machine-based manufacturing. It started with the mechanisation of the textile industries, the development of [|iron-making] techniques and the increased use of [|refined coal]. [|[5]] Trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of [|canals], [|improved roads] and [|railways]. [|[6]] With the transition away from an agricultural-based economy and towards machine-based manufacturing came a great influx of population from the countryside and into the towns and cities, which swelled in population. [|[7]] The introduction of [|steam power] fuelled primarily by coal, wider utilisation of [|water wheels] and powered machinery (mainly in [|textile manufacturing] ) underpinned the dramatic increases in production capacity. [|[6]] 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 effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world, a process that continues as [|industrialisation]. The impact of this change on society was enormous. [|[8]] The First Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century, 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 19th century with the [|internal combustion engine] and [|electrical power generation]. The period of time covered by the Industrial Revolution varies with different historians. [|Eric Hobsbawm] held that it 'broke out' in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, [|[9]] while [|T. S. Ashton] held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830. [|[10]] Some 20th century historians such as [|John Clapham] and [|Nicholas Crafts] have argued that the process of economic and social change took place gradually and the term //revolution// is a misnomer. This is still a subject of debate among historians. [|[11]][|[12]] [|GDP] per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern [|capitalist] economy. [|[13]] The Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita [|economic growth] in capitalist economies. [|[14]] 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. [|[15]] The commencement of the Industrial Revolution is closely linked to a small number of innovations, [|[18]] made in the second half of the 18th century:


 * **Textiles** – Cotton [|spinning] using [|Richard Arkwright's] [|water frame], James Hargreaves's [|Spinning Jenny] , and Samuel Crompton's [|Spinning Mule] (a combination of the Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame). This was patented in 1769 and so came out of patent in 1783. The end of the patent was rapidly followed by the erection of many [|cotton mills] . Similar technology was subsequently applied to spinning [|worsted] [|yarn] for various textiles and flax for [|linen] . The cotton revolution began in Derby, which has been known since this period as the "Powerhouse of the North".
 * **Steam power** – The improved [|steam engine] invented by [|James Watt] and patented in 1775 was at first mainly used to power pumps for pumping water out of mines, but from the 1780s was applied to power other types of machines. This enabled rapid development of efficient semi-automated [|factories] on a previously unimaginable scale in places where [|waterpower] was not available. For the first time in history people did not have to rely on human or animal muscle, wind or water for power. The steam engine was used to pump water from coal mines; to lift trucks of coal to the surface; to blow air into the furnaces for the making of iron; to grind clay for pottery; and to power new factories of all kinds. For over a hundred years the steam engine was the king of the industries.
 * **Iron making** – In the [|Iron industry], [|coke] was finally applied to all stages of iron [|smelting] , replacing [|charcoal] . This had been achieved much earlier for lead and copper as well as for producing [|pig iron] in a [|blast furnace] , but the second stage in the production of [|bar iron] depended on the use of [|potting and stamping] (for which a [|patent] expired in 1786) or [|puddling] (patented by [|Henry Cort] in 1783 and 1784).

These represent three 'leading sectors', in which there were key innovations, which allowed the economic take off by which the Industrial Revolution is usually defined. This is not to belittle many other inventions, particularly in the [|textile] industry. Without some earlier ones, such as the [|spinning jenny] and [|flying shuttle] in the textile industry and the smelting of pig iron with coke, these achievements might have been impossible. Later inventions such as the [|power loom] and [|Richard Trevithick's] high pressure [|steam engine] were also important in the growing industrialisation of Britain. The application of steam engines to powering [|cotton mills] and [|ironworks] enabled these to be built in places that were most convenient because other resources were available, rather than where there was water to power a [|watermill].

In the textile sector, such mills became the model for the organisation of human labour in factories, epitomised by [|Cottonopolis], the name given to the vast collection of [|cotton mills] , [|factories] and administration offices based in [|Manchester]. The assembly line system greatly improved efficiency, both in this and other industries. With a series of men trained to do a single task on a product, then having it moved along to the next worker, the number of finished goods also rose significantly.

Also important was the 1756 rediscovery of [|concrete] (based on [|hydraulic lime mortar] ) by the British engineer [|John Smeaton], which had been lost for 1300 years. [|[19]]

Transfer of knowledge
[|A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery] (ca. 1766) Informal philosophical societies spread scientific advances Knowledge of innovation was spread by several means. Workers who were trained in the technique might move to another employer or might be poached. A common method was for someone to make a study tour, gathering information where he could. During the whole of the Industrial Revolution and for the century before, all European countries and America engaged in study-touring; some nations, like [|Sweden] and [|France], even trained civil servants or technicians to undertake it as a matter of state policy. In other countries, notably Britain and America, this practice was carried out by individual manufacturers eager to improve their own methods. Study tours were common then, as now, as was the keeping of travel diaries. Records made by industrialists and technicians of the period are an incomparable source of information about their methods.

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 'natural philosophy' (//i.e.// science) and often its application to manufacturing. The Lunar Society flourished from 1765 to 1809, and it has been said of them, "They were, if you like, the revolutionary committee of that most far reaching of all the eighteenth century revolutions, the Industrial Revolution". [|[20]] Other such societies published volumes of proceedings and transactions. For example, the London-based [|Royal Society of Arts] published an illustrated volume of new inventions, as well as papers about them in its annual //Transactions//.

There were publications describing technology. [|Encyclopaedias] such as [|Harris] 's // [|Lexicon Technicum] // (1704) and [|Abraham Rees] 's // [|Cyclopaedia] // (1802–1819) contain much of value. //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. Foreign printed sources such as the // [|Descriptions des Arts et Métiers] // and Diderot's // [|Encyclopédie] // explained foreign methods with fine engraved plates.

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. Foreign periodicals, such as the [|Annales des Mines], published accounts of travels made by French engineers who observed British methods on study tours.

Textile manufacture
Main article: [|Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution]

Model of the [|spinning jenny] in a museum in [|Wuppertal], Germany. The spinning jenny was one of the innovations that started the revolution 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. This system is called a [|cottage industry]. [|Flax] and [|cotton] were also used for fine materials, but the processing was difficult because of the pre-processing needed, and thus goods in these materials made only a small proportion of the output.

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. India was displaced as the premier supplier of cotton goods.

[|Lewis Paul] patented the Roller Spinning machine and the [|flyer-and-bobbin] system for drawing wool to a more even thickness, developed with the help of John Wyatt in [|Birmingham]. Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by a [|donkey]. In 1743, a factory was opened in [|Northampton] with fifty spindles on each of five of Paul and Wyatt's machines. This operated until about 1764. A similar mill was built by [|Daniel Bourn] in [|Leominster], but this burnt down. Both Lewis Paul and Daniel Bourn patented [|carding] machines in 1748. Using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds, it was later used in the first cotton spinning [|mill]. Lewis's invention was later developed and improved by [|Richard Arkwright] in his [|water frame] and [|Samuel Crompton] in his [|spinning mule].

Other inventors increased the efficiency of the individual steps of spinning (carding, twisting and spinning, and rolling) so that the supply of [|yarn] increased greatly, which fed a weaving industry that was advancing with improvements to [|shuttles] and the loom or 'frame'. 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 capitalise upon these advances, it took a class of [|entrepreneurs], of which the most famous is [|Richard Arkwright]. He is credited with a list of inventions, but these were actually developed by people such as [|Thomas Highs] and [|John Kay] ; 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] and then [|water power] —which made cotton manufacture a mechanised industry. Before long [|steam power] was applied to drive textile machinery.

Metallurgy
[|Coalbrookdale by Night], 1801, [|Philipp Jakob Loutherbourg the Younger] Blast furnaces light the iron making town of [|Coalbrookdale] The Reverberatory Furnace could produce [|wrought iron] using mined coal. The burning coal remained separate from the iron ore and so did not contaminate the iron with impurities like sulphur. This opened the way to increased iron production. 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. These were operated by the flames, which contained [|carbon monoxide], playing on the [|ore] and [|reducing] the [|oxide] to metal. This has the advantage that impurities (such as sulphur) in the coal do not migrate into the metal. This technology was applied to [|lead] from 1678 and to [|copper] from 1687. It was also applied to iron foundry work in the 1690s, but in this case the reverberatory furnace was known as an air furnace. The foundry cupola is a different (and later) innovation.

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. He had the advantage over his rivals in that his pots, cast by his patented process, were thinner and cheaper than theirs. Coke pig iron was hardly used to produce bar iron in forges until the mid 1750s, when his son [|Abraham Darby II] built [|Horsehay] and [|Ketley] furnaces (not far from Coalbrookdale). By then, coke pig iron was cheaper than charcoal pig iron. Since [|cast iron] was becoming cheaper and more plentiful, it also became a major structural material following the building of the innovative [|The Iron Bridge] in 1778 by [|Abraham Darby III].

Matthew Boulton helped James Watt to get his business off the ground. he set up a massive factory called the Soho Factory, in the midlands.

[|Bar iron] for smiths to forge into consumer goods was still made in [|finery forges], as it long had been. However, new processes were adopted in the ensuing years. The first is referred to today as [|potting and stamping], but this was superseded by [|Henry Cort's] [|puddling] process. 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. The new processes did not depend on the use of [|charcoal] at all and were therefore not limited by charcoal sources.

Up to that time, British iron manufacturers had used considerable amounts of imported iron to supplement native supplies. This came principally from [|Sweden] from the mid-17th century and later also from Russia from the end of the 1720s. 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].

[|The Iron Bridge], [|Shropshire] , England 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. [|Benjamin Huntsman] developed his [|crucible steel] technique in the 1740s. The raw material for this was blister steel, made by the [|cementation process].

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.

Mining
Men working their own [|coal mines]. Early 1900s, USA [|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. In other cases, if the geology was favourable, the coal was mined by means of an [|adit] or [|drift mine] driven into the side of a hill. [|Shaft mining] was done in some areas, but the limiting factor was the problem of removing water. It could be done by hauling buckets of water up the shaft or to a [|sough] (a tunnel driven into a hill to drain a mine). In either case, the water had to be discharged into a stream or ditch at a level where it could flow away by gravity. 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 from the 1770s reduced the fuel costs of engines, making mines more profitable. Coal mining was very dangerous owing to the presence of [|firedamp] in many coal seams. Some degree of safety was provided by the [|safety lamp] which was invented in 1816 by Sir [|Humphry Davy] and independently by [|George Stephenson]. However, the lamps proved a false dawn because they became unsafe very quickly and provided a weak light. Firedamp explosions continued, often setting off [|coal dust] [|explosions], so casualties grew during the entire 19th century. Conditions of work were very poor, with a high casualty rate from rock falls.

Steam power
Main article: [|Steam power during the Industrial Revolution]

The 1698 //Savery Engine// – the world's first commercially useful [|steam engine] : built by [|Thomas Savery] 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 first real attempt at industrial use of steam power was due to [|Thomas Savery] in 1698. He constructed and patented in London a low-lift combined vacuum and pressure water pump, that generated about one [|horsepower] (hp) and was used in numerous water works and tried in a few mines (hence its "brand name", //The Miner's Friend//), but it was not a success since it was limited in pumping height and prone to boiler explosions.

[|Newcomen's steam powered atmospheric engine] was the first practical engine. Subsequent steam engines were to power the Industrial Revolution The first safe and successful steam power plant was introduced by [|Thomas Newcomen] before 1712. Newcomen apparently conceived the [|Newcomen steam engine] quite independently of Savery, but as the latter had taken out a very wide-ranging patent, Newcomen and his associates were obliged to come to an arrangement with him, marketing the engine until 1733 under a joint patent. [|[21]] [|[22]] Newcomen's engine appears to have been based on [|Papin's] experiments carried out 30 years earlier, and employed a piston and cylinder, one end of which was open to the atmosphere above the piston. Steam just above atmospheric pressure (all that the boiler could stand) was introduced into the lower half of the cylinder beneath the piston during the gravity-induced upstroke; the steam was then condensed by a jet of cold water injected into the steam space to produce a partial vacuum; the pressure differential between the atmosphere and the vacuum on either side of the piston displaced it downwards into the cylinder, raising the opposite end of a rocking beam to which was attached a gang of gravity-actuated reciprocating force pumps housed in the mineshaft. The engine's downward power stroke raised the pump, priming it and preparing the pumping stroke. At first the phases were controlled by hand, but within ten years an escapement mechanism had been devised worked by a vertical //plug tree// suspended from the rocking beam which rendered the engine self-acting.

A number of Newcomen engines were successfully put to use in Britain for draining hitherto unworkable deep mines, with the engine on the surface; these were large machines, requiring a lot of capital to build, and produced about 5 hp (3.7 kW). They were extremely inefficient by modern standards, but when located where coal was cheap at pit heads, opened up a great expansion in coal mining by allowing mines to go deeper. Despite their disadvantages, Newcomen engines were reliable and easy to maintain and continued to be used in the coalfields until the early decades of the 19th century. By 1729, when Newcomen died, his engines had spread (first) to [|Hungary] in 1722, Germany, [|Austria], and [|Sweden]. A total of 110 are known to have been built by 1733 when the joint patent expired, of which 14 were abroad. In the 1770s, the engineer [|John Smeaton] built some very large examples and introduced a number of improvements. A total of 1,454 engines had been built by 1800. [|[23]]

[|James Watt] A fundamental change in working principles was brought about by [|James Watt]. In close collaboration with [|Matthew Boulton], he had succeeded by 1778 in perfecting his [|steam engine] , which incorporated a series of radical improvements, notably the closing off of the upper part of the cylinder thereby making the low pressure steam drive the top of the piston instead of the atmosphere, use of a steam jacket and the celebrated separate steam condenser chamber. All this meant that a more constant temperature could be maintained in the cylinder and that engine efficiency no longer varied according to atmospheric conditions. These improvements increased engine efficiency by a factor of about five, saving 75% on coal costs. Bolton and Watt opened the [|Soho Foundry], for the manufacture of such engines, in 1795.

Nor could the atmospheric engine be easily adapted to drive a rotating wheel, although Wasborough and Pickard did succeed in doing so towards 1780. However by 1783 the more economical Watt steam engine had been fully developed into a double-acting rotative type, which meant that it could be used to directly drive the rotary machinery of a factory or mill. Both of Watt's basic engine types were commercially very successful, and by 1800, the firm [|Boulton & Watt] had constructed 496 engines, with 164 driving reciprocating pumps, 24 serving [|blast furnaces], and 308 powering mill machinery; most of the engines generated from 5 to 10 hp (7.5 kW).

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], built as an integral part of a stone or brick engine-house, but soon various patterns of self-contained portative engines (readily removable, but not on wheels) were developed, such as the [|table engine]. Towards the turn of the 19th century, the Cornish engineer [|Richard Trevithick], and the American, [|Oliver Evans] began to construct higher pressure non-condensing steam engines, exhausting against the atmosphere. This allowed an engine and boiler to be combined into a single unit 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 underwent many improvements by a host of inventors and engineers.

Chemicals
The [|Thames Tunnel] (opened 1843). [|Cement] was used in the world's first underwater tunnel The large scale production of [|chemicals] was an important development during the Industrial Revolution. The first of these was the production of [|sulphuric acid] by the [|lead chamber process] invented by the Englishman [|John Roebuck] ( [|James Watt] 's first partner) in 1746. He was able to greatly increase the scale of the manufacture by replacing the relatively expensive glass vessels formerly used with larger, less expensive chambers made of [|riveted] sheets of [|lead]. Instead of making a small amount each time, he was able to make around 100 pounds (50 kg) in each of the chambers, at least a tenfold increase.

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]. The [|Leblanc process] was a reaction of sulphuric acid with sodium chloride to give sodium sulphate and [|hydrochloric acid]. The [|sodium sulphate] was heated with [|limestone] ( [|calcium carbonate] ) and coal to give a mixture of [|sodium carbonate] and [|calcium sulphide]. Adding water separated the soluble sodium carbonate from the calcium sulphide. The process produced a large amount of pollution (the hydrochloric acid was initially vented to the air, and calcium sulphide was a useless waste product). Nonetheless, this synthetic [|soda ash] proved economical compared to that from burning specific plants ( [|barilla] ) or from [|kelp], which were the previously dominant sources of soda ash, [|[24]] and also to [|potash] ( [|potassium carbonate] ) derived from hardwood ashes.

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. Sodium carbonate had many uses in the glass, textile, soap, and paper industries. Early uses for sulphuric acid included pickling (removing rust) iron and steel, and for [|bleaching] cloth.

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], revolutionised 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. Tennant's factory at St Rollox, North [|Glasgow], became the largest chemical plant in the world.

In 1824 [|Joseph Aspdin], a British [|bricklayer] turned builder, patented a chemical process for making [|portland cement] which was an important advance in the building trades. This process involves [|sintering] a mixture of [|clay] and [|limestone] to about 1,400 °C (2,552 °F), then [|grinding] it into a fine powder which is then mixed with water, sand and [|gravel] to produce [|concrete]. Portland cement was used by the famous English engineer [|Marc Isambard Brunel] several years later when constructing the [|Thames Tunnel]. [|[25]] Cement was used on a large scale in the construction of the [|London sewerage system] a generation later.

After 1860 the focus on chemical innovation was in dyestuffs, and Germany took world leadership, building a strong chemical industry. [|[26]] Aspring chemists flocked to German universities in the 1860-1914 era to learn the latest techniques. British scientists by contrast, lacked research universities and did not train advanced students; instead the practice was to hire German-trained chemists. [|[27]]

Machine tools
Main article: [|Machine tools]

Sir [|Joseph Whitworth] The Industrial Revolution could not have developed without [|machine tools], for they enabled manufacturing machines to be made. They have their origins in the tools developed in the 18th century by makers of clocks and watches and scientific instrument makers to enable them to batch-produce small mechanisms. 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 [|Joseph Gillott], [|William Mitchell] and [|James Stephen Perry] allowed mass manufacture of robust, cheap steel pen nibs; the process had been laborious and expensive. Because of the difficulty of manipulating metal and the lack of machine tools, the use of metal was kept to a minimum. Wood framing had the disadvantage of changing dimensions with temperature and humidity, and the various joints tended to rack (work loose) over time. 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.

A [|lathe] from 1911, a machine tool able to shape parts (usually metal)for other machines 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 somewhat later in the 19th century.

Military production, as well, 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. He was engaged to build the machinery for making ships' pulley blocks for the [|Royal Navy] in the [|Portsmouth Block Mills]. 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.

Gas lighting
Main article: [|Gas lighting]

Another major industry of the later Industrial Revolution was [|gas lighting]. Though others made a similar innovation elsewhere, the large scale introduction of this was the work of [|William Murdoch], an employee of [|Boulton and Watt] , the [|Birmingham] [|steam engine] pioneers. The process consisted of the large scale gasification of coal in furnaces, the purification of the gas (removal of sulphur, ammonia, and heavy hydrocarbons), and its storage and distribution. The first gas lighting utilities were established in London between 1812-20. They soon became one of the major consumers of coal in the UK. Gas lighting had an impact on social and industrial organisation because it allowed factories and stores to remain open longer than with tallow candles or oil. Its introduction allowed night life to flourish in cities and towns as interiors and streets could be lighted on a larger scale than before.

Glass making
Main article: [|Glass production]

The Crystal Palace held the [|Great Exhibition] of 1851 A new method of producing glass, known as the [|cylinder process], was developed in Europe during the early 19th century. In 1832, this process was used by the [|Chance Brothers] to create sheet glass. They became the leading producers of window and plate glass. This advancement allowed for larger panes of glass to be created without interruption, thus freeing up the space planning in interiors as well as the fenestration of buildings. [|The Crystal Palace] is the supreme example of the use of sheet glass in a new and innovative structure..

Paper machine
Main article: [|Papermaking]

A machine for making a continuous sheet of paper on a loop of wire fabric was patented in 1798 by Nicholas Louis Robert who worked for [|Saint-Léger Didot] family in France. The [|paper machine] is known as a Fourdrinier after the financiers, brothers Sealy and [|Henry Fourdrinier], who were [|stationers] in London. Although greatly improved and with many variations, the Fourdriner machine is the predominant means of paper production today.

Effects on agriculture
The invention of machinery played a big part in driving forward the British Agricultural Revolution. Agricultural improvement began in the centuries before the Industrial revolution got going and it may have played a part in freeing up labour from the land to work in the new industrial mills of the 18th century. As the revolution in industry progressed a succession of machines became available which increased food production with ever fewer labourers.

[|Jethro Tull's] [|seed drill] invented in 1701 was a mechanical seeder which distributed seeds efficiently across a plot of land. Joseph Foljambe's Rotherham [|plough] of 1730, was the first commercially successful iron plough. [|[28]] [|Andrew Meikle's] [|threshing machine] of 1784 was the final straw for many farm labourers, and led to the 1830 agricultural rebellion of the [|Swing Riots].

Transport in Britain
Main article: [|Transport during the British Industrial Revolution]

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. Railways or wagon ways were used for conveying coal to rivers for further shipment, but canals had not yet been constructed. Animals supplied all of the motive power on land, with sails providing the motive power on the sea.

The Industrial Revolution improved Britain's transport infrastructure with a turnpike road network, a canal and waterway network, and a railway network. Raw materials and finished products could be moved more quickly and cheaply than before. Improved transportation also allowed new ideas to spread quickly.

Canals
Main article: [|History of the British canal system]

[|Pontcysyllte Aqueduct], [|Llangollen] , [|Wales] Canals began to be built in the late 18th century to link the major manufacturing centres in the Midlands and north with seaports and with London, at that time itself the largest manufacturing centre in the country. Canals were the first technology to allow bulk materials to be easily transported across the country. A single canal horse could pull a load dozens of times larger than a cart at a faster pace. By the 1820s, a national network was in existence. Canal construction served as a model for the organisation and methods later used to construct the railways. They were eventually largely superseded as profitable commercial enterprises by the spread of the railways from the 1840s on.

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. Increasing numbers of main roads were turnpiked from the 1750s to the extent that almost every main road in England and Wales was the responsibility of some [|turnpike trust]. New engineered roads were built by [|John Metcalf], [|Thomas Telford] and [|John Macadam]. The major turnpikes radiated from London and were the means by which the Royal Mail was able to reach the rest of the country. Heavy goods transport on these roads was by means of slow, broad wheeled, carts hauled by teams of horses. Lighter goods were conveyed by smaller carts or by teams of [|pack horse]. Stage coaches carried the rich, and the less wealthy could pay to ride on [|carriers carts].

Railways
Main article: [|History of rail transport in Great Britain]

[|Puffing Billy], an early railway steam locomotive, constructed in 1813-1814 for colliery work. 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. These were all horse drawn or relied on gravity, with a stationary steam engine to haul the wagons back to the top of the incline. The first applications of the steam [|locomotive] were on wagon or plate ways (as they were then often called from the cast iron plates used). Horse-drawn public railways did not begin until the early years of the 19th century. Steam-hauled public railways began with the [|Stockton and Darlington Railway] in 1825 and the [|Liverpool and Manchester Railway] in 1830. 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 way of transport and an easy way to transport mail and news.

Social effects
Main article: [|Life in Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution]

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.

Textile mill workers. Spinning machinery. [|Macon, Georgia], 1909 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. As late as the year 1900, most industrial workers in the United States still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours in the steel industry), yet earned from 20 to 40 percent less than the minimum deemed necessary for a decent life. [|[29]] However, harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the Industrial Revolution took place. 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. [|[30]]

Factories and urbanisation
Manchester, England (" [|Cottonopolis] "), pictured in 1840, showing the mass of factory chimneys Industrialisation led to the creation of the [|factory]. Arguably the first was [|John Lombe's] [|water-powered silk mill] at [|Derby], operational by 1721. However, the rise of the factory came somewhat later when cotton spinning was mechanised.

The factory system was largely responsible for the rise of the modern [|city], as large numbers of 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 [|water-powered] and built to serve local needs. Later each factory would have its own steam engine and a chimney to give an efficient draft through its boiler.

The transition to industrialisation was not without difficulty. For example, a group of English workers known as [|Luddites] formed to protest against industrialisation and sometimes [|sabotaged] factories.

In other industries the transition to factory production was not so divisive. Some industrialists themselves tried to improve factory and living conditions for their workers. One of the earliest such reformers was [|Robert Owen], known for his pioneering efforts in improving conditions for workers at the [|New Lanark mills] , and often regarded as one of the key thinkers of the [|early socialist movement].

By 1746, an integrated brass mill was working at [|Warmley] near [|Bristol]. Raw material went in at one end, was smelted into brass and was turned into pans, pins, wire, and other goods. Housing was provided for workers on site. [|Josiah Wedgwood] and [|Matthew Boulton] (whose [|Soho Manufactory] was completed in 1766) were other prominent early industrialists, who employed the factory system.

Child labour
A young "drawer" pulling a coal tub along a mine gallery. [|[31]] In Britain laws passed in 1842 and 1844 improved working conditions in mines. The Industrial Revolution led to a population increase, but the chances of surviving childhood did not improve throughout the Industrial Revolution (although //infant// mortality rates were reduced markedly). [|[32]] [|[33]] There was still limited opportunity for education, and children were expected to work. Employers could pay a child less than an adult even though their productivity was comparable; there was no need for strength to operate an industrial machine, and since the industrial system was completely new there were no experienced adult labourers. This made child labour the labour of choice for manufacturing in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution between the 18th and 19th centuries. In England and Scotland in 1788, two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered [|cotton mills] were described as children. [|[34]]

[|Child labour] had existed before the Industrial Revolution, but with the increase in population and education it became more visible. Many children were forced to work in relatively bad conditions for much lower pay than their elders, [|[35]] 10-20% of an adult male's wage. [|[36]] Children as young as four were employed. [|[36]] Beatings and long hours were common, with some child [|coal miners] and [|hurriers] working from 4 am until 5 pm. [|[36]] Conditions were dangerous, with some children killed when they dozed off and fell into the path of the carts, while others died from gas explosions. [|[36]] Many children developed [|lung cancer] and other diseases and died before the age of 25. [|[36]] [|Workhouses] would sell orphans and abandoned children as "pauper apprentices", working without wages for board and lodging. [|[36]] Those who ran away would be whipped and returned to their masters, with some masters [|shackling] them to prevent escape. [|[36]] Children employed as [|mule scavenger] by [|cotton mills] would crawl under machinery to pick up cotton, working 14 hours a day, six days a week. Some lost hands or limbs, others were crushed under the machines, and some were decapitated. [|[36]] Young girls worked at match factories, where phosphorus fumes would cause many to develop [|phossy jaw]. [|[36]] Children employed at [|glassworks] were regularly burned and blinded, and those working at [|potteries] were vulnerable to poisonous clay dust. [|[36]]

Reports were written detailing some of the abuses, particularly in the coal mines [|[37]] and textile factories [|[38]] and these helped to popularise the children's plight. The public outcry, especially among the upper and middle classes, helped stir change in the young workers' welfare.

Politicians and the government tried to limit child labour by law, but factory owners resisted; some felt that they were aiding the poor by giving their children money to buy food to avoid [|starvation], and others simply welcomed the cheap labour. In 1833 and 1844, the first general laws against child labour, the [|Factory Acts], were 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. Factory inspectors supervised the execution of the law, however, their scarcity made enforcement difficult. [|[36]] About ten years later, the employment of children and women in mining was forbidden. These laws decreased the number of child labourers; however, child labour remained in Europe and the United States up to the 20th century. [|[39]]

Housing
//Over London by Rail// [|Gustave Doré] c. 1870. Shows the densely populated and polluted environments created in the new industrial cities 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 very small houses in cramped streets. These homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of developing pathologies associated with persistent [|dampness]. Disease was spread through a contaminated water supply. Conditions did improve during the 19th century as public health acts were introduced covering things such as sewage, hygiene and making some boundaries upon the construction of homes. Not everybody lived in homes like these. The Industrial Revolution created a larger middle class of professionals such as lawyers and doctors. Health conditions for improved over the course of the 19th century because of better sanitation; the famines that troubled rural areas did not happen in industrial areas. However, urban people—especially small children—died due to diseases spreading through the cramped living conditions. Tuberculosis (spread in congested dwellings), lung diseases from the mines, [|cholera] from polluted water and typhoid were also common.

A description of housing of the mill workers in England in 1844 was given by [|Friedrich Engels], a co-founder of [|Marxism]. [|[40]] In the introduction of the 1892 edition of Engels (1844) he notes that most of the conditions he wrote about in 1844 had been greatly improved.

Luddites
Main article: [|Luddite]

//The Leader of the [|luddites] //, engraving of 1812 [|The Great Chartist Meeting] on [|Kennington Common], 1848 The rapid industrialisation of the English economy cost many craft workers their jobs. The movement started first with [|lace] and [|hosiery] workers near [|Nottingham] and spread to other areas of the textile industry owing to early industrialisation. Many weavers also 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. These attackers became known as Luddites, supposedly followers of [|Ned Ludd], a folklore figure. The first attacks of the Luddite movement began in 1811. The Luddites rapidly gained popularity, and the British government took drastic measures using the [|militia] or [|army] to protect industry. Those rioters who were caught were tried and hanged, or [|transported] for life.

Unrest continued in other sectors as they industrialised, such as agricultural labourers in the 1830s, when large parts of southern Britain were affected by the [|Captain Swing] disturbances. Threshing machines were a particular target, and rick burning was a popular activity. However the riots led to the first formation of [|trade unions], and further pressure for reform.

Organisation of labour
See also: [|Trade union#History]

The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, thus facilitating the organisation of //combinations// or [|trade unions] to help advance the interests of working people. The power of a union could demand better terms by withdrawing all labour and causing a consequent cessation of production. Employers had to decide between giving in to the union demands at a cost to themselves or suffering the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were hard to replace, and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through this kind of bargaining.

The main method the unions used to effect change was [|strike action]. Many strikes were painful events for both sides, the unions and the management. In England, the [|Combination Act] forbade workers to form any kind of trade union from 1799 until its repeal in 1824. Even after this, unions were still severely restricted.

In 1832, the year of the [|Reform Act] which extended the vote in England but did not grant universal suffrage, six men from [|Tolpuddle] in Dorset founded the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers to protest against the gradual lowering of wages in the 1830s. They refused to work for less than 10 shillings a week, although by this time wages had been reduced to seven shillings a week and were due to be further reduced to six shillings. In 1834 James Frampton, a local landowner, wrote to the Prime Minister, [|Lord Melbourne], to complain about the union, invoking an obscure law from 1797 prohibiting people from swearing oaths to each other, which the members of the Friendly Society had done. James Brine, James Hammett, George Loveless, George's brother James Loveless, George's brother in-law Thomas Standfield, and Thomas's son John Standfield were arrested, found guilty, and transported to Australia. They became known as the [|Tolpuddle martyrs]. In the 1830s and 1840s the [|Chartist] movement was the first large scale organised working class political movement which campaigned for political equality and social justice. Its //Charter//of reforms received over three million signatures but was rejected by Parliament without consideration.

Working people also formed [|friendly societies] and [|co-operative societies] as mutual support groups against times of economic hardship. Enlightened industrialists, such as [|Robert Owen] also supported these organisations to improve the conditions of the working class.

Unions slowly overcame the legal restrictions on the right to strike. In 1842, a [|General Strike] involving cotton workers and colliers was organised through the [|Chartist] movement which stopped production across Great Britain. [|[41]]

Eventually effective political organisation for working people was achieved through the trades unions who, after the extensions of the franchise in 1867 and 1885, began to support socialist political parties that later merged to became the British [|Labour Party].

Standards of living
The history of the change of living conditions during the industrial revolution has been very controversial, and was the topic that from the 1950s to the 1980s caused most heated debate among economic and social historians. [|[42]] A series of 1950s essays by [|Henry Phelps Brown] and [|Sheila V. Hopkins] later set the academic consensus that the bulk of the population, that was at the bottom of the social ladder, suffered severe reductions in their living standards. [|[42]]

Chronic hunger and malnutrition were the norm for the majority of the population of the world including England and France, until the latter part of the 19th century. Until about 1750, in large part due to malnutrition, life expectancy in France was about 35 years, and only slightly higher in England. The U.S. population of the time was adequately fed, were much taller and had life expectancies of 45–50 years. [|[43]] A vivid description of living standards of the mill workers in England in 1844 was given by Friedrich Engels. [|[40]]

During the period 1813-1913, there was a significant increase in worker wages. [|[44]] [|[45]] [|[46]]

Population increase
According to Robert Hughes in //The Fatal Shore//, the [|population of England] and Wales, which had remained steady at 6 million from 1700 to 1740, rose dramatically after 1740. The population of England had more than doubled from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8 million in 1850 and, by 1901, had nearly doubled again to 30.5 million. [|[47]] As living conditions and health care improved during the 19th century,[// [|citation needed] //] Britain's population doubled every 50 years. [|[48]] [|[49]] [|Europe] ’s population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900. [|[50]]

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 percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829. [|[32]]

The growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massive [|urbanisation] and the rise of new great [|cities], first in Europe and then in other regions, as new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from rural communities into urban areas. In 1800, only 3% of the world's population lived in cities, [|[51]] a figure that has risen to nearly 50% at the beginning of the 21st century. [|[52]] In 1717 [|Manchester] was merely a market town of 10,000 people, but by 1911 it had a population of 2.3 million. [|[53]]

The greatest killer in the cities was [|tuberculosis] (TB). [|[54]] According to the //Harvard University Library//, "By the late 19th century, 70 to 90% of the urban populations of Europe and North America were infected with the TB bacillus, and about 80% of those individuals who developed active tuberculosis died of it. About 40% of working-class deaths in cities were from tuberculosis." [|[55]]

Continental Europe
The Industrial Revolution on [|Continental Europe] came a little later than in [|Great Britain]. In many industries, this involved the application of technology developed in Britain in new places. Often the technology was purchased from Britain or British engineers and entrepreneurs moved abroad in search of new opportunities. By 1809 part of the [|Ruhr Valley] in Westphalia was called 'Miniature England' because of its similarities to the industrial areas of England. The German, Russian and Belgian governments all provided state funding to the new industries. In some cases (such as [|iron] ), the different availability of resources locally meant that only some aspects of the British technology were adopted.

Belgium
[|Lifts on Canal du Centre] (1888 - 1917) near [|La Louvière], Wallonia Workers' housing at [|Bois-du-Luc] (1838-1853) in La Louvière Renowned for its coal and steel, [|Belgium] has experienced strong industrial growth since the Middle Ages. For many years, heavy industry was the driving force behind the region's economy. Belgium was the second country, after England, in which the industrial revolution took place and the first on continental Europe:

> Before railway construction on the Continent demanded huge quantities of maleable iron mainly for rails, for which low quality iron sufficed, Wallonia was the only Continental region to follow the British model successfully. Since the middle of the 1820s, numerous works comprising coke blast furnaces as well as puddling and rolling mills were built in the coal mining areas around [|Liège] and [|Charleroi]. Excelling all others, [|John Cockerill] 's factories at [|Seraing] integrated all stages of production, from engineering to the supply of raw materials, as early as 1825. [|[56]]

Wallonia came to be regarded as an example of the radical evolution of industrial expansion. Thanks to coal (the French word "houille" was coined in Wallonia), [|[57]] the region geared up to become the 2nd industrial power in the world after England. But it is also pointed out by many researchers, with its // [|Sillon industriel] //, 'Especially in the [|Haine], [|Sambre] and [|Meuse] valleys, between the [|Borinage] and [|Liège] , (...) there was a huge industrial development based on coal-mining and iron-making...'. [|[58]] Philippe Raxhon wrote about the period after 1830: "It was not propaganda but a reality the Walloon regions were becoming the second industrial power all over the world after England." [|[59]] "The sole industrial centre outside the collieries and blast furnaces of Walloon was the old cloth making town of [|Ghent] ." [|[60]] Michel De Coster, Professor at the [|Université de Liège] wrote also: "The historians and the economists say that Belgium was the second industrial power of the world, in proportion to its population and its territory (...) But this rank is the one of Wallonia where the coal-mines, the blast furnaces, the iron and zinc factories, the wool industry, the glass industry, the weapons industry... were concentrated" [|[61]]

Demographic effects
[|Wallonia] 's [|Sillon industriel] (the blue area in the north is not in Wallonia) //Gallow frame// of the //Crachet// in [|Frameries] IN Wallonia's French //Châssis à molettes// or//Belfleur// (French //Chevalement//          Official Poster of the [|Liège's World fair in 1905]    Wallonia was also the birthplace of a strong Socialist party and strong trade-unions in a particular sociological landscape. At the left, the //Sillon industriel//, which runs from [|Mons] in the west, to [|Verviers] in the east (except part of North Flanders, in another period of the industrial revolution, after 1920). Even if Belgium is the second industrial country after England, the effect of the industrial revolution there was very different. In 'Breaking stereotypes', Muriel Neven and Isabelle Devious say:

> The industrial revolution changed a mainly rural society into an urban one, but with a strong contrast between northern and southern [|Belgium]. During the [|Middle Ages] and the Early Modern Period, Flanders was characterised by the presence of large urban centres (...) at the beginning of the nineteenth century this region (Flanders), with an urbanisation degree of more than 30 per cent, remained one of the most urbanised in the world. By comparison, this proportion reached only 17 per cent in Wallonia, barely 10 per cent in most West European countries, 16 per cent in France and 25 per cent in England. Nineteenth century industrialisation did not affect the traditional urban infrastructure, except in [|Ghent] (...) Also, in [|Wallonia] the traditional urban network was largely unaffected by the industrialisation process, even though the proportion of city-dwellers rose from 17 to 45 per cent between 1831 and 1910. Especially in the [|Haine], [|Sambre] and [|Meuse] valleys, between the [|Borinage] and [|Liège] , where there was a huge industrial development based on coal-mining and iron-making, urbanisation was fast. During these eighty years the number of municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants increased from only 21 to more than one hundred, concentrating nearly half of the Walloon population in this region. Nevertheless, industrialisation remained quite traditional in the sense that it did not lead to the growth of modern and large urban centres, but to a conurbation of industrial villages and towns developed around a coal-mine or a factory. Communication routes between these small centres only became populated later and created a much less dense urban morphology than, for instance, the area around Liège where the old town was there to direct migratory flows. [|[62]]

France
The industrial revolution in France was a particular process for it did not correspond to the main model followed by other countries. Notably, most French historians argue that France did not go through a clear //take-off//. [|[63]] Instead, France's economic growth and industrialisation process was slow and steady along the 18th and 19th centuries. However, some stages were identified by Maurice Lévy-Leboyer :


 * French Revolution and Napoleonic wars (1789–1815),
 * industrialisation, along with Britain (1815–1860),
 * economic slowdown (1860–1905),
 * renewal of the growth after 1905.


 * = [[image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1c/Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg/20px-Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg.png width="20" height="14" caption="[icon]" link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg"]] || This section requires [|expansion] . ||

Germany
Main article: [|Economic history of Germany]

The [|BASF] -chemical factories in [|Ludwigshafen], Germany, 1881 Based on its leadership in chemical research in the universities and industrial laboratories, Germany became dominant in the world's chemical industry in the late 19th century. At first the production of dyes based on [|aniline] was critical. [|[64]] Germany

Germany's political disunity—with three dozen states—and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s. However, by the 1840s, trunk lines linked the major cities; each German state was responsible for the lines within its own borders. Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand the railways. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry. Observers found that even as late as 1890, their engineering was inferior to Britain’s. However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialisation, and so heavy lines crisscrossed the Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight, and pulled ahead of France [|[65]]

Sweden
Main article: [|Economic history of Sweden]

During the period 1790-1815 Sweden experienced two parallel economic movements: an **agricultural revolution** with larger agricultural estates, new crops and farming tools and a commercialisation of farming, and a **protoindustrialisation,** with small industries being established in the countryside and with workers switching between agricultural work in the summer season and industrial production in the winter season. This led to economic growth benefiting large sections of the population and leading up to a **consumption revolution** starting in the 1820s.

In the period 1815-1850 the protoindustries developed into more specialized and larger industries. This period witness increasing regional specialisation with mining in [|Bergslagen], textile mills in Sjuhäradsbygden and forestry in [|Norrland]. Several important institutional changes took place in this period, such as free and mandatory schooling introduced 1842 (as first country in the world), the abolishment of a previous national monopoly on trade in handicrafts in 1846, and a stock company law in 1848.

During the period 1850-1890 Sweden witnessed a veritable explosion in its export sector, with agricultural crops, wood and steel being the three dominating categories. Sweden abolished most tariffs and other barriers to free trade in the 1850s and joined the gold standard in 1873.

During the period 1890-1930 the second industrial revolution took place in Sweden. During this period new industries developed with their focus on the domestic market: mechanical engineering, power utilities, papermaking and textile industries.

United States
Main article: [|Technological and industrial history of the United States]

Slater's Mill The United States originally used horse-powered machinery to power its earliest factories, but eventually switched to water power, with the consequence that industrialisation was essentially limited to [|New England] and the rest of the [|Northeastern United States], where fast-moving rivers were located. Horse-drawn production proved to be economically challenging and a more difficult alternative to the newer water-powered production lines. However, the raw materials (cotton) came from the [|Southern United States]. It was not until after the [|Civil War] in the 1860s that steam-powered manufacturing overtook water-powered manufacturing, allowing the industry to fully spread across the nation.

[|Thomas Somers] and the [|Cabot Brothers] founded the [|Beverly Cotton Manufactory] in 1787, the first cotton mill in America, the largest cotton mill of its era, [|[66]] and a significant milestone in the research and development of cotton mills in the future. This cotton mill was designed to utilise horse-powered production, however the operators quickly learned that the economic stability of their horse-drawn platform was unstable, and had fiscal issues for years after it was built. Despite the losses, the Manufactory served as a playground of innovation, both in turning a large amount of cotton, but also developing the water-powered milling structure used in Slater's Mill. [|[67]]

[|Bethlehem Steel], founded in 1857, was once the second-largest manufacturer of [|steel] in the United States; its [|Bethlehem, Pennsylvania] , location has been transformed into a casino. [|Samuel Slater] (1768–1835) is the founder of the [|Slater Mill]. As a boy apprentice in [|Derbyshire], England, he learned of the new techniques in the textile industry and defied laws against the emigration of skilled workers by leaving for New York in 1789, hoping to make money with his knowledge. Slater founded [|Slater's Mill] at [|Pawtucket, Rhode Island], in 1793. He went on to own thirteen textile mills. [|[68]] [|Daniel Day] established a wool carding mill in the [|Blackstone Valley] at [|Uxbridge, Massachusetts] in 1809, the third woollen mill established in the U.S. (The first was in [|Hartford, Connecticut], and the second at [|Watertown, Massachusetts] .) The [|John H. Chafee] [|Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor] retraces the history of "America's Hardest-Working River', the Blackstone. The [|Blackstone River] and its tributaries, which cover more than 45 miles (72 km) from [|Worcester] to [|Providence] , was the birthplace of America's Industrial Revolution. At its peak over 1100 mills operated in this valley, including Slater's mill, and with it the earliest beginnings of America's Industrial and Technological Development.

While on a trip to England in 1810, [|Newburyport] merchant [|Francis Cabot Lowell] was allowed to tour the British [|textile] factories, but not take notes. Realising the [|War of 1812] had ruined his import business but that a market for domestic finished cloth was emerging in America, he memorised the design of textile machines, and on his return to the United States, he set up the [|Boston Manufacturing Company]. Lowell and his partners built America's second cotton-to-cloth textile mill at [|Waltham, Massachusetts], second to the [|Beverly Cotton Manufactory] After his death in 1817, his associates built America's first planned factory town, which they named after him. This enterprise was capitalised in a [|public stock offering], one of the first uses of it in the United States. [|Lowell, Massachusetts], utilising 5.6 miles (9.0 km) of canals and ten thousand horsepower delivered by the [|Merrimack River] , is considered by some to be a major contributor to the success of the American Industrial Revolution. The short-lived utopia-like [|Lowell System] was formed, as a direct response to the poor working conditions in Britain. However, by 1850, especially following the [|Irish Potato Famine], the system had been replaced by poor immigrant labour.

The industrialisation of the watch industry started 1854 also in Waltham, Massachusetts, at the [|Waltham Watch Company], with the development of machine tools, tools, gauges and assembling methods adapted to the micro precision required for watches.

See also: [|History of Lowell, Massachusetts]

Japan
Main articles: [|Meiji Restoration] and [|Economic history of Japan]

The industrial revolution began about 1870 as [|Meiji period] leaders decided to catch up with the West. The government built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development. It inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan ( [|O-yatoi gaikokujin] ).

In 1871 a group of Japanese politicians known as the [|Iwakura Mission] toured Europe and the USA to learn western ways. The result was a deliberate state led industrialisation policy to enable Japan to quickly catch up. The [|Bank of Japan], founded in 1877, used taxes to fund model steel and textile factories. Education was expanded and Japanese students were sent to study in the west.

Modern industry first appeared in textiles, including cotton and especially silk, which was based in home workshops in rural areas. [|[69]]

Second Industrial Revolution
Main article: [|Second Industrial Revolution]

Bessemer converter Steel is often cited as the first of several new areas for industrial mass-production, which are said to characterise a "Second Industrial Revolution", beginning around 1850, although a method for mass manufacture of [|steel] was not invented until the 1860s, when [|Sir Henry Bessemer] invented a new furnace which could convert [|wrought iron] into steel in large quantities. However, it only became widely available in the 1870s after the process was modified to produce more uniform quality. [|[70]] [|[71]]

This second Industrial Revolution gradually grew to include the [|chemical industries], [|petroleum] refining and distribution, [|electrical industries] , and, in the 20th 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. The increasing availability of economical petroleum products also reduced the importance of coal and further widened the potential for industrialisation.

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] , [|Standard Oil] and [|Bayer AG] joined the railroad companies on the world's [|stock markets].

Capitalism
Main article: [|Capitalism]

The advent of the [|Age of 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, presented for example in the book // [|The Improving State of the World] //, is that industrialisation increases wealth for all, as evidenced by raised life expectancy, reduced working hours, and no work for children and the elderly.

Socialism
Main article: [|Socialism]

Socialism emerged as a critique of capitalism. Marxism began essentially as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. [|[72]] 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). He saw the industrialisation process as the logical [|dialectical] progression of feudal economic modes, necessary for the full development of capitalism, which he saw as in itself a necessary precursor to the development of [|socialism] and eventually [|communism].

Romanticism
Main article: [|Romanticism]

During the Industrial Revolution an intellectual and artistic hostility towards the new industrialisation developed. This was known as the Romantic movement. Its major exponents in English included the artist and poet [|William Blake] and poets [|William Wordsworth], [|Samuel Taylor Coleridge] , [|John Keats] , [|Lord Byron] and [|Percy Bysshe Shelley]. The movement stressed the importance of "nature" in art and language, in contrast to "monstrous" machines and factories; the "Dark satanic mills" of Blake's poem " [|And did those feet in ancient time] ". [|Mary Shelley's] novel // [|Frankenstein] // reflected concerns that scientific progress might be two-edged.

Causes
Regional [|GDP] per capita changed very little for most of human history before the Industrial Revolution. (The empty areas mean no data, not very low levels. There is data for the years 1, 1000, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1820, 1900, and 2003) The causes of the Industrial Revolution were complicated and remain a topic for debate, with some historians believing the Revolution was an outgrowth of social and institutional changes brought by the end of [|feudalism] in [|Britain] after the [|English Civil War] in the 17th century. As national border controls became more effective, the spread of disease was lessened, thereby preventing the [|epidemics] common in previous times. [|[73]] The percentage of children who lived past infancy rose significantly, leading to a larger workforce. The [|Enclosure] movement and the [|British Agricultural Revolution] made food production more efficient and less labour-intensive, forcing the surplus population who could no longer find employment in agriculture into [|cottage industry], for example [|weaving] , and in the longer term into the cities and the newly developed [|factories]. [|[74]] The [|colonial expansion] of the 17th century with the accompanying development of international trade, creation of [|financial markets] and accumulation of [|capital] are also cited as factors, as is the [|scientific revolution] of the 17th century. [|[75]]

Until the 1980s, it was universally believed by academic historians that technological innovation was the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the key enabling technology was the invention and improvement of the [|steam engine]. [|[76]] However, recent research into the [|Marketing Era] has challenged the traditional, supply-oriented interpretation of the Industrial Revolution. [|[77]]

[|Lewis Mumford] has proposed that the Industrial Revolution had its origins in the [|Early Middle Ages], much earlier than most estimates. [|[78]] He explains that the model for standardised [|mass production] was the [|printing press] and that "the archetypal model for the industrial era was the clock". He also cites the [|monastic] emphasis on order and time-keeping, as well as the fact that [|medieval] cities had at their centre a church with bell ringing at regular intervals as being necessary precursors to a greater synchronisation necessary for later, more physical, manifestations such as the steam engine.

The presence of a large domestic market should also be considered an important driver of the Industrial Revolution, particularly explaining why it occurred in Britain. In other nations, such as France, markets were split up by local regions, which often imposed tolls and [|tariffs] on goods traded amongst them. [|[79]] Internal tariffs were abolished by [|Henry VIII of England], they survived in Russia till 1753, 1789 in France and 1839 in Spain.

Governments' grant of limited [|monopolies] to inventors under a developing [|patent] system (the [|Statute of Monopolies 1623] ) is considered an influential factor. The effects of patents, both good and ill, on the development of industrialisation are clearly illustrated in the history of the steam engine, the key enabling technology. In return for publicly revealing the workings of an invention the patent system rewarded inventors such as [|James Watt] by allowing them to monopolise the production of the first steam engines, thereby rewarding inventors and increasing the pace of technological development. However monopolies bring with them their own inefficiencies which may counterbalance, or even overbalance, the beneficial effects of publicising ingenuity and rewarding inventors. [|[80]] Watt's monopoly may have prevented other inventors, such as [|Richard Trevithick], [|William Murdoch] or [|Jonathan Hornblower] , from introducing improved steam engines, thereby retarding the industrial revolution by about 16 years. [|[81]] [|[82]]

Causes for occurrence in Europe
Main article: [|European miracle]

A 1623 [|Dutch East India Company] [|bond]. European 17th century colonial expansion, international trade, and creation of financial markets produced a new legal and financial environment, one which supported and enabled 18th century industrial growth. One question of active interest to historians is why the industrial revolution occurred in Europe and not in other parts of the world in the 18th century, particularly [|China], [|India] , and the [|Middle East] , or at other times like in [|Classical Antiquity] [|[83]] or the [|Middle Ages]. [|[84]] Numerous factors have been suggested, including education, technological changes [|[85]] (see [|Scientific Revolution] in Europe), "modern" government, "modern" work attitudes, ecology, and culture. [|[86]] The [|Age of Enlightenment] not only meant a larger educated population but also more modern views on work. However, most historians contest the assertion that Europe and China were roughly equal because modern estimates of per capita income on Western Europe in the late 18th century are of roughly 1,500 dollars in [|purchasing power parity] (and Britain had a [|per capita income] of nearly 2,000 dollars [|[87]] ) whereas China, by comparison, had only 450 dollars.

Some historians such as [|David Landes] [|[88]] and [|Max Weber] credit the different belief systems in China and Europe with dictating where the revolution occurred. The religion and beliefs of Europe were largely products of [|Judaeo-Christianity], and [|Greek] thought. Conversely, Chinese society was founded on men like [|Confucius], [|Mencius] , [|Han Feizi] ( [|Legalism] ), [|Lao Tzu] ( [|Taoism] ), and [|Buddha] ( [|Buddhism] ). Whereas the Europeans believed that the universe was governed by rational and eternal laws, the East believed that the universe was in constant flux and, for Buddhists and Taoists, not capable of being rationally understood.[// [|citation needed] //] Other factors include the considerable distance of China's coal deposits, though large, from its cities as well as the then unnavigable [|Yellow River] that connects these deposits to the sea. [|[89]]

Regarding India, the Marxist historian [|Rajani Palme Dutt] said: "The capital to finance the Industrial Revolution in India instead went into financing the Industrial Revolution in England." [|[90]] In contrast to China, India was split up into many competing kingdoms, with the three major ones being the [|Marathas], [|Sikhs] and the [|Mughals]. In addition, the economy was highly dependent on two sectors—agriculture of subsistence and cotton, and there appears to have been little technical innovation. It is believed that the vast amounts of wealth were largely stored away in palace treasuries by totalitarian monarchs prior to the British take over. [|Absolutist] dynasties in China, India, and the Middle East failed to encourage manufacturing and exports, and expressed little interest in the well-being of their subjects. [|[91]]

Causes for occurrence in Britain
As the Industrial Revolution developed British manufactured output surged ahead of other economies. After the Industrial Revolution, it was overtaken later by the United States. There were two main values that really drove the industrial revolution in Britain. These values were self interest and an entrepreneurial spirit. Because of these interests, many industrial advances were made that resulted in a huge increase in personal wealth. These advancements also greatly benefitted the British society as a whole. Countries around the world started to recognize the changes and advancements in Britain and use them as an example to begin their own industrial revolutions. [|[92]]

The debate about the start of the Industrial Revolution also concerns the massive lead that [|Great Britain] had over other countries. Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas [|colonies] or that profits from the British [|slave trade] between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment. However, it has been pointed out that slave trade and West Indian plantations provided only 5% of the British national income during the years of the Industrial Revolution. [|[93]] Even though slavery accounted for minimal economic profits in Britain during the Industrial Revolution, Caribbean-based demand accounted for 12% of England's industrial output. [|[94]]

Instead, the greater liberalisation of trade from a large merchant base may have allowed Britain to produce and use emerging scientific and technological developments more effectively than countries with stronger monarchies, particularly China and Russia. Britain emerged from the [|Napoleonic Wars] as the only European nation not ravaged by financial plunder and economic collapse, and having the only merchant fleet of any useful size (European merchant fleets were destroyed during the war by the [|Royal Navy] [|[95]] ). Britain's extensive exporting cottage industries also ensured markets were already available for many early forms of manufactured goods. The conflict resulted in most British warfare being conducted overseas, reducing the devastating effects of territorial conquest that affected much of Europe. This was further aided by Britain's geographical position—an island separated from the rest of mainland Europe.

Another theory is that Britain was able to succeed in the Industrial Revolution due to the availability of key resources it possessed. It had a dense population for its small geographical size. [|Enclosure] of common land and the related agricultural revolution made a supply of this labour readily available. There was also a local coincidence of natural resources in the [|North of England], the [|English Midlands] , [|South Wales] and the [|Scottish Lowlands]. Local supplies of coal, iron, lead, copper, tin, limestone and water power, resulted in excellent conditions for the development and expansion of industry. Also, the damp, mild weather conditions of the North West of England provided ideal conditions for the spinning of cotton, providing a natural starting point for the birth of the textiles industry.

The stable political situation in Britain from around 1688, and British society's greater receptiveness to change (compared with other European countries) can also be said to be factors favouring the Industrial Revolution. Peasant resistance to industrialisation was largely eliminated by the Enclosure movement, and the landed upper classes developed commercial interests that made them pioneers in removing obstacles to the growth of capitalism. [|[96]] (This point is also made in [|Hilaire Belloc's] [|The Servile State] .)

Britain's population grew 280% 1550-1820, while the rest of Western Europe grew 50-80%. 70% of European urbanisation happened in Britain 1750-1800. By 1800, only the Netherlands was more urbanised than Britain. This was only possible because coal, coke, imported cotton, brick and slate had replaced wood, charcoal, flax, peat and thatch. The latter compete with land grown to feed people while mined materials do not. Yet more land would be freed when chemical fertilisers replaced manure and horse's work was mechanised. A workhorse needs 3 to 5 acres (1.21 to 2.02 [|ha] ) for fodder while even early steam engines produced 4 times more mechanical energy.

In 1700, 5/6 of coal mined worldwide was in Britain, while the [|Netherlands] had none; so despite having Europe's best transport, most urbanised, well paid, literate people and lowest taxes, it failed to industrialise. In the 18th century, it was the only European country whose cities and population shrank. Without coal, Britain would have run out of suitable river sites for mills by the 1830s. [|[97]]