The Industrial Revolution was a period of scientific and technological
development in the 18th century that transformed largely rural,
agrarian societies—especially in Europe and North America—into
industrialized, urban ones. Goods that had once been painstakingly
crafted by hand started to be produced in mass quantities by machines
in factories, thanks to the introduction of new machines and techniques
in textiles, iron making and other industries.
When Was the Industrial Revolution?
Though a few innovations were developed as early as the 1700s, the
Industrial Revolution began in earnest by the 1830s and 1840s in
Britain, and soon spread to the rest of the world, including the United
States.
Modern historians often refer to this period as the First Industrial
Revolution, to set it apart from a second period of industrialization that
took place from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and saw rapid
advances in the steel, electric and automobile industries.
Spinning Jenny
Thanks in part to its damp climate, ideal for raising sheep, Britain had
a long history of producing textiles like wool, linen and cotton. But prior
to the Industrial Revolution, the British textile business was a true
“cottage industry,” with the work performed in small workshops or even
homes by individual spinners, weavers and dyers.
Starting in the mid-18th century, innovations like the spinning jenny (a
wooden frame with multiple spindles), the flying shuttle, the water
frame and the power loom made weaving cloth and spinning yarn and
thread much easier. Producing cloth became faster and required less
time and far less human labor.
More efficient, mechanized production meant Britain’s new textile
factories could meet the growing demand for cloth both at home and
abroad, where the British Empire’s many overseas colonies provided a
captive market for its goods. In addition to textiles, the British iron
industry also adopted new innovations.
Chief among the new techniques was the smelting of iron ore with coke
(a material made by heating coal) instead of the traditional charcoal.
This method was both cheaper and produced higher-quality material,
enabling Britain’s iron and steel production to expand in response to
demand created by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) and the later
growth of the railroad industry.
Impact of Steam Power
An icon of the Industrial Revolution broke onto the scene in the early
1700s, when Thomas Newcomen designed the prototype for the first
modern steam engine. Called the “atmospheric steam engine,”
Newcomen’s invention was originally applied to power the machines
used to pump water out of mine shafts.
In the 1760s, Scottish engineer James Watt began tinkering with one
of Newcomen’s models, adding a separate water condenser that made
it far more efficient. Watt later collaborated with Matthew Boulton to
invent a steam engine with a rotary motion, a key innovation that would
allow steam power to spread across British industries, including flour,
paper, and cotton mills, iron works, distilleries, waterworks and canals.
Just as steam engines needed coal, steam power allowed miners to go
deeper and extract more of this relatively cheap energy source. The
demand for coal skyrocketed throughout the Industrial Revolution and
beyond, as it would be needed to run not only the factories used to
produce manufactured goods, but also the railroads and steamships
used for transporting them.
READ MORE: When a Horse Raced Against a Locomotive During
the Industrial Revolution
Transportation During the Industrial Revolution
Britain’s road network, which had been relatively primitive prior to
industrialization, soon saw substantial improvements, and more than
2,000 miles of canals were in use across Britain by 1815.
In the early 1800s, Richard Trevithick debuted a steam-powered
locomotive, and in 1830 similar locomotives started transporting freight
(and passengers) between the industrial hubs of Manchester and
Liverpool. By that time, steam-powered boats and ships were already
in wide use, carrying goods along Britain’s rivers and canals as well as
across the Atlantic.
Banking and Communication in the Industrial Revolution
In 1776, Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith, who is regarded as
the founder of modern economics, published The Wealth of Nations. In
it, Smith promoted an economic system based on free enterprise, the
private ownership of means of production, and lack of government
interference.
Banks and industrial financiers soon rose to new prominence during
this period, as well as a factory system dependent on owners and
managers. A stock exchange was established in London in the 1770s;
the New York Stock Exchange was founded in the early 1790s.
The latter part of the Industrial Revolution also saw key advances in
communication methods, as people increasingly saw the need to
communicate efficiently over long distances. In 1837, British inventors
William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first
commercial telegraphy system, even as Samuel Morse and other
inventors worked on their own versions in the United States.
