THE Industrial Revolution marked a period of development in the second half of the 18th century that transformed rural agrarian societies in Europe and America into urbanized and industrialized cities.
Goods that had once been meticulously crafted by hand began to be produced in large quantities by machines in factories, thanks to the introduction of new machines and techniques in textiles, iron making and others industries.
Fueled by the revolutionary use of steam power, the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and spread to the rest of the world, including the United States, in the 1830s and 1940s. Modern historians often refer to this period as the First Industrial Revolution, to distinguish it from a second period of industrialization that took place from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century and registered rapid advances in the steel, electrical and automaker.
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Thanks in part to its humid climate, ideal for raising sheep, Britain had a long history of producing textiles such as wool, linen and cotton. But before the Industrial Revolution, the British textile industry was a true “home industry”, with the work carried out in small workshops or even homes by spinners, weavers and dye shops individual.
From the mid-18th century onwards, innovations such as the flying bus, the rotating jenny, the hydraulic structure and the electric loom made weaving and spinning and yarn much easier. Fabric production became faster and required less time and much less human labor.
Mechanized and more efficient production has enabled Britain's new textile factories to meet the growing demand. demand for fabrics at home and abroad, where the country's many overseas colonies provided a captive market for their products. In addition to textiles, the British iron industry also embraced new innovations.
Chief among the new techniques was the smelting of iron ore with coke (a material made by heating coal) instead of traditional coal. This method was cheaper and produced higher quality material, allowing Great Britain's iron and steel production to grow. expand in response to the demand created by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) and the subsequent growth of the railroad industry.
An icon of the Industrial Revolution entered the scene in the early 1700s, when Thomas Newcomen designed the prototype of the first modern steam engine. Called the “atmospheric steam engine,” Newcomen's invention was originally applied to power the machines used to pump water from 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 much more efficient. Watt later collaborated with Matthew Boulton to invent a rotary motion steam engine, a key innovation that would enable the steam power spread across British industries, including flour, paper and cotton mills, iron, distilleries, hydraulics and channels.
Just as steam engines needed coal, steam power allowed miners to go deeper and extract more from this relatively inexpensive energy source. Demand for coal soared throughout the Industrial Revolution and beyond, as it would be necessary to operate not just the factories used to produce manufactured products, but also the railways and steamships used to transport them.
Britain's road network, which was relatively primitive before industrialization, soon saw substantial improvements and over 2,000 miles of canals were used across Britain in 1815.
In the early 1800s, Richard Trevithick debuted a steam-powered locomotive, and in 1830 locomotives similar companies have begun to transport cargo (and passengers) between Manchester's industrial centers and Liverpool. At that time, steamships and ships were already widely used, transporting goods along Britain's rivers and canals as well as the Atlantic.
The last part of the Industrial Revolution also saw important advances in communication methods, already that people increasingly saw the need to communicate effectively over long distances. In 1837, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first system of commercial telegraphy, even when Samuel Morse and other inventors worked on their own versions in the U.S. Cooke and Wheatstone's system would be used for railway signaling, as the speed of the new trains created the need for more sophisticated means of communication.
Banks and industrial financers achieved new prominence during the 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.
In 1776, Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790), considered the founder of modern economics, published The Wealth of Nations. In it, Smith promoted an economic system based on free premium entry, private ownership of the means of production, and lack of government interference.
Although many people in Britain began moving from rural areas to cities before the Industrial Revolution, this process accelerated dramatically with industrialization, as the emergence of large factories transformed smaller towns into larger cities throughout decades. This rapid urbanization has brought significant challenges as overcrowded cities have suffered from pollution, inadequate sanitation and a lack of clean water.
Meanwhile, as industrialization increased overall economic output and improved the standard of living of the middle and upper classes, the poor and the working class continued to struggle. The mechanization of labor created by technological innovation made work in factories increasingly tedious (and sometimes dangerous), and many workers were forced to work long hours for wages. miserable. Such dramatic changes have fueled opposition to industrialization, including the “Luddites” known for their violent resistance to changes in the British textile industry.
In the following decades, the indignation with the lack of working and living conditions would fuel the formation of unions, as well as the approval of new child labor laws and public health regulations in Great Britain and the United States to improve lives professional. class and poor citizens who have been negatively impacted by industrialization.
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