Industrial Revolution

For a more general overview, see Industrialisation.

Industrial Revolution
c. 1760 – c. 1840
A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in the United Kingdom in 1835
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Proto-industrialisation Second Industrial Revolution
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The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution. Beginning in Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution spread to continental Europe and the United States, from around 1760 to about 1820–1840.[1] This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanised factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods,[2]: 40  and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.

Many of the technological and architectural innovations were of British origin.[3][4] By the mid-18th century, Britain was the world's leading commercial nation,[5] controlling a global trading empire with colonies in North America and the Caribbean. Britain had major military and political hegemony on the Indian subcontinent; particularly with the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal, through the activities of the East India Company.[6][7][8][9] The development of trade and the rise of business were among the major causes of the Industrial Revolution.[2]: 15  Developments in law also facilitated the revolution, such as courts ruling in favour of property rights. An entrepreneurial spirit and consumer revolution helped drive industrialisation in Britain, which after 1800, was emulated in Belgium, the United States, and France.[10]

The Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in history, comparable only to humanity's adoption of agriculture with respect to material advancement.[11] The Industrial Revolution influenced in some way almost every aspect of daily life. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists have said the most important effect of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population in the Western world began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to improve meaningfully until the late 19th and 20th centuries.[12][13][14] GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy,[15] while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies.[16] Economic historians agree that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in human history since the domestication of animals and plants.[17]

The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes.[18][19][20][21] According to Cambridge historian Leigh Shaw-Taylor, Britain was already industrialising in the 17th century, and "Our database shows that a groundswell of enterprise and productivity transformed the economy in the 17th century, laying the foundations for the world's first industrial economy. Britain was already a nation of makers by the year 1700" and "the history of Britain needs to be rewritten".[22][23] Eric Hobsbawm held that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s,[18] while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.[19] Rapid adoption of mechanized textiles spinning occurred in Britain in the 1780s,[24] and high rates of growth in steam power and iron production occurred after 1800. Mechanised textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early 19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in Belgium and the United States and later textiles in France.[2]

An economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s when the adoption of the Industrial Revolution's early innovations, such as mechanised spinning and weaving, slowed as their markets matured; and despite the increasing adoption of locomotives, steamboats and steamships, and hot blast iron smelting. New technologies such as the electrical telegraph, widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s in the United Kingdom and the United States, were not powerful enough to drive high rates of economic growth.

Rapid economic growth began to reoccur after 1870, springing from a new group of innovations in what has been called the Second Industrial Revolution. These included new steel-making processes, mass production, assembly lines, electrical grid systems, the large-scale manufacture of machine tools, and the use of increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories.[2][25][26][27]

  1. ^ "Industrial History of European Countries". European Route of Industrial Heritage. Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 23 June 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d Landes, David S. (1969). The Unbound Prometheus. Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-09418-4.
  3. ^ Horn, Jeff; Rosenband, Leonard; Smith, Merritt (2010). Reconceptualizing the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-51562-7.
  4. ^ E. Anthony Wrigley, "Reconsidering the Industrial Revolution: England and Wales". Journal of Interdisciplinary History 49.01 (2018): 9–42.
  5. ^ Reisman, George (1998). Capitalism: A complete understanding of the nature and value of human economic life. Jameson Books. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-915463-73-2.
  6. ^ Tong, Junie T. (2016). Finance and Society in 21st Century China: Chinese Culture Versus Western Markets. CRC Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-317-13522-7.
  7. ^ Esposito, John L., ed. (2004). The Islamic World: Past and Present. Vol. 1: Abba – Hist. Oxford University Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-0-19-516520-3. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  8. ^ Ray, Indrajit (2011). Bengal Industries and the British Industrial Revolution (1757–1857). Routledge. pp. 7–10. ISBN 978-1-136-82552-1. Archived from the original on 16 January 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  9. ^ Landes, David (1999). The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31888-3.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Kiely was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ North, Douglass C.; Thomas, Robert Paul (May 1977). "The First Economic Revolution". The Economic History Review. 30 (2): 229–230. doi:10.2307/2595144. ISSN 0013-0117. JSTOR 2595144.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lectures on Economic Growth was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Feinstein2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference SzreterMooney2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference The Industrial Revolution was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference The Industrial Revolution Past and Future was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReviewOfCambridge was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference revolution was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference google1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference lorenzen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Hall, Rachel (5 April 2024). "Industrial Revolution began in 17th not 18th century, say academics". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
  23. ^ Simpson, Craig (5 April 2024). "Industrial Revolution started in 17th century, historians suggest". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 5 April 2024. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
  24. ^ Gupta, Bishnupriya. "Cotton Textiles and the Great Divergence: Lancashire, India and Shifting Competitive Advantage, 1600–1850" (PDF). International Institute of Social History. Department of Economics, University of Warwick. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 October 2021. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  25. ^ Taylor, George Rogers (1951). The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-87332-101-3.
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference Roe1916 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hunter_1985 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).