Search results
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.
- When Was The Industrial Revolution?
- Spinning Jenny
- Impact of Steam Power
- Transportation During The Industrial Revolution
- Banking and Communication in The Industrial Revolution
- Labor Movement
- The Industrial Revolution in The United States
- Effects of The Industrial Revolution
- Sources
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...
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...
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 Wattbegan t...
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) be...
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...
Though many people in Britain had begun moving to the cities from rural areas before the Industrial Revolution, this process accelerated dramatically with industrialization, as the rise of large factories turned smaller towns into major cities over the span of decades. This rapid urbanization brought significant challenges, as overcrowded cities su...
The beginning of industrialization in the United States is usually pegged to the opening of a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793 by the recent English immigrant Samuel Slater. Slater had worked at one of the mills opened by Richard Arkwright (inventor of the water frame) mills, and despite laws prohibiting the emigration of textile wo...
Historians continue to debate many aspects of industrialization, including its exact timeline, why it began in Britain as opposed to other parts of the world and the idea that it was actually more of a gradual evolution than a revolution. The positives and negatives of the Industrial Revolution are complex. On one hand, unsafe working conditions we...
Robert C. Allen, The Industrial Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 Claire Hopley, “A History of the British Cotton Industry.” British Heritage Travel, July 29, 2006 William Rosen, The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. New York: Random House, 2010 Gavin Weightman, Th...
May 15, 2024 · Industrial Revolution, in modern history, the process of change from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. These technological changes introduced novel ways of working and living and fundamentally transformed society.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Industrial Revolution occurred when agrarian societies became more industrialized and urban. Learn where and when the Industrial Revolution started, and the inventions that made it...
Everything changed during the Industrial Revolution, which began around 1750. People found an extra source of energy with an incredible capacity for work. That source was fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas, though coal led the way — formed underground from the remains of plants and animals from much earlier geologic times.
- They worked about 12 hours a day on average.
- It started in Great Britain for many reasons. For one, Great Britain had a large reserve of coal and iron that would power industrial machines. Gre...
- The Industrial Revolution actually spread across the world (including America), but it just struck Britain first since it was a European country, w...
Industrial Revolution Timeline. List of some of the major causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the 18th century with the invention of new machines that greatly increased production. Among other important developments was the emergence of the factory system.
The term Industrial Revolution refers to the process of change in modern history from a farming and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. The process began in Britain, where the Industrial Revolution was largely confined from the 1760s to the 1830s.
