The Industrial Revolution increased the overall amount of wealth and distributed it more widely than had been the case in earlier centuries, helping to enlarge the middle class. However, the replacement of the domestic system of industrial production, in which independent craftspersons worked in or near their homes, with the factory system and mass production consigned large numbers of people, including women and children, to long hours of tedious and often dangerous work at subsistence wages. Their miserable conditions gave rise to the trade union movement in the mid-19th century. Learn more about trade unions. Important inventors of the Industrial Revolution included James Watt, who greatly improved the steam engine; Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson, who pioneered the steam locomotive; Robert Fulton, who designed the first commercially successful paddle steamer; Michael Faraday, who demonstrated the first electric generator and electric motor; Joseph Wilson Swan and Thomas Alva Edison, who each independently invented the light bulb; Samuel Morse, who designed a system of electric telegraphy and invented Morse Code; Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with inventing the telephone; and Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, who constructed the first motorcycle and motorcar, respectively, powered by high-speed internal-combustion engines of their own design. Read more about the history of technology. 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. This process began in Britain in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world. Although used earlier by French writers, the term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) to describe Britain’s economic development from 1760 to 1840. Since Toynbee’s time the term has been more broadly applied as a process of economic transformation than as a period of time in a particular setting. This explains why some areas, such as China and India, did not begin their first industrial revolutions until the 20th century, while others, such as the United States and western Europe, began undergoing “second” industrial revolutions by the late 19th century. A brief treatment of the Industrial Revolution follows. For full treatment of the Industrial Revolution as it occurred in Europe, see Europe, history of: The Industrial Revolution. The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were technological, socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included the following: (1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel, (2) the use of new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine, (3) the invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy, (4) a new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialization of function, (5) important developments in transportation and communication, including the steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and (6) the increasing application of science to industry. These technological changes made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods. There were also many new developments in nonindustrial spheres, including the following: (1) agricultural improvements that made possible the provision of food for a larger nonagricultural population, (2) economic changes that resulted in a wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as a source of wealth in the face of rising industrial production, and increased international trade, (3) political changes reflecting the shift in economic power, as well as new state policies corresponding to the needs of an industrialized society, (4) sweeping social changes, including the growth of cities, the development of working-class movements, and the emergence of new patterns of authority, and (5) cultural transformations of a broad order. Workers acquired new and distinctive skills, and their relation to their tasks shifted; instead of being craftsmen working with hand tools, they became machine operators, subject to factory discipline. Finally, there was a psychological change: confidence in the ability to use resources and to master nature was heightened.
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The Industrial Revolution spread from Great Britain to the continent, where the state played a greater role in promoting industry. The transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy began in Britain in the 18th century, spread to France and Germany between 1850 and 1870, and finally spread to Russia in the 1890s. The governments of these countries actively supported industrialization. In southern and eastern Europe, some pockets of industry developed, surrounded by traditional agrarian economies. Although continental nations sought to borrow from and in some instances imitate the British model -- the success of which was represented by the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 -- each nation's experience of industrialization was shaped by its own matrix of geographic, social, and political factors. The legacy of the revolution in France, for example, led to a more gradual adoption of mechanization in production, ensuring a more incremental industrialization than was the case in Britain. Despite the creation of a customs union in the 1830s, Germany's lack of political unity hindered its industrial development. However, following unification in 1871, the German Empire quickly came to challenge British dominance in key industries, such as steel, coal, and chemicals. Beginning in the 1870s, the European economy fluctuated widely because of the vagaries of financial markets. Continental states responded by assisting and protecting the development of national industry in a variety of ways, the most important being protective tariffs, military procurements, and colonial conquests. Key economic stakeholders, such as corporations and industrialists, looked to national governments to promote economic development by subsidizing ports, transportation, and new inventions; registering patents and sponsoring education; encouraging investments and enforcing contracts; and maintaining order and preventing labor strikes. In the 20th century, some national governments assumed far-reaching control over their respective economies, largely in order to contend with the challenges of war and financial crises. 3.1.1.A: Britain’s ready supplies of coal, iron ore, and other essential raw materials promoted industrial growth. 3.1.1.B: Economic institutions and human capital such as engineers, inventors, and capitalists helped Britain lead the process of industrialization, largely through private initiative.
3.1.1.C: Britain’s parliamentary government promoted commercial and industrial interests because those interests were represented in Parliament. 3.1.2.A: France moved toward industrialization at a more gradual pace than Great Britain, with government support and with less dislocation of traditional methods of production.
3.1.2.B: Industrialization in Prussia allowed that state to become the leader of a unified Germany, which subsequently underwent rapid industrialization under government sponsorship.
3.1.2.C: A combination of factors including geography, lack of resources, the dominance of traditional landed elites, the persistence of serfdom in some areas, and inadequate government sponsorship accounted for eastern and southern Europe’s lag in industrial development.
3.1.3.A: Mechanization and the factory system became the predominant modes of production by 1914.
3.1.3.B: New technologies and means of communication and transportation -- including railroads -- resulted in more fully integrated national economies, a higher level of urbanization, and a truly global economic network.
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Which was most significant in helping germany become rapidly industrialized?
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