Key Industrial Revolution Inventions and Social Movements

Posted on Feb 13, 2026 in History

Technological Innovations

  • Enclosures: The process by which open fields, shared by a community, were turned into private, fenced properties by new English landowners.
  • Spinning Jenny: A spinning frame invented by James Hargreaves in 1764.
  • Power Loom: Patented by Edmund Cartwright in 1785.
  • Self-Acting Spinning Mule: A factory machine introduced by Richard Roberts in 1830, allowing one person to spin several threads of yarn simultaneously.
  • Steamboat: Created by Robert Fulton in 1807, this invention applied the steam engine to boats, revolutionizing transport. Initially using paddle wheels, steam power advanced with the invention of the iron hull and propeller. This led to improvements in ports and the creation of canals, such as the Suez Canal (1859–1869).
  • Railway: Developed with the invention of the locomotive, contributing significantly to the transport revolution. The first railways in Great Britain transported goods between mines and ports on short, level tracks. Full incorporation occurred when George Stephenson designed the Rocket (1829), first used in England and later exported to continental Europe and the US, where rail networks spread.

Workers’ Movements and Political Ideologies

  • Luddites: 19th-century English textile workers.
  • Trade Unions: The first workers’ associations aiming to improve labour conditions.
  • Chartism: A working-class movement for political reform in Britain (1808–1857). Named after the People’s Charter of 1808, it was a national protest movement. Its leader, John Frost, demanded secret ballots, universal male suffrage, yearly parliamentary elections, and wages for Members of Parliament (MPs). These protests contributed to the passing of the Ten Hour Act and the Mining Act.
  • Socialism: The economic, social, and political ideology developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in “The Communist Manifesto” (1848). Its objective was to end private property, viewed as the cause of inequality between the owners of the means of production (bourgeoisie) and those who lacked property and exchanged work for low wages (proletariat). A revolution led by the socialist party aimed to destroy the class system and implement common ownership.
  • Anarchism: The economic, social, and political ideology developed by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Mikhail Bakunin in the second half of the 19th century. It advocates a self-governed society based on voluntary institutions. Bakunin proposed a spontaneous revolution led by peasants and the proletariat to abolish the State, substituting it with egalitarian communities featuring equal production and consumption.
  • The First International: Also known as the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA), founded in London in 1864 to fight capitalism internationally. It integrated various trade unions, socialists, and anarchists but dissolved in 1876 due to internal disputes between Marxists and anarchists.

American and French Crises

The Thirteen Colonies

These were the first English settlements in America, starting with Virginia in the 17th century. By the 18th century, they were part of the British Empire but gained independence after the American War of Independence (1775–1783), becoming the first states of the current US.

American War of Independence (1775–1783)

Soon after the Boston Tea Party, colonists formed an army against Great Britain under George Washington’s command. During the war, the colonies met in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and passed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The colonies defeated the British at Yorktown, Virginia (1781), with support from France and Spain. Independence was recognized through the Peace of Paris (1783).

French Economic Crisis of the Late 18th Century

This crisis had two main causes: poor harvests and wars throughout the 18th century, pushing the French economy near bankruptcy. Consequently, King Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General to negotiate levying more taxes with the Three Estates.

Estates-General

This assembly, created in the medieval period in France, had not met since 1614. It comprised representatives of the three estates (classes) and was the only institution with the power to approve new taxes. Louis XVI summoned them on May 5, 1789, in Versailles.