The Industrial Revolution: Origins, Impact, and Spread

Posted on Dec 23, 2023 in Geography

The origins of the industrial revolution: What was the Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution was a period of profound economic and social changes, caused by the widespread use of machinery in production. Agrarian, rural societies were transformed into industrial, urban societies. These changes began in Britain in the second half of the 18th century. The Industrial Revolution is divided into two stages:

The First Industrial Revolution, which began around 1760.
The Second Industrial Revolution, which began around 1870.

The Industrial Revolution was accompanied by important changes in population and agriculture.

The demographic revolution

The English population grew slowly until the 18th century as both the birth rate and the death rate were high. In the late 18th century, however, there was high and sustained population growth. This was because the death rate decreased, while the birth rate continued to be high. The death rate decreased for several reasons:

Nutrition. This improved, making the population more resistant to illness. This was possible thanks to advances in agriculture and changes in people’s diets. Potatoes became a basic food.
Personal and public hygiene. The use of soap was more widespread, and people began to wear cotton clothes, which were easier to wash. There was better access to clean drinking water, and streets were kept cleaner. Nevertheless, these changes took place very slowly.
Public health. In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered the vaccine against smallpox, a disease with a high mortality rate (although the vaccine was not widely used until the 19th century). New hospitals were also built in this period.
Epidemics, which had been frequent in the Early Modern period, caused fewer deaths due to improved nutrition, hygiene and public health.

Population growth produced increased demand for agricultural and industrial products. It also meant that more workers were available to fill all the new jobs in factories.

The agricultural revolution

The increased demand for food led to innovations in crop and livestock farming.

Farming techniques. The three-field system of crop rotation, in which one field always lay fallow, was replaced by the four-field system, also called the Norfolk system. The land was divided into four fields, which alternated wheat, turnips, barley and clover. The nutrients in the soil were not used up, as clover helped to replenish them. In addition, turnips and clover were used to feed livestock. This allowed farmers to keep more animals, which increased manure, a natural fertiliser, in the fields. In the late 18th century, the wood plough was replaced by the iron plough. Later, new farming machines were introduced: mechanical seeders, threshers and harvesters.
Land ownership and use. The liberal revolutions ended the practice of peasants farming communal lands under the authority of a lord or the Church. Land became private property. The bourgeoisie bought farmland in order to profit from selling its products.
Livestock farming. Part of the land was used to grow fodder, or food for livestock. The number of heads of livestock on each farm increased.

Primary sector production increased in the 18th century. Farmers received greater income, and were able to save money. Some invested their savings in industry or banking.

The first industrial revolution: From workshop to factory

Until the 18th century, most products were made by artisans in small workshops using simple tools. Each artisan made the entire product by hand. In Britain in the late 18th century, several machines were invented that manufactured products much more quickly. These machines were often huge and needed to be housed in large spaces. Consequently, workshops were replaced by factories, which were large buildings in which workers operated machines. The first machines were powered by hydraulic energy, but after James Watt had invented the steam engine they became steam-powered, using coal as an energy source. With the rise of factories, industrial activities were concentrated in certain places. The manufacturing process changed as well: each worker specialised in a single task in the production process. This system is known as the division of labour. Workers had fixed timetables and worked at the speed required by the machines. The division of labour increased productivity: each worker produced more than an artisan could in the same amount of time. Manufacturing costs decreased, causing the prices of products to decrease as well.

The textile industry

The cotton grown in Britain’s colonies provided the British textile industry with cheap and abundant raw material. The textile industry was the first to introduce technical innovations in spinning (mechanical spinners developed by James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright and Samuel Crompton) and weaving (John Kay’s flying shuttle and Edmund Cartwright’s mechanical loom). When machines became steam-powered, British textile production expanded. In 1800, approximately 350,000 people worked in cotton spinning and weaving factories. British cotton products were cheap and well-made, and they flooded international markets. The textile boom also increased activity in other sectors, such as agriculture (which provided raw materials for textile products) and the iron industry (which provided raw materials for factory machines).

The iron industry

Until the early 18th century, most iron used in Britain was imported from Sweden, and was very expensive. It became cheaper after 1709 when Abraham Darby invented a blast furnace to smelt iron using products derived from coal, which was abundant in Britain. In the late 18th century, Henry Cort invented a new type of furnace for making large amounts of wrought iron. Wrought iron was a strong pure iron that could be bent easily to make chains or nails. Iron manufacturing grew greatly during the Industrial Revolution, because there was so much demand for machines and tools.

Economic liberalism

This was based on the theories developed by Adam Smith in his book. The Wealth of Nations. Economic activity should be governed by the principle of economic freedom. Smith agreed that the state should not intervene in the economy. This refers to the way prices and salaries are regulated by the law of supply and demand. Adam Smith was in favour of the division of labour

The transport revolution: Advances in navigation

British industrial production grew rapidly. Fast, safe transport was necessary to ensure that factories received supplies, and that their products could be distributed. Before the 18th century, road travel was uncomfortable, slow and dangerous. After 1750, new roads were built and old roads were repaired, but river travel was still cheaper and safer. Between 1770 and 1830, numerous canals were constructed, especially for the transport of high-volume cargo, such as coal. The steam engine was soon used in navigation. In 1807, the American Robert Fulton launched the first line of commercial steamboats. At first, steamboats were only used for river travel. Clipper ships, which were large, safe sailboats, continued to dominate the seas.

The railway age:

The railway was made possible by two advances of the Industrial Revolution:

The steam engine, which was used to power locomotives.
Iron, the raw material used to build trains and railways.

In 1814, the English engineer George Stephenson built a steam-powered locomotive to transport coal between mines. In 1825, the first cargo railway line was built in England. In 1830, the first public transport railway line was opened, running between Liverpool and Manchester. Technical advances made the railway a fast, safe and cheap means of transport. It had a great impact on industrialisation. For example, it promoted mining by increasing the demand for coal consumption, while the iron industry had to supply the iron needed to build trains and railways. At the same time, the railway provided a cheap and efficient way of getting goods to their markets. Railways were built all over the world, including long distance intercontinental railways. For example, the Trans-Siberian Railway, built between 1891 and 1905, connected the city of Moscow in the west of Russia with Vladivostok in the far east.

The impact of the transport revolution

The new means of transport were faster and safer, and could carry bigger loads. They had a massive social and economic impact:

Trade. Transport times and costs were reduced, which was a great stimulus to world trade. It also became much easier for people to travel.
Specialisation in the world economy. Industrialised countries specialised in manufacturing and exporting products. The colonies provided raw materials to industrialised countries.
Mining, metallurgy and the iron industry. These industries were strengthened because they provided the raw materials for building the new means of transport.
Daily life. Nutrition improved, as food could be transported longer distances. It became much easier to emigrate to a distant part of the world.

The Second Industrial Revolution: New energy sources and industries

Two new energy sources had a huge impact:

Electricity. This was used in industry to power machines. It was also used to power the electric railway, underground trains and trams, and new forms of communication like the telephone, radio and cinema.
Petroleum. The first oil wells were drilled in 1859. This energy source grew in importance with the invention of the combustion engine, which was used to power automobiles.

The iron and steel industry and the chemical and electrical industries grew in importance.

The iron and steel industry. This industry expanded following the invention of the Bessemer converter, which could produce large amounts of steel at a low price.
The chemical industry. Raw materials, like petroleum and rubber, were used to make new products, such as pharmaceuticals, synthetics (rubber and artificial colours), and dynamite.
The electrical industry. Electricity was produced and distributed on a large scale. The United States and Germany strengthened their position as leading industrial powers.

New systems of production

In the late 19th century, new systems of production were adopted:

Taylorism. The engineer Frederick W. Taylor invented a production process, which was divided into small tasks that were timed. Each worker specialised in a certain task and was paid according to the work they completed.
The assembly line was used by the businessman Henry Ford in his automobile factories. Products were passed from one worker to the next along an assembly line. This eliminated the time that a worker wasted between tasks and increased their output.
Mass production. Ford’s use of the assembly line prepared the way for mass production. Numerous identical parts of an item were manufactured before all the different parts were brought together to assemble the final product. In this way, large quantities of goods could be made at reduced production costs.

As business was now carried out on a much larger scale, extremely large amounts of capital were required. Different types of corporate groups emerged from mergers and agreements between companies:

Cartel. This is an association of companies in the same line of business who reach an agreement to control production and distribution, and to set prices.
Holding company. This type of company controls other companies because it owns most of their shares.
Trust. This is an association of companies that together cover all the stages in the manufacture of a product. Their goal is to control the market and eliminate competition.

Governments sometimes had to pass laws to regulate cartels and trusts because they created unfair monopolies.

The Spread if the Industrial Revolution: The industrial Revolution in Europe

Germany. Before German unification in 1871, industrialisation was slowed down by the existence of many small states. The Zollverein (1834), a customs union of several states, was an attempt to overcome trade barriers and create a large domestic market. In Germany, there was an alliance between agrarian nobles and the industrial bourgeoisie, while the state played a role in promoting industrial development. The main industries were iron and steel, and metallurgy.

France. Industrialisation began between about 1830 and 1850. France did not become as industrialised as Britain because of a number of factors, such as the survival of many small independent farmers, the importance of traditional artisanal activity, and slow population growth.

Industrialisation in the United States

In the late 19th century, the United States became a great industrial power due to several factors:

Extensive agricultural production. Land was abundant and labour was scarce, leading to rapid mechanisation in agriculture.
Abundant natural resources. These included iron, coal and petroleum.
Specialised production. The industrial north was supplied with cotton from the agrarian south, and food products from the west.
A large domestic market. This was aided by the rapid construction of a railway network that ran from coast to coast.
Innovation. Technical advances, new systems of production and new types of companies were adopted quickly.