About the Industrial Revolution

The term "Industrial Revolution" refers both to an era and a process that changed the face of agricultural and industrial production as well as political, social and economic institutions in Western civilization. Although it was largely non-violent, the Industrial Revolution had phenomenal repercussions that we still feel today.

Features

The Industrial Revolution was a process rather than a single event. In terms of manufacturing, it started in the production of textiles, particularly cotton. New technologies, including the flying shuttle and the spinning jenny, allowed owners to institute a factory system in the production of cotton fabric. Improved transportation in the last quarter of the 18th century made it possible to move machinery to factories and to move finished products to market. Newly industrialized industries relied on coal and iron and increased demand for these commodities led to improvements in technology in those areas as well.

Geography

The Industrial Revolution started in Britain. Historians have a hard time explaining precisely why this was so. A number of factors contributed to the rise of industrialization in Britain, including the proliferation of industrial inventions and innovation, a healthy supply of labor, sufficient capital to support new enterprise and a government that chose not to interfere in the creative and entrepreneurial processes of its people.

Time Frame

Many historians cite 1760 as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Actually, the conditions that made industrialization possible started several decades earlier. For example, Britain's population started to grow by 1740, and it continued to increase throughout the 19th and much of the 20th centuries. In 1733, John Kay perfected his flying shuttle, which sped up the weaving process and gave impetus to the need for improved spinning technology. The steam engine, invented in 1708, was applied to weaving processes in the 1780s, which allowed entrepreneurs to move their factories from the countryside to the city.

Effects

The Industrial Revolution made possible the production of goods on a large scale. Members of the business classes could accumulate money, which enabled them to become consumers of the goods being produced in factories. There were people who did not benefit, however. Industrial workers lost control of their means of production and the management of their days as they moved into factories. And the series of Enclosure Laws passed by Parliament to regularize the distribution and use of agricultural lands left many families on the lowest end of the scale landless and reduced them to nothing more than wage laborers.

Potential

Although it has been used extensively to describe the rapid shift in production from cottage industry to factory production in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution was a period of sweeping change in social and intellectual patterns as well. New crops and methods of farming led to improved food supplies, while new standards for personal hygiene improved health. A shift in capitalist thinking encouraged those who accumulated wealth to invest it to make more money, providing necessary start-up capital for new industries.