Industrial revolution 1850-1940: presentation

From 1800 to 1850, agricultural production increased in Europe thanks to the agricultural revolution started in the late 18th Century. Indeed new seeds and plants were created to withstand harsh weather conditions. That triggered the first Industrial Revolution.

The concept of Industrial Revolution originally referred to the developments that transformed Great Britain, between 1750 and 1830. Other European nations underwent the same process soon there after, followed by others during the 19th century.

There were two industrial revolutions from 1800 to 1940.

The first Industrial Revolution was based on the invention of the steam engine which was created to pump water from coal mines. Indeed steam machines were used until the 20th century particularly in the textile industry. The industry based on manual labour was replaced by industry and the manufacture of machinery : people no longer worked by hand since machines were invented. It began with the mechanisation of the textile industries. Trade expansion was enabled by building roads and railways. The first Industrial Revolution spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century.

         The second Industrial Revolution started in the late 19^th century based on oil and electricity. The USA was a leader in this second revolution.

It began with a wave of inventions and discoveries like the first exploitation of oil shaft by Drake in 1859, the invention of the motor engine in 1886 with Daimler in , the invention of the telephone by Graham Bell in 1876 and with the Kodak Camera by George Eastman in 1888. The productivity was increased a lot, thanks to Taylorism, which consisted in working on assembly line, doing the same repetitive and simple task, to work faster. It was created by Alex Taylor in 1911 (lots of industries used this new system). Thanks to that, unemployment was reduced but there were hard-working conditions and Taylorism was exhausting and repetitive.

         That’s why all the countries developed their industry. The chief reason to modernize was to stay competitive enough. The Industrial Revolution went along with economic growth, the increase of consumption and higher incomes.