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Al final de la lección, los estudiantes podrán explicar cómo la Primera Revolución Industrial transformó las economías agrarias en economías industriales.

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Los estudiantes analizarán los efectos sociales y culturales de la Primera Revolución Industrial, incluyendo la urbanización y las condiciones laborales.

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Los estudiantes identificarán y explicarán las innovaciones clave que impulsaron la Primera Revolución Industrial.

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Los estudiantes compararán los cambios de la Primera Revolución Industrial con los avances de la era moderna.

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¿Cómo cambió la Primera Revolución Industrial la vida de las personas y las estructuras sociales?

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Presentación breve sobre las causas y las principales características de la Primera Revolución Industrial.

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Discusión sobre los efectos positivos y negativos de las nuevas tecnologías durante la Primera Revolución Industrial.

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Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-nclc-01581)

The Industrial Revolution, the period in which agrarian and handicraft economies shifted rapidly to industrial and machine-manufacturing-dominated ones, began in the United Kingdom in the 18th century and later spread throughout many other parts of the world. This economic transformation changed not only how work was done and goods were produced, but it also altered how people related both to one another and to the planet at large. This wholesale change in societal organization continues today, and it has produced several effects that have rippled throughout Earth 's political, ecological, and cultural spheres. The following list describes some of the great benefits as well as some of the significant shortcomings associated with the Industrial Revolution.

Pro: Goods Became More Affordable and More Accessible
Factories and the machines that they housed began to produce items faster and cheaper than could be made by hand. As the supply of various items rose, their cost to the consumer declined ( see supply and demand). Shoes, clothing, household goods, tools, and other items that enhance people's quality of life became more common and less expensive. Foreign markets also were created for these goods, and the balance of trade shifted in favor of the producer-which brought increased wealth to the companies that produced these goods and added tax revenue to government coffers. However, it also contributed to the wealth inequality between goods-producing and goods-consuming countries.

Pro: The Rapid Evolution of Labor-Saving Inventions
The rapid production of hand tools and other useful items led to the development of new types of tools and vehicles to carry goods and people from one place to another. The growth of road and rail transportation and the invention of the telegraph (and its associated infrastructure of telegraph-and later telephone and fiber optic-lines) meant that word of advances in manufacturing, agricultural harvesting, energy production, and medical techniques could be communicated between interested parties quickly. Labor-saving machines such as the spinning jenny (a multiple-spindle machine for spinning wool or cotton) and other inventions, especially those driven by electricity (such as home appliances and refrigeration) and fossil fuels (such as automobiles and other fuel-powered vehicles), are also well-known products of the Industrial Revolution.

Pro: The Rapid Evolution of Medicine
The Industrial Revolution was the engine behind various advances in medicine. Industrialization allowed medical instruments (such as scalpels, microscope lenses, test tubes, and other equipment) to be produced more quickly. Using machine manufacturing, refinements to these instruments could more efficiently roll out to the physicians that needed them. As communication between physicians in different areas improved, the details behind new cures and treatments for disease could be dispersed quickly, resulting in better care.

Pro: Enhanced Wealth and Quality of Life of the Average Person
Mass production lowered the costs of much-needed tools, clothes, and other household items for the common (that is, nonaristocratic) people, which allowed them to save money for other things and build personal wealth. In addition, as new manufacturing machines were invented and new factories were built, new employment opportunities arose. No longer was the average person so closely tied to land-related concerns (such as being dependent upon the wages farm labor could provide or the plant and animal products farms could produce). Industrialization reduced the emphasis on landownership as the chief source of personal wealth. The rising demand for manufactured goods meant that average people could make their fortunes in cities as factory employees and as employees of businesses that supported the factories, which paid better wages than farm-related positions. Generally speaking, people could save some portion of their wages, and many had the opportunity to invest in profitable businesses, thereby growing their family "nest eggs." The subsequent growth of the middle class in the United Kingdom and other industrializing societies meant that it was making inroads into the pool of economic power held by the aristocracy. Their greater buying power and importance in society led to changes in laws that were updated to better handle the demands of an industrialized society.

Pro: The Rise of Specialist Professions
As industrialization progressed, more and more rural folk flocked to the cities in search of better pay in the factories. To increase the factories' overall efficiency and to take advantage of new opportunities in the market, factory workers were trained to perform specialized tasks. Factory owners divided their workers into different groups, each group focusing on a specific task. Some groups secured and transported to the factories raw materials (namely iron, coal, and steel) used in mass production of goods, while other groups operated different machines. Some groups of workers fixed machines when they broke down, while others were charged with making improvements to them and overall factory operation.

As the factories grew and workers became more specialized, additional teachers and trainers were needed to pass on specialized skills. In addition, the housing, transportation, and recreational needs of factory workers resulted in the rapid expansion of cities and towns. Governmental bureaucracies grew to support these, and new specialized departments were created to handle traffic, sanitation, taxation, and other services. Other businesses within the towns also became more specialized as more builders, physicians, lawyers, and other workers were added to handle the various needs of the new residents.

Con: Overcrowding of Cities and Industrial Towns
The promise of better wages attracted migrants to cities and industrial towns that were ill-prepared to handle them. Although initial housing shortages in many areas eventually gave way to construction booms and the development of modern buildings, cramped shantytowns made up of shacks and other forms of poor-quality housing appeared first. Local sewerage and sanitation systems were overwhelmed by the sudden influx of people, and drinking water was often contaminated. People living in such close proximity, fatigued by poor working conditions, and drinking unsafe water presented ideal conditions for outbreaks of typhus, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases. The need to treat these and other diseases in urban areas spurred medical advances and the development of modern building codes, health laws, and urban planning in many industrialized cities.

Con: Pollution and Other Environmental Ills
With relatively few exceptions, the world's modern environmental problems began or were greatly exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution. To fuel the factories and to sustain the output of each and every type of manufactured good, natural resources (water, trees, soil, rocks and minerals, wild and domesticated animals, etc.) were transformed, which reduced the planet's stock of valuable natural capital. The global challenges of widespread water and air pollution, reductions in biodiversity, destruction of wildlife habitat, and even global warming can be traced back to this moment in human history. The more countries industrialize in pursuit of their own wealth, the greater this ecological transformation becomes. For example, atmospheric carbon dioxide, a primary driver of global warming, existed in concentrations of 275 to 290 parts per million by volume (ppmv) before 1750 and increased to more than 400 ppmv by 2017. In addition, human beings use more than 40% of Earth's land-based net primary production, a measure of the rate at which plants convert solar energy into food and growth. As the world's human population continues to grow and more and more people strive for the material benefits promised by the Industrial Revolution, more and more of Earth's resources are appropriated for human use, leaving a dwindling stock for the plants and animals upon whose ecosystem services (clean air, clean water, etc.) the biosphere depends.

Con: Poor Working Conditions
When factories sprung up in the cities and industrial towns, their owners prized production and profit over all else. Worker safety and wages were less important. Factory workers earned greater wages compared with agricultural workers, but this often came at the expense of time and less than ideal working conditions. Factory workers often labored 14-16 hours per day six days per week. Men's meager wages were often more than twice those of women. The wages earned by children who worked to supplement family income were even lower. The various machines in the factory were often dirty, expelling smoke and soot, and unsafe, both of which contributed to accidents that resulted in worker injuries and deaths. The rise of labor unions, however, which began as a reaction to child labor, made factory work less grueling and less dangerous. During the first half of the 20th century, child labor was sharply curtailed, the workday was reduced substantially, and government safety standards were rolled out to protect the workers' health and well-being.

Con: The Rise in Unhealthy Habits
As more cheap labor-saving devices become available, people performed less strenuous physical activity. While grueling farm-related labor was made far easier, and in many cases far safer, by replacing animal power and human power with tractors and other specialized vehicles to till the soil and plant and harvest crops, other vehicles, such as trains and automobiles, effectively reduced the amount of healthy exercise people partook in each day. Also, many professions that required large amounts of physical exertion outdoors were replaced by indoor office work, which is often sedentary. Such sedentary behaviors also occur away from work, as television programs and other forms of passive entertainment came to dominate leisure time. Added to this is the fact that many people eat food that has been processed with salt and sugar to help with its preservation, lower its cooking time, and increase its sweetness. Together, these lifestyle trends have led to increases in lifestyle-related diseases associated with obesity, such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer.

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The Rise of the Machines: Pros and Cons of the Industrial Revolution

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The Industrial Revolution made our lives easier, but did it make them better?

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Revisión de documentos históricos y testimonios de trabajadores de la época.

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The resources in this primary source set are intended for classroom use. If your use will be beyond a single classroom, please review the copyright and fair use guidelines.

Teacher's Guide

To help your students analyze these primary sources, get a graphic organizer and guides: Analysis Tool and Guides

The Industrial Revolution took place over more than a century, as production of goods moved from home businesses, where products were generally crafted by hand, to machine-aided production in factories. This revolution, which involved major changes in transportation, manufacturing, and communications, transformed the daily lives of Americans as much as- and arguably more than-any single event in U.S. history.

Background

An early landmark moment in the Industrial Revolution came near the end of the eighteenth century, when Samuel Slater brought new manufacturing technologies from Britain to the United States and founded the first U.S. cotton mill in Beverly, Massachusetts. Slater's Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, like many of the mills and factories that sprang up in the next few decades, was powered by water, which confined industrial development to the northeast at first. The concentration of industry in the Northeast also facilitated the development of transportation systems such as railroads and canals, which encouraged commerce and trade.

The technological innovation that would come to mark the United States in the nineteenth century began to show itself with Robert Fulton's establishment of steamboat service on the Hudson River, Samuel F. B. Morse's invention of the telegraph, and Elias Howe's invention of the sewing machine, all before the Civil War. Following the Civil War, industrialization in the United States increased at a breakneck pace. This period, encompassing most of the second half of the nineteenth century, has been called the Second Industrial Revolution or the American Industrial Revolution. Over the first half of the century, the country expanded greatly, and the new territory was rich in natural resources. Completing the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 was a major milestone, making it easier to transport people, raw materials, and products. The United States also had vast human resources: between 1860 and 1900, fourteen million immigrants came to the country, providing workers for an array of industries.

The American industrialists overseeing this expansion were ready to take risks to make their businesses successful. Andrew Carnegie established the first steel mills in the U.S. to use the British "Bessemer process" for mass producing steel, becoming a titan of the steel industry in the process. He acquired business interests in the mines that produced the raw material for steel, the mills and ovens that created the final product and the railroads and shipping lines that transported the goods, thus controlling every aspect of the steelmaking process.

Other industrialists, including John D. Rockefeller, merged the operations of many large companies to form a trust. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust came to monopolize 90% of the industry, severely limiting competition. These monopolies were often accused of intimidating smaller businesses and competitors in order to maintain high prices and profits. Economic influence gave these industrial magnates significant political clout as well. The U.S. government adopted policies that supported industrial development such as providing land for the construction of railroads and maintaining high tariffs to protect American industry from foreign competition.

American inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva Edison created a long list of new technologies that improved communication, transportation, and industrial production. Edison made improvements to existing technologies, including the telegraph while also creating revolutionary new technologies such as the light bulb, the phonograph, the kinetograph, and the electric dynamo. Bell, meanwhile, explored new speaking and hearing technologies, and became known as the inventor of the telephone.

For millions of working Americans, the industrial revolution changed the very nature of their daily work. Previously, they might have worked for themselves at home, in a small shop, or outdoors, crafting raw materials into products, or growing a crop from seed to table. When they took factory jobs, they were working for a large company. The repetitive work often involved only one small step in the manufacturing process, so the worker did not see or appreciate what was being made; the work was often dangerous and performed in unsanitary conditions. Some women entered the work force, as did many children. Child labor became a major issue. Dangerous working conditions, long hours, and concern over wages and child labor contributed to the growth of labor unions. In the decades after the Civil War, workers organized strikes and work stoppages that helped to publicize their problems. One especially significant labor upheaval was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Wage cuts in the railroad industry led to the strike, which began in West Virginia and spread to three additional states over a period of 45 days before being violently ended by a combination of vigilantes, National Guardsmen, and federal troops. Similar episodes occurred more frequently in the following decades as workers organized and asserted themselves against perceived injustices.

The new jobs for the working class were in the cities. Thus, the Industrial Revolution began the transition of the United States from a rural to an urban society. Young people raised on farms saw greater opportunities in the cities and moved there, as did millions of immigrants from Europe. Providing housing for all the new residents of cities was a problem, and many workers found themselves living in urban slums; open sewers ran alongside the streets, and the water supply was often tainted, causing disease. These deplorable urban conditions gave rise to the Progressive Movement in the early twentieth century; the result would be many new laws to protect and support people, eventually changing the relationship between government and the people.

The Industrial Revolution is a complex set of economic, technological, and social changes that occurred over a substantial period of time. Teachers should consider the documents in this collection as tools for stimulating student thinking about aspects of the Industrial Revolution.

Suggestions for Teachers

After providing a definition of the Industrial Revolution and explaining the time span across which it took place, teachers might supply small groups of students with a set of the documents in this primary source set. Students can categorize the documents by whether they provide information about what happened, why it happened, or its effects. Some documents may fit into more than one category. When small groups have completed their work, the teacher can facilitate creating a class list of events of the Industrial Revolution, causes (or supporting factors), and effects. Students may search the Library's online collections to find additional evidence to support the causes and effects on the class chart.

Using the documents in this primary source set, students can create a timeline of important events in the Industrial Revolution. The last document in the set is dated 1919. Was the Industrial Revolution over by 1919? Challenge students to find evidence in the Library of Congress digital collections to support their answer (there are documents that suggest industrialization in the South was still taking place into the 1930s).

Understanding a historical event as it was experienced by those who lived through it is an important skill of historical thinking-and one that can be difficult to develop. Teachers may challenge students to study documents in the collection to identify varied perspectives on the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution, as experienced by people of the day. Would students classify the responses as mainly positive, mainly negative, or about equally divided? How did people respond to what they perceived as negative effects of the Industrial Revolution?

In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition, which highlighted achievements of the United States and other nations in a variety of fields, including manufacturing and technology. An entire building was devoted to electricity. Using the primary source set as a starting point, ask students to design an exhibit about the development of American industry for the World's Columbian Exposition.

Additional Resources

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The Industrial Revolution in the United States | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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Jump to: Background Suggestions for Teachers Additional Resources The Industrial Revolution took place over more than a century, as production of goods moved from home businesses, where products were generally crafted by hand, to machine-aided production in factories.

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Los estudiantes crearán un esquema que resuma los principales cambios tecnológicos y sus impactos.

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In these free worksheets we look at a time of explosion for manufacturing and production in U.S. History.

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Investigar y comparar un avance tecnológico moderno con uno de la Primera Revolución Industrial.

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Whether it was mechanical inventions or new ways of doing old things, innovations powered the Industrial Revolution.

Subjects

Social Studies, World History

Image

Steam Engine Queens Mill

The use of steam-powered machines in cotton production pushed Britain's economic development from 1750 to 1850. Built more than 100 years ago, this steam engine still powers the Queens Mill textile factory in Burnley, England, United Kingdom.

Photograph by Ashley Cooper

It has been said that the Industrial Revolution was the most profound revolution in human history, because of its sweeping impact on people's daily lives. The term "industrial revolution" is a succinct catchphrase to describe a historical period, starting in 18th-century Great Britain, where the pace of change appeared to speed up. This acceleration in the processes of technical innovation brought about an array of new tools and machines. It also involved more subtle practical improvements in various fields affecting labor, production, and resource use. The word "technology" (which derives from the Greek word techne, meaning art or craft) encompasses both of these dimensions of innovation.

The technological revolution, and that sense of ever-quickening change, began much earlier than the 18th century and has continued all the way to the present day. Perhaps what was most unique about the Industrial Revolution was its merger of technology with industry. Key inventions and innovations served to shape virtually every existing sector of human activity along industrial lines, while also creating many new industries. The following are some key examples of the forces driving change.

Agriculture

Western European farming methods had been improving gradually over the centuries. Several factors came together in 18th-century Britain to bring about a substantial increase in agricultural productivity. These included new types of equipment, such as the seed drill developed by Jethro Tull around 1701. Progress was also made in crop rotation and land use, soil health, development of new crop varieties, and animal husbandry. The result was a sustained increase in yields, capable of feeding a rapidly growing population with improved nutrition. The combination of factors also brought about a shift toward large-scale commercial farming, a trend that continued into the 19th century and later. Poorer peasants had a harder time making ends meet through traditional subsistence farming. The enclosure movement, which converted common-use pasture land into private property, contributed to this trend toward market-oriented agriculture. A great many rural workers and families were forced by circumstance to migrate to the cities to become industrial laborers.

Energy

Deforestation in England had led to a shortage of wood for lumber and fuel starting in the 16th century. The country's transition to coal as a principal energy source was more or less complete by the end of the 17th century. The mining and distribution of coal set in motion some of the dynamics that led to Britain's industrialization. The coal-fired steam engine was in many respects the decisive technology of the Industrial Revolution.

Steam power was first applied to pump water out of coal mines. For centuries, windmills had been employed in the Netherlands for the roughly similar operation of draining low-lying flood plains. Wind was, and is, a readily available and renewable energy source, but its irregularity was considered a drawback. Water power was a more popular energy source for grinding grain and other types of mill work in most of preindustrial Europe. By the last quarter of the 18th century, however, thanks to the work of the Scottish engineer James Watt and his business partner Matthew Boulton, steam engines achieved a high level of efficiency and versatility in their design. They swiftly became the standard power supply for British, and, later, European industry. The steam engine turned the wheels of mechanized factory production. Its emergence freed manufacturers from the need to locate their factories on or near sources of water power. Large enterprises began to concentrate in rapidly growing industrial cities.

In this time-honored craft, Britain's wood shortage necessitated a switch from wood charcoal to coke, a coal product, in the Metallurgy smelting process. The substitute fuel eventually proved highly beneficial for iron production. Experimentation led to some other advances in metallurgical methods during the 18th century. For example, a certain type of furnace that separated the coal and kept it from contaminating the metal, and a process of "puddling" or stirring the molten iron, both made it possible to produce larger amounts of wrought iron. Wrought iron is more malleable than cast iron and therefore more suitable for fabricating machinery and other heavy industrial applications.

Textiles

The production of fabrics, especially cotton, was fundamental to Britain's economic development between 1750 and 1850. Those are the years historians commonly use to bracket the Industrial Revolution. In this period, the organization of cotton production shifted from a small-scale cottage industry, in which rural families performed spinning and weaving tasks in their homes, to a large, mechanized, factory-based industry. The boom in productivity began with a few technical devices, including the spinning jenny, spinning mule, and power loom. First human, then water, and finally steam power were applied to operate power looms, carding machines, and other specialized equipment. Another well-known innovation was the cotton gin, invented in the United States in 1793. This device spurred an increase in cotton cultivation and export from U.S. slave states, a key British supplier.

Chemicals

This industry arose partly in response to the demand for improved bleaching solutions for cotton and other manufactured textiles. Other chemical research was motivated by the quest for artificial dyes, explosives, solvents, fertilizers, and medicines, including pharmaceuticals. In the second half of the 19th century, Germany became the world's leader in industrial chemistry.

Transportation

Concurrent with the increased output of agricultural produce and manufactured goods arose the need for more efficient means of delivering these products to market. The first efforts toward this end in Europe involved constructing improved overland roads. Canals were dug in both Europe and North America to create maritime corridors between existing waterways. Steam engines were recognized as useful in locomotion, resulting in the emergence of the steamboat in the early 19th century. High-pressure steam engines also powered railroad locomotives, which operated in Britain after 1825. Railways spread rapidly across Europe and North America, extending to Asia in the latter half of the 19th century. Railroads became one of the world's leading industries as they expanded the frontiers of industrial society.

Media Credits

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Director

Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society

Production Managers

Gina Borgia, National Geographic Society

Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society

Program Specialists

Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society

Margot Willis, National Geographic Society

other

Last Updated

October 19, 2023

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Whether it was mechanical inventions or new ways of doing old things, innovations powered the Industrial Revolution.

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Observar y evaluar la participación de los estudiantes en los debates y el análisis grupal.

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Evaluar la comprensión de los estudiantes sobre las causas y efectos de la Primera Revolución Industrial.

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Pop Quiz: 15 Things to Know About the Industrial Revolution

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Take this World History quiz at Encyclopaedia Britannica to test your knowledge of the Industrial Revolution.

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Crear una línea de tiempo interactiva utilizando Padlet para mostrar los principales eventos e innovaciones.

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Los estudiantes escribirán un párrafo sobre cómo la Revolución Industrial sigue afectando nuestras vidas hoy.

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Reflexión conjunta sobre las lecciones aprendidas y los temas que les parecieron más interesantes.

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Una pregunta para responder antes de salir: ¿Cuál consideras que fue el cambio más significativo de la Primera Revolución Industrial?

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Browse industrial revolution exit ticket resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of teachers for original educational resources.

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Leer un artículo sobre los efectos sociales de la Primera Revolución Industrial.

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Statewide Dual Credit World History, European Imperialism and Crises 1871-1919 CE, Chapter 10: Enlightenment and Colonization, Social Consequences of Industrial Revolution in Europe

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Completar un juego interactivo sobre los inventos de la Primera Revolución Industrial.

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Industrial Revolution - Interactive Games and Animations for Kids

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Escribir un ensayo breve sobre un invento de la época y su impacto.

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Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1986.29.390)

The Industrial Revolution (1750-1900) forever changed the way people in Europe and the United States lived and worked. These inventors and their creations were at the forefront of a new society.

Spinning and weaving

The creation of the following ingenious machines made possible the mass production of high-quality cotton and woolen thread and yarn and helped transform Great Britain into the world's leading manufacturer of textiles in the second half of the 18th century. The spinning jenny. About 1764 James Hargreaves, a poor uneducated spinner and weaver living in Lancashire, England, conceived a new kind of spinning machine that would draw thread from eight spindles simultaneously instead of just one, as in the traditional spinning wheel. The idea reportedly occurred to him after his daughter Jenny accidentally knocked over the family's spinning wheel; the spindle continued to turn even as the machine lay on the floor, suggesting to Hargreaves that a single wheel could turn several spindles at once. He obtained a patent for the spinning jenny in 1770. The water frame. So called because it was powered by a waterwheel, the water frame, patented in 1769 by Richard Arkwright, was the first fully automatic and continuously operating spinning machine. It produced stronger and greater quantities of thread than the spinning jenny did. Because of its size and power source, the water frame could not be housed in the homes of spinners, as earlier machines had been. Instead, it required a location in a large building near a fast-running stream. Arkwright and his partners built several such factories in the mountainous areas of Britain. Spinners, including child laborers, thereafter worked in ever-larger factories rather than in their homes. The spinning mule. About 1779 Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule, which he designed by combining features of the spinning jenny and the water frame. His machine was capable of producing fine as well as coarse yarn and made it possible for a single operator to work more than 1,000 spindles simultaneously. Unfortunately, Crompton, being poor, lacked the money to patent his idea. He was cheated out of his invention by a group of manufacturers who paid him much less than they had promised for the design. The spinning mule was eventually used in hundreds of factories throughout the British textile industry.

The steam engine

Through its application in manufacturing and as a power source in ships and railway locomotives, the steam engine increased the productive capacity of factories and led to the great expansion of national and international transportation networks in the 19th century. Watt's steam engine. In Britain in the 17th century, primitive steam engines were used to pump water out of mines. In 1765 Scottish inventor James Watt, building on earlier improvements, increased the efficiency of steam pumping engines by adding a separate condenser, and in 1781 he designed a machine to rotate a shaft rather than generate the up-and-down motion of a pump. With further improvements in the 1780s, Watt's engine became a primary power source in paper mills, flour mills, cotton mills, iron mills, distilleries, canals, and waterworks, making Watt a wealthy man. The steam locomotive. British engineer Richard Trevithick is generally recognized as the inventor of the steam railway locomotive (1803), an application of the steam engine that Watt himself had once dismissed as impractical. Trevithick also adapted his engine to propel a barge by turning paddle wheels and to operate a dredger. Trevithick's engine, which generated greater power than Watt's by operating at higher pressures, soon became common in industrial applications in Britain, displacing Watt's less-efficient design. The first steam-powered locomotive to carry paying passengers was the Active (later renamed the Locomotion), designed by English engineer George Stephenson, which made its maiden run in 1825. For a new passenger railroad line between Liverpool and Manchester, completed in 1830, Stephenson and his son designed the Rocket, which achieved a speed of 36 miles (58 km) per hour. Steamboats and steamships. Steamboats and other steamships were pioneered in France, Britain, and the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The first commercially successful paddle steamer, the North River Steamboat, designed by American engineer Robert Fulton, traveled up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany, New York, in 1807 at a speed of about 5 miles (8 km) per hour. Eventually, ever larger steamboats delivered cargo as well as passengers over hundreds of miles of inland waterways of the eastern and central United States, especially the Mississippi River. The first transoceanic voyage to employ steam power was completed in 1819 by the Savannah, an American sailing ship with an auxiliary steam-powered paddle. It sailed from Savannah, Georgia, to Liverpool in a little more than 27 days, though its paddle operated for only 85 hours of the voyage. By the second half of the 19th century, ever larger and faster steamships were regularly carrying passengers, cargo, and mail across the North Atlantic, a service dubbed "the Atlantic Ferry."

Harnessing electricity

In the early 19th century, scientists in Europe and the United States explored the relationship between electricity and magnetism, and their research soon led to practical applications of electromagnetic phenomena. Electric generators and electric motors. In the 1820s and '30s British scientist Michael Faraday demonstrated experimentally that passing an electric current through a coil of wire between two poles of a magnet would cause the coil to turn, while turning a coil of wire between two poles of a magnet would generate an electric current in the coil ( electromagnetic induction). The first phenomenon eventually became the basis of the electric motor, which converts electrical energy into mechanical energy, while the second eventually became the basis of the electric generator, or dynamo, which converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. Although both motors and generators underwent substantial improvements in the mid-19th century, their practical employment on a large scale depended on the later invention of other machines-namely, electrically powered trains and electric lighting. Electric railways and tramways. The first electric railway, intended for use in urban mass transit, was demonstrated by German engineer Werner von Siemens in Berlin in 1879. By the early 20th century, electric railways were operating within and between several major cities in Europe and the United States. The first electrified section of London's subway system, called the London Underground, began operation in 1890. The incandescent lamp.In 1878-79 Joseph Wilson Swan in England and later Thomas Alva Edison in the United States independently invented a practical electric incandescent lamp, which produces continuous light by heating a filament with an electric current in a vacuum (or near vacuum). Both inventors applied for patents, and their legal wrangling ended only after they agreed to form a joint company in 1883. Edison has since been given most of the credit for the invention, because he also devised the power lines and other equipment necessary for a practical lighting system. During the next 50 years, electric incandescent lamps gradually replaced gas and kerosene lamps as the major form of artificial light in urban areas, though gas-lit street lamps persisted in Britain until the mid-20th century.

The telegraph and the telephone

Two inventions of the 19th century, the electric telegraph and the electric telephone, made reliable instantaneous communication over great distances possible for the first time. Their effects on commerce, diplomacy, military operations, journalism, and myriad aspects of everyday life were nearly immediate and proved to be long-lasting. The telegraph. The first practical electric telegraph systems were created almost simultaneously in Britain and the United States in 1837. In the device developed by British inventors William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, needles on a mounting plate at a receiver pointed to specific letters or numbers when electric current passed through attached wires. American artist and inventor Samuel F.B. Morse created his own electric telegraph and, more famously, a universal code, since known as Morse Code, that could be used in any system of telegraphy. The code, consisting of a set of symbolic dots, dashes, and spaces, was soon adopted (in modified form to accommodate diacritics) throughout the world. A demonstration telegraph line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, was completed in 1844. The first message sent on it was, "What hath God wrought!" Telegraph cables were first laid across the English Channel in 1851 and across the Atlantic Ocean in 1858. In the United States the spread of telegraphic communication through the growth of private telegraph companies such as Western Union aided the maintenance of law and order in the Western territories and the control of traffic on the railroads. What's more, it enabled the transmission of national and international news through wire services such as the Associated Press. In 1896 Italian physicist and inventor Guglielmo Marconi perfected a system of wireless telegraphy ( radiotelegraphy) that had important military applications in the 20th century. The telephone. In 1876 Scottish-born American scientist Alexander Graham Bell successfully demonstrated the telephone, which transmitted sound, including that of the human voice, by means of an electric current. Bell's device consisted of two sets of metallic reeds (membranes) and electromagnetic coils. Sound waves produced near one membrane caused it to vibrate at certain frequencies, which induced corresponding currents in the electromagnetic coil connected to it, and those currents then flowed to the other coil, which in turn caused the other membrane to vibrate at the same frequencies, reproducing the original sound waves. The first "telephone call" (successful electric transmission of intelligible human speech) took place between two rooms of Bell's Boston laboratory on March 10, 1876, when Bell summoned his assistant, Thomas Watson, with the famous words that Bell transcribed in his notes as "Mr. Watson-Come here-I want to see you." Initially the telephone was a curiosity or a toy for the rich, but by the mid-20th century it had become a common household instrument, billions of which were in use throughout the world.

The internal-combustion engine and the automobile

Among the most-consequential inventions of the late Industrial Revolution were the internal-combustion engine and, along with it, the gasoline-powered automobile. The automobile, which replaced the horse and carriage in Europe and the United States, offered greater freedom of travel for ordinary people, facilitated commercial links between urban and rural areas, influenced urban planning and the growth of large cities, and contributed to severe air-pollution problems in urban areas. The internal-combustion engine. The internal-combustion engine generates work through the combustion inside the engine of a compressed mixture of oxidizer (air) and fuel, the hot gaseous products of combustion pushing against moving surfaces of the engine, such as a piston or a rotor. The first commercially successful internal-combustion engine, which used a mixture of coal gas and air, was constructed about 1859 by Belgian inventor Étienne Lenoir. Initially expensive to run and inefficient, it was significantly modified in 1878 by German engineer Nikolaus Otto, who introduced the four-stroke cycle of induction-compression-firing-exhaust. Because of their greater efficiency, durability, and ease of use, gas-powered engines based on Otto's design soon replaced steam engines in small industrial applications. The first gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine, also based on Otto's four-stroke design, was invented by German engineer Gottlieb Daimler in 1885. Soon afterward, in the early 1890s, another German engineer, Rudolf Diesel, constructed an internal-combustion engine (the diesel engine) that used heavy oil instead of gasoline and was more efficient than the Otto engine. It was widely used to power locomotives, heavy machinery, and submarines. The automobile. Because of its efficiency and light weight, the gasoline-powered engine was ideal for light vehicular locomotion. The first motorcycle and motorcar powered by an internal-combustion engine were constructed by Daimler and Karl Benz, respectively, in 1885. By the 1890s a nascent industry in continental Europe and the United States was producing increasingly sophisticated automobiles for mostly wealthy customers. Less than 20 years later American industrialist Henry Ford perfected assembly-line methods of manufacturing to produce millions of automobiles (especially the Model T) and light trucks annually. The great economies of scale he achieved made automobile ownership affordable for Americans of average income, a major development in the history of transportation.

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Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution

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The Industrial Revolution (1750-1900) forever changed the way people in Europe and the United States lived and worked. These inventors and their creations were at the forefront of a new society.