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Coal, Steam, and The Industrial Revolution: Crash Course World History #32

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Industrial Revolution's Effect on the World

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The Industrial Revolution: Crash Course History of Science #21

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Industrial Revolution for Kids | A simple yet comprehensive overview

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Industrial Revolution

By the 1840s, when this portrait was made, textile mills had spread throughout New England. This merchant's portrait is evidence of that growing industry. The sitter was affluent enough to commission his portrait and is shown in front of what made him wealthy. Rather than selling bulk textiles, however, this man probably supplied dry goods or manufactured dresses. Behind him are blue boxes that would have likely contained hats; bolts of calico, a printed cotton fabric, sit on shelves. Multiple groups benefited from calico printing at this time, including factory owners, textile merchants, and those who created goods using the fabric.

What markers of wealth and status do you see in your community today?

Industrial Revolution

Crops of all kinds flourished in the Southern United States due to its warm climate, moderate rainfall, and rich soil. However, cotton was a commodity in high demand in the 19th century, and its growth and processing were made easier by the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and the discovery of a new cotton species. These factors encouraged Southern planters to focus their growing efforts on the crop, and slaveholders increased their output by relying more heavily on enslaved human capital.

The House that Jeff Built is an abolitionist political cartoon made in 1863 during the Civil War. David Claypoole Johnston borrowed the structure of the British nursery rhyme "This Is the House That Jack Built" to illustrate how slavery and the cotton economy, led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, were interdependent and dehumanizing.

According to this cartoon, what is the downfall of the Confederacy?

Industrial Revolution

The Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, hired George Inness to depict and celebrate the railroad shortly after its 1851 incorporation. Inness's painting features a train moving through a field of tree stumps, a sight increasingly common across the country as railroads were rapidly constructed in the second half of the 19th century. A roundhouse, depicted in the background, was not yet finished when Inness made the painting, but his patron requested it be included in the work.

Some scholars interpret this painting as an enthusiastic affirmation of industrial technology. Others understand it to be a lament for a rapidly vanishing wilderness. Given what you see in the painting, what do you think this artwork's message is?

Industrial Revolution

In 1863 Thomas H. Johnson opened a photographic studio in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he had easy access to clients in the coal and railroad industries. The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company (who later built the Delaware and Hudson Railway) hired Johnson to create a series of photographs depicting mining towns along railroad routes. Delaware and Hudson played a major role in developing and operating coal mines in northeast Pennsylvania. In this photograph, Johnson focused his camera on Waymart, a town that had sprung up along the railroad.

Compare this photograph to George Inness's painting, The Lackawanna Valley. What similarities and differences do you see?

Industrial Revolution

As part of a series documenting coal mines for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, Thomas H. Johnson set his camera upon this imposing structure set atop a mine opening in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Consider how Johnson shows the structure in comparison to the town and landscape. What do you think this photograph says about the coal industry?

There are more photographs of 19th-century railroads and industrial scenes than paintings. This is due in large part to the recent invention of photography in 1839. Photographers aligned themselves to modern industry and railroads preferred using the latest art form to promote their enterprise.

Industrial Revolution

Steamboats dramatically altered transportation in the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Powered by lumber or coal, steamboats replaced one-way flatboats, enabling faster two-way travel via canals and rivers. They also held greater capacity for carrying goods. Steamboats hastened the spread of settlers into what is now the middle of the United States, especially along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

"Wooding Up" on the Mississippi from 1863 shows the showboat Princess stopping for fuel, perhaps in a race with Diana behind it. African Americans, likely enslaved, load lumber onto the boat, while white patrons, some of them slaveholders, populate the upper deck. In this work, Frances Flora Bond Palmer may have been hinting at the dangers of steamboat travel: moonlight shines on a snag (or tree) in the river, and the glowing fires would have reminded viewers of the all-too-common event of ship explosions. Palmer likely knew about the 1859 explosion of the showboat Princess in New Orleans, when dozens died because of faulty boilers.

Think about the details and themes presented in this work of art. If this image appeared in a newspaper, what do you think the adjacent headline might read?

Industrial Revolution

Painter John George Brown kept a studio in New York a few blocks from the Hudson River. He often walked down to the docks, where he paid longshoremen more than their going rate to pose for sketches. The Longshoreman's Noon illustrates a diversity of Irish and German workers, as well as a sole African American man, sitting on and in front of bales of cotton ready to ship.

Before the advent of the shipping container, longshoremen were essential to waterfront operations. They loaded and unloaded ships, moving hundreds of pounds of cargo that physically taxed their bodies. Work was often erratic, appearing and disappearing with the whims of shipping schedules, and steamships paid wages depending upon prevailing economic conditions. New York longshoremen went on strike multiple times in the late 1870s, while Brown worked on this painting. It is thought that the men at center are discussing news of their efforts published in the Sun newspaper.

Journalists criticized Brown for idealizing his subjects, including these longshoremen. He avoided showing the full realities and challenges of urban life, acknowledging that he made works of art for the public and collectors to enjoy. Knowing its background, what do you think about this painting?

Industrial Revolution

What do you picture when you think of cotton?

This photograph shows the interior of what was once the world's largest cotton plantation. At left, African American men pack cotton into a large bale using a press; in the rear, cotton gins-machines that separate sticky seeds from plant fibers-are visible. Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin in 1793 accelerated cotton production in the United States, as well as the use of slave labor to harvest and process the crop. By 1899, when this photograph was made, slavery had been abolished for over 30 years, but cotton production was rebounding.

Dahomey Plantation was founded in 1833 by F. G. Ellis, who named the plantation after the Kingdom of Dahomey, the homeland of his enslaved workers in present-day Benin. Ellis was probably able to claim the land at this time because thousands of Native Americans had been forcibly removed under policies and orders enacted by President Andrew Jackson.

Imagine yourself in this scene: What do you think it would have felt like to work in this room? How does knowing the history of Dahomey Plantation and its land change your thinking about the photograph?

Industrial Revolution

Hugo Gellert made Primary Accumulation 3 for an illustrated volume of Karl Marx's Das Kapital. Das Kapital was written in the mid-19th century as the Industrial Revolution fundamentally altered work and life. Marx studied the English factory system and theorized that capitalism, with its incessant drive for profits and power, exploited workers and would eventually collapse.

Gellert selected what he called "essential parts" of Das Kapital and created corresponding prints. With this work, Gellert illustrated an aspect of primary (or primitive) accumulation, a concept which Marx described as a precapitalist phase wherein owners claim capital, often seizing it from others, in order to begin the capitalist cycle. Gellert shows the owners of production as more powerful and distinct from the working class. How does Gellert demonstrate the factory owner's power?

Industrial Revolution

Soledad Salamé traveled to Louisiana to document the aftereffects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The well, operated by BP, spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of at least five months, making it the largest marine oil spill in history. This industrial disaster continues to negatively impact sea life and people living along the coast.

To create her Gulf Distortion series, Salamé faxed the photographs to herself, deliberately distorting the images. She printed them on plastic film using an ink that produces a shimmery appearance. Why do you think she may have distorted the original photographs in this way?

The Deepwater Horizon disaster raised questions about the petroleum industry, its environmental impacts, and how it is regulated. Compare this photograph to Von Storch Shaft, Del. & Hudson Canal Co. by Thomas H. Johnson. What similarities and differences do you see between these two works of art?

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Industrial Revolution By the 1840s, when this portrait was made, textile mills had spread throughout New England. This merchant's portrait is evidence of that growing industry. The sitter was affluent enough to commission his portrait and is shown in front of what made him wealthy.

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Thomas Alva Edison

Robert Fulton Megapage

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John D. Rockefeller Megapage

Samuel Slater

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Economic Growth in America

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN AMERICA MEGAPAGE

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Library of Congress

PBS Learning Media

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Introduction | Primary Sources and Analysis Tools
Library of Congress Resources | Primary Source Set

Choose a link below to access printable PDF versions of these materials including additional information, color images and citations.
Childhood Lost:Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution Resource Booklet | Primary Source Set

Introduction

In the years that followed the Civil War, known as the "Rise of Industrial America, 1876 - 1900" on the American Memory Timeline of the Library of Congress Learning Page, the United States emerged as an industrial giant. When studying history we see that existing industries flourished and new opportunities developed, such as petroleum refining, steel manufacturing, and the widespread use of electrical power. The use of railroads grew exponentially and industry and services once in isolated areas of the country entered into a national market economy.

This era of industrial growth transformed American society creating a new class of wealthy entrepreneurs and a comfortable middle class. The increase in industry resulted in a growth among the blue collar working class. This labor force was made up of millions of newly arrived immigrants and vast numbers of families migrating from rural areas to cities with the hope of job security and prosperity.

With a dream of a better life, rural families relocated to the cities to find work. Sadly, most were disappointed when they arrived and discovered that the truth was not as "rosey" as they had been led to believe. The jobs available required long hours and offered little pay. In most situations, every able family member was needed to work to simply keep the family above the poverty level. Those working included children as young as three.

Young children working endured some of the harshest conditions. Workdays would often be 10 to 14 hours with minimal breaks during the shift. Factories employing children were often very dangerous places leading to injuries and even deaths. Machinery often ran so quickly that little fingers, arms and legs could easily get caught. Beyond the equipment, the environment was a threat to children as well as factories put out fumes and toxins. When inhaled by children these most certainly could result in illness, chronic conditions or disease.

Children working in rural areas were not faring much better. Harvesting crops in extreme temperatures for long hours was considered normal for these children. Work in agriculture was typically less regulated than factory duties. Farm work was often not considered dangerous or extraneous for children, even though they carried their weight and more in loads of produce and handled dangerous tools.

Beyond the topic of safety, children working lengthy hours had limited access to education. Many families relied on income earned by each family member and did not allow children to attend school at all. Those fortunate enough to be enrolled often attended only portions of a school day or only a few weeks at a time. Library of Congress Learning Page Features and Activities Timeline Accessed 9.24.08

Reforming child labor laws and creating new laws that would enforce a minimum working age, prohibiting dangerous jobs and conditions and establishing maximum hours children could work was not a popular endeavor. It took several years and many attempts by Congress to pass national laws designed to improve working conditions and regulations relative to children in the workforce.

Early Advocates For Children

GRACE ABBOTT
Progressive Era reformer Grace Abbott was born in Grand Island, Nebraska on November 17, 1878. Born into a family of activists, she was exposed to and involved with political and social issues at an early age. Her Quaker mother was connected to the Underground Railroad and the woman suffrage movement; and her father was a leader in state politics.

In 1917 Abbott joined the Department of Labor. She was assigned to the Children's Bureau, a division that investigated and reported issues related to child welfare that implemented the first federal law restricting child labor. However, in 1918 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legislation.

By 1921, Abbott was heading the Children's Bureau and led the campaign for a constitutional amendment limiting child labor. Although that amendment was never ratified, the amendment set precedent for New Deal legislation regulating working conditions and regulations for children under the age of sixteen. Library of Congress Today in History Accessed 9.26.08

JANE ADDAMS
"As a young woman, Jane Addams did not know what she wanted to do with her life. Born September 6, 1860, in Cedarville, Illinois, Addams grew up in an era when women were expected to marry and raise children. Addams knew she wanted to do something different."

During a tour of Europe, Addams discovered Toynbee Hall in London, the world's first settlement house and the inspiration that would lead her to fight for the rights of children, help the poor, and become the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Addams came back to Chicago and started Hull House. "At the center's first Christmas party, Addams was surprised when several little girls refused the candy she offered them. The girls, she discovered, worked long hours in a candy factory." This motivated Addams and others at Hull House to push for the establishment of child labor laws. Library of Congress America's Story accessed 10.17.08

LEWIS HINE
Founded in 1904, the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) began their mission of "promoting the rights, awareness, dignity, well-being and education of children and youth as they relate to work and working." In 1908 the committee hired Lewis W. Hine, temporarily at first but then permanently, to carry out important investigative and photographic work for the organization.

Hine was a teacher who left that profession to work full-time as an investigator for the committee. He prepared a number of the reports and took some of the most powerful images in the history of documentary photography.

The Library of Congress holds the papers of the Committee, including the reports, field notes, correspondence, and over 5,000 of Hine's photographs and negatives in the National Child Labor Committee Collection.

These papers and extensive captions that describe the photo subjects reflect results of this early documentary effort. They offer a detailed depiction of working and living conditions of many children - as well as adults -- in the United States between 1908 and 1924. Hine later referred to his photographic work for the NCLC as "detective work." You can view digitized versions of Hine's images at the Library of Congress website by going to the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, American Treasures of the Library of Congress and Wise Guide Accessed 9.26.08

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Eastern Illinois University :: Teaching with Primary Sources - Childhood Lost: Child Labor During the Industrial Revolution

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Introduction | Primary Sources and Analysis Tools Library of Congress Resources | Primary Source Set Choose a link below to access printable PDF versions of these materials including additional information, color images and citations.

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The Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid social and technological change that has shaped the world we live in today. It was a period of great innovation and many of the tools we see today were inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

The following 27 inventions are a hand-picked selection of some of the most important inventions of the period as well as some of the lesser-known ones. If it tickles your fancy, we also have a video embedded below.

They range from innovations within the textile industry to the iron industry and consumer goods of the later Industrial Revolution.

We have limited our time period between the mid-1700s and 1840 which is commonly agreed to be the period of time for the Industrial Revolution.

1. Flying shuttle, or weaving made easy

This great example was widely used throughout Lancashire after 1760 and was one of the key developments of the period. It was patented in 1733 by John Kay, and its implementation effectively doubled the output a weaver could make, thereby allowing the workforce to effectively be halved.
RELATED: INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION - THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THIS GAME-CHANGING PERIOD
Prior to this invention, a weaver was required on each side of a broad-cloth loom, now one weaver alone could do the job of two. Several subsequent improvements were made to it over the years with an important one in 1747.

Its impact was incredibly significant, effectively allowing the production of textiles beyond the capacity of the rest of the industry. It arguably prompted further industrialization throughout the textile and other industries to keep up.

2. The Spinning Jenny increased wool mills' productivity

The Spinning Jenny was another example of great inventions of the Industrial Revolution. It was developed by James Hargreaves who patented his idea in 1764.

The Spinning Jenny was groundbreaking during its time and one that would help change the world forever. It allowed workers to spin more wool at a given time.

This vastly increased mills productivity and, along with the Flying Shuttle, helped force further industrialization of the textile industry in the United Kingdom.

It allowed for a massive reduction in the work needed to produce a piece of cloth and allowed for a worker to work eight or more spools at a time. With further refinement, this increased to 120 spools over time.

Hargreaves has long been credited as the main driver for the development of a modern factory system. By the time of his death in 1778, there were around 20,000 Spinning Jennys across the UK.

3. The Watt Steam Engine, the engine that changed the world

Newcomen Engine, Source: Andy Dingley/Wikimedia Commons

When James Watt created the first reliable steam engine in 1775 his invention would literally change the world. His innovation blew the older less efficient models, like the Newcomen engine, out of the water.

James' innovation of adding a separate condenser significantly improved steam engine efficiency, especially latent heat losses. His new engine would prove very popular and would wind up installed in mines and factories across the world.

It was hands down, one of the greatest inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

His version also integrated a crankshaft and gears and it became the prototype for all modern steam engines. It would eventually lead to incredible improvements in almost all industries, including the textile industry, across the world.

Steam engines would also lead to the development of locomotives and massive leaps forward in ship propulsion.

4. The Cotton Gin: the engine that made cotton production boom

Cotton Gin at Eli Whitney Museum, Source: Brighterorange/Wikimedia Commons

Eli Whitney is another name synonymous with inventions of the Industrial Revolution. He invented the cotton engine, gin for short, in 1794.

Prior to its introduction into the textile industry, cotton seeds needed to be removed from fibers by hand. This was laborious and time-consuming, to say the least. This machine vastly improved the profitability of cotton for farmers.

The Cotton Gin enabled many more farmers to consider cotton as their main crop. This was especially significant for farmers and slave plantation owners in the Americas.

With the seeds and fibers separated more efficiently it became much easier for farmers to use the fibers to make cotton goods like linen. They could also simultaneously separate seeds for more crop growth or cottonseed oil production.

5. Telegraph communications, a pillar of the Industrial Revolution

Coming in at the tail end of the Industrial Revolution, the Telegraph was one another of the greatest inventions of the Industrial Revolution. Created in the early 1800s it changed communication forever.

Thanks to this technology, near-instant communication became possible initially across the country and eventually across the globe. This enabled people to stay in contact and become aware of wider geopolitical events much more easily.

The first true electrical telegraphs finally superseded optical semaphore telegraph systems to become the world's first electrical form of telecommunications. In only a matter of decades, the electrical telegraph became the de facto means of communication for businesses and private citizens long distance.

6. Portland Cement and the invention of concrete

Joseph Aspdin was a bricklayer turned builder who, in 1824, devised and patented a chemical process for making Portland Cement. This one invention from the Industrial Revolution has been one of the most important of all time for the construction industry.

His process involved sintering a mixture of clay and limestone to around 1,400-degrees Celcius. This then needed to be ground into a fine powder only to be later mixed with sand and gravel to make concrete.

Years later, Brunel would use Portland Cement to help construct the Thames Tunnel. It was also used on a large scale in the construction of the London Sewage system and many other construction projects around the world.

It was also one of the greatest inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

7. The modern roads by John McAdam

Before the Industrial Revolution, the quality of Britain's roads was less than great. At the time France was known to have the best quality ones in the world.

Many British roads were poorly maintained and poor quality. During the 1700s turnpike trusts were set up to charge tolls in an attempt to improve maintenance and the general quality of the country's transport system.

By 1750 almost every main road in England and Wales was the responsibility of a turnpike trust.

John McAdam would eventually develop a new road-building technique that would revolutionize road construction forever. His 'macadamized' roads would prove to be the biggest advancement in road building since the Roman Empire thousands of years before.

8. The Bessemer process that changed steel

The Bessemer Process was the world's first inexpensive process for mass production of steel from molten pig iron. This would also prove to be one of the greatest inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

It is noted for its removal of impurities from the iron via oxidation as air is blown through the molten metal. Oxidation also helps raise the temperature of the iron mass to keep it molten for longer. The process is named after its inventor Henry Bessemer who patented the technique in 1856.

The ability to mass-produce high-quality steel and iron allowed a literal boom in the use of them in many other aspects of the revolution. Iron and steel suddenly became essential materials and would be used to make almost everything from appliances to tools, machines, ships, buildings, and infrastructure.

9. The first modern Battery by Volta

Although there is evidence of early batteries from the Parthian Empire around 2,000 years ago, the first true modern electric battery was invented in 1800. This world-first was the brainchild of one Alessandro Volta with the development of his voltaic pile.

Mass production of the world's first battery began in 1802 by William Cruickshank.

The first rechargeable battery was invented in 1859 by the French physician Gaston Plante. Later advancements would lead to the Nickel-Cadmium battery being developed in 1899 by Waldemar Jungner.

Volta's initial invention literally sparked a great amount of scientific excitement around the world which would lead to the eventual development of the field of electrochemistry.

10. The Locomotive revolution

The invention of the steam engine would eventually lead to a revolution in transportation around the globe. Locomotives allowed large-scale movement of resources and people over long distances.

Previously the industry relied on man -and animal-powered wagons and carts. These were common all over Europe and were commonly associated with mining and agriculture.
RELATED: INVENTIONS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 4.0
After the pioneering work, Richard Trevithick in 1804 and of George Stephenson and his "Rocket" train networks would begin to spring up all over the United Kingdom and eventually the world.

The first public railway opened in 1825 between Stockton and Darlington in England, UK. This would be the first of many railways and locomotives that would revolutionize the way business and private citizens transport their goods and themselves around.

11. The first factory opened by Lombe

Lombe's Manufactory/Mill, Derby circa 1770, Source: ClemRutter/Wikimedia Commons

One of, if not the first documented factory was opened by John Lombe in Derby around 1721. Lombe's factory used water power to help the factory mass produce silk products.

The factory was built on an island on the River Derwent in the English county of Derby. The idea for the factory came to Lombe after he had toured Italy looking at silk throwing machines.

On his return to the UK, he employed the services of the architect George Sorocold to design and build his new "Factory". Once completed the mill, at its height, employed around 300 people.

On its completion it was the first successful silk throwing mill in England and, it is believed, the first fully mechanized factory in the world. Lombe was granted a 14-year patent for his throwing machines only to die mysteriously in 1722. His death has been attributed to the King of Sardinia, who reacted badly to the commercialization of silk production in the UK.

12. The Power Loom, overtaking all UK factories

Source: Fumihiro Kato/Wikimedia Commons

The invention of the Power Loom effectively increased the output of a worker by over a factor of 40. It was one of the most important inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

It was introduced in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright who built the very first working machine in 1785. Over the next 47 years, the Power Loom was refined until it was made completely automated by Kenworthy and Bullough.

By 1850 there were around 260,000 Power Looms installed in factories all over the United Kingdom.

Cartwright's power loom was first licensed by Grimshaw of Manchester who built a small steam-powered weaving factory in 1790. Sadly this soon burnt down. Initially, his looms were not a commercial success as they needed to be stopped to dress the warp.

This was soon addressed over the next few decades as he modified the design into a more reliable automated machine.

13. Arkwright's Water Frame spinning machine

Richard Arkwright was a barber and wig maker who managed to devise a machine that could spin cotton fibers into yarn or thread very quickly and easily. In 1760 he and John Kay managed to produce a working machine. This prototype could spin four strands of cotton at the same time.

He would later patent his design in 1769. Further refinement of his design would ultimately allow the machine to spin 100's of strands at one time.

The spinning machine would go on to be installed in mills around Derbyshire and Lancashire where they were powered by waterwheels hence they were called water frames. Arkwright's machines alleviated the need for highly skilled operators adding significant cost savings to mills that installed them.

14. The Spinning Mule: the yarn game-changer

The Spinning Mule combines features of two earlier Industrial Revolution inventions: the Spinning Jenny and the above-mentioned Water Frame. The Mule managed to produce a strong, fine, and soft yarn that could be used in many kinds of textiles.

It was, however, best suited for the production of muslins. The Mule was devised by Samuel Crompton in 1775 who was too poor to actually patent his invention and so sold it to a Bolton manufacturer. The very first Mules were hand-operated but by the 1790s larger versions were driven by steam engines. These larger machines had as many as 400 spindles.

The Spinning Mule would become a very popular machine indeed and was installed in a large number of factories but as he had relinquished his rights to the machine, Crompton would see none of the proceeds from the sales.

15. Henry Cort's puddling process

In 1784, Henry Cort succeeded in developing a method of converting pig iron into wrought iron by heating it and frequently stirring it in the presence of oxidizing substances. It was, at the time, the first method that allowed wrought iron to be produced on a large scale.

Henry had managed to save a large amount of capital during his 10-year service in the Royal Navy. With this money had bought an ironworks near Portsmouth in 1775.

By 1783 he managed to obtain a patent for grooved rollers that would allow him to produce iron bars more quickly than the old method of hammering.

His puddling process would take the iron industry by storm and over the following 20-years, British iron production quadrupled!

16. Gaslighting, lighting the streets of the modern world

Commercial gas lighting was first developed and introduced in 1792 by William Murdoch. These early gas lights used coal gas which was installed as the lighting in his house in Redruth, Cornwall.

Over a decade later German inventor Freidrich Winzer became the first person to patent the use of coal gas for lighting in 1804. A thermo-lamp was also developed in 1799 using gas distilled from wood and David Melville received the first patent in the U.S. for gas lighting in 1810.

After its development, gas lighting became the method of street lighting across the United States and Europe. These would eventually be replaced with low-pressure sodium or high-pressure mercury lighting in the 1930s.

17. 2,000 cells to create the first Arc Lamp

Sir Humphrey Davy was able to build the world's first arc lamp in 1807. His device used a battery of 2,000 cells to create a 100mm arc between two charcoal sticks.

As impressive as his initial success as it was not a practical piece of equipment until the development of electrical generators in the 1870s. Arc lamps are still in use today in applications like searchlights, large film projectors, and floodlights.

The term is usually limited to lamps with an air gap between consumable carbon electrodes. but fluorescent and other electric discharge lamps generate light from arcs in gas-filled tubes. Also, some ultraviolet lamps are of the arc type.

18. The Tin Can, jumping to new production heights

The humble tin can was patented by a British merchant Peter Durand in 1810. It would have an incalculable impact on food preservation and transportation right up to the present day.

John Hall and Bryan Dorkin would open the very first commercial canning factory in England in 1813. In 1846, Henry Evans invented the machine that can manufacture tin cans at a rate of sixty per hour.

This was a significant increase over the previous rate of only six per hour.

The very first tin cans had very thick walls and needed to be opened using a hammer. Over time they became thinner enabling the later invention of a dedicated can opener in 1858.

It took the American Civil War to inspire the creation of tin cans with a key can opener as can still be found on sardine cans.

19. Spectrometer, or how we studied glowing objects

In 1814, a German inventor, Joseph von Fraunhofer invented the spectrometer. His early device was devised to enable the chemical analysis of glowing objects.

Little did Joseph know the full impact his invention would have on the scientific world. We owe the fact that we know what the Sun is made of thanks to Fraunhofer.

Thanks to Fraunhofer's contributions, Bavaria overtook England as the leader in optics research. He invented the spectroscope in 1814.

In fact, his discoveries earned him a knighthood in 1824, two years before his death. Like all glassmakers of the time, he died early because of heavy metal poisoning.

20. Camera Obscura: The first photograph

Beginning in 1814, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce started a journey of discovery that would eventually lead him to become the first person to ever take a photograph. He would eventually do this using his new-fangled camera obscura that was set up in the windows of his home in France.

The entire exposure took around 8 hours to capture the image.

Joseph constructed his first camera in around 1816 which allowed him to create an image on white paper. But he was unable to fix it.

He would continue his experimentation using different cameras and chemical combinations for the next 10 years or so.

In 1827 he successfully produced the first, long-lasting image using a plate coated with bitumen. This was then washed in a solvent and placed over a box of iodine to produce a plate with light and dark qualities.

21. The first Electromagnet findings

The electromagnet was the culmination of a series of developments from Hans Christian Oersted, Andre-Marie Ampere, and Dominique Francois Jean Arago made their critical discoveries on electromagnetism.

One man, William Sturgeon, would take the findings of these great scientists and build on them to build the world's first electromagnet.

He found that leaving some iron inside a coil of wire would vastly increase the magnetic field created. He also realized that by bending the iron into a u-shape allowed the poles to come closer together, thereby concentrating the field lines.

His design was improved upon by Joseph Henry who built, in 1832, a very strong electromagnet that was able to lift 1630 kgs.

22. The Mackintosh Raincoat

Perhaps one of the most useful of all inventions during the Industrial Revolution was when, in 1823, Charles Mackintosh devised the Mackintosh. Prior to his invention clothing was waterproofed by using a coating of rubber.

But rubber would become sticky and tacky during hot weather and extremely stiff during winter months. Charles, a Scottish Chemist, successfully cured this problem and patented a new method of using rubber to waterproof clothing.

Initially, he created his new waterproof clothing at his family's textile factory. By 1843, Mackintosh had begun mass production of their clothes and merged with a larger clothing manufacturing company.

His method of waterproofing is known to us today as vulcanization. This process allowed the rubber to maintain its shape and not become sticky during hot weather like natural rubber.

Mackintosh's design also placed the rubber covering inside two pieces of fabric rather than covering one.

23. Modern Friction Matches made possible with wood

In 1826, John Walker gave the world the first modern matches. Early attempts were made to make a match that produced ignition through friction by Francois Derosne in 1816.

These were, however, crude and used sulfur tipped match to scrape inside a tube coated with phosphorus. This was both inconvenient and unsafe. Waker was a Chemist and druggist from Stockton-on-Tees who developed a keen interest in trying to make fire as easily as possible.

Chemical combinations were known that provided sudden ignition but hadn't been finalized as a means of transmitting the flame to a slow-burning material like wood.

When, quite by accident, a prepared match ignited by accident from friction on the hearth he at once knew he had found the answer. He immediately set about producing wooden splints or sticks of cardboard and coating them with sulfur.

He then added a tip with a mixture of a sulfide of antimony, chlorate of potash, and gum. Camphor was added later to mask the smell of the sulfur once ignited.

24. Every great writer's companion, the Typewriter

It is widely accepted that in 1829, William Austin Burt patented the "first typewriter" which he termed a "Typographer". There were earlier machines similar in purpose, a notable example being Henry Mill's 1714 patent, but it appears to have never been capitalized upon.

The Science Museum in London describes Burt's machine as "the first writing mechanism whose invention was documented". Despite its apparent breaking of new ground, contemporary sources indicated that even when used by Burt the machine was slower than handwriting.

This was because the typographer needed to use a dial rather than keys to select each character.

This lack of efficiency improvement over handwriting ultimately sealed Burt's machine's doom. Both he and its promoter John D. Sheldon never found a buyer for the patent.

The modern typewriter would ultimately be invented in 1867 by Christopher Sholes.

25. The Dynamo/Electrical generator powered by the Faraday principle

Here's another great invention of the Industrial Revolution. The basic principles of electromagnetic generators were discovered in the early 1830s by Michael Faraday.

Faraday noted that the electromotive force is generated when an electrical conductor encircles a varying magnetic flux. This would later become known as Faraday's Law.

Michael also built the first electromagnetic generator, the Faraday Disk. This was a type of homopolar generator that used a copper disc that rotated between the poles of a horseshoe magnet.

The first true dynamo, based on Faraday's principle, was built in 1832 by Hippolyte Pixii, a French instrument maker. His device used a permanent magnet that was rotated using a crank.

26. Blueprints from Herschel and Poitevin

John Herschel, a British scientist, and inventor succeeded in developing the process that was the direct precursor to what we now know as blueprints. John made improvements in photographic processes, particularly in inventing the cyanotype process and variations (such as the chrysotype), the precursors of the modern blueprint process in around 1839.

This process enabled the production of a photograph on glass, he also experimented with some color reproduction. It is also believed that he coined the term photography.

It wasn't until 1861 that 'true' blueprints were developed by Alphonse Louis Poitevin, A French Chemist. He found that Ferro-gallate in gum is actually light-sensitive.

When exposed to light it turns into an insoluble permanent blue. He successfully postulated that a coating of this on paper or other material could be used to copy an image from another translucent document.

Who would have thought that this was one of the inventions of the Industrial Revolution?

27. The Hydrogen Fuel Cell

Grove's 1842 sketch of a Fuel, Source: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy/Wikimedia

The Hydrogen Fuel Cell was first documented in 1838 in a letter published in the December edition of The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science.

The piece was written by a Welsh physicist and barrister William Grove. In it, he described his development of a crude fuel cell that combined sheet iron, copper and porcelain plates and a solution of sulfate of copper and dilute acid.

In the same publication published a year later a German physicist Christain Freidrich Schonbein also discussed his crude fuel cell that he believed he had invented. His letter described how current was generated using hydrogen and oxygen dissolved in water.

Grove sketched his design later in 1842, once again, for the same journal. Both of these used similar materials to days phosphoric acid fuel cells.

28. Dynamite was another child of the Industrial Revolution

Dynamite is yet another invention that can trace its origins to the Industrial Revolution. This highly-explosive combination of nitroglycerin, sorbents, and stabilizers was first invented by the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel.

It was one of the world's first safe manageable explosives. Nobel was apparently inspired by his father's work as an industrialist, engineer, and inventor who helped build bridges and other structures.

His father, Immanuel Nobel, spent many years trying to find a safer, more effective alternative to black powder but was not successful.

He would later patent it in 1867.

This potent explosive quickly gained wide-scale use around the world as a far more powerful alternative to black powder. Today, dynamite is mainly used in mining, quarrying, construction, and demolition activities.

29. The internal combustion engine was also born during the revolution

Yet another invention of the Industrial Revolution is the internal combustion engine (ICE). The technology, like many complex pieces of engineering like an ICE, is the product of a long line of scientists and engineers over time.

But, they were first commercialized in the 1860s by Étienne Lenoir. It would take the work of Nicolaus Otto, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach to produce the first modern ICE in the 1870s - a working, compressed charge, four-cycle engine.

The first liquid-fuel internal combustion engine was invented by George Brayton in the early-1870s. Karl Benz would later produce the first motor vehicles powered by ICEs in the 1880s and Rudolf Diesel would create his revolutionary diesel engine over a decade later.

30. Another invention of the Industrial Revolution is the humble sewing machine

The sewing machine is also an invention of the Industrial Revolution. In 1755 a German-born engineer called Charles Fredrick Wiesenthal developed an early mechanical device for sewing.

It consisted of a double-pointed needle with an eye at the end. A little later, in the 1790s, an English inventor, Thomas Saint, developed the world's first sewing machine but did not succeed in marketing his invention with any great success.

A little later in the 1820s, the first practical and widely used sewing machine was developed by ed by Barthélemy Thimonnier -- a French tailor. This machine was able to sew straight seams using a chain stitch similar to that developed by Saint decades before.

Years later, Isaac Merritt Singer would produce his first straight stitch sewing machine. The company he would later found, Singer, is now widely considered the Gold standard in sewing machines today.

31. The incandescent light bulb was also developed during the Industrial Revolution

Swan's carbon filament lamps, Source: Ulfbastel/Wikimedia Commons

Yet another invention of the Industrial Revolution that changed the world is the incandescent light bulb. Just like other inventions on this list, like the internal combustion engine, the light bulb is the end product of a long line of inventors throughout history.

One of the lightbulb's major developments was performed by Sir Humphrey Davy in the early-1800s. He was able to produce the world's first true artificial electric light -- the arc light.

Over the next 70 years, or so, the technology would be further refined with another major breakthrough being achieved by Warren de la Rue in the 1840s. He was able to enclose a coil of platinum filament inside a vacuum tube.

It worked, but platinum is far from cheap.

In the 1850s, Joseph Wilson Swan began experimenting with different types of filament to act as a cheaper replacement. He eventually perfected his design in the late-1870s. Around the same time, Thomas Edison also began tinkering with his own design and would eventually lead to the founding of the Edison Electric Light Company.

His designs were so similar to Swan's that Swan actually took Edison to court over copyright infringement. He won and was made a partner in Edison's new company.

32. The modern assembly line was, funnily enough, also a product of the revolution

And finally, yet another world-changing invention of the Industrial Revolution was the modern assembly line. This manufacturing process breaks down the assembly process into sections where the final product is sequentially completed along the line.

This helped speed up the manufacturing process considerably and with less manpower than traditionally would have been required. Also termed division of labor, some early forms of it first appeared in China.

But it would take the Industrial Revolution of the modern assembly line to really take form. Great strides were made in the early-1800s by the like of Marc Isambard Brunel (Isambard Kingdom Brunel's father), and at the Bridgewater Foundry.

Interchangeable parts further pushed the process forward in the early-19th century. Steam-powered conveyor belts were also developed in the latter quarter of the 1800s.

But probably the most significant developed was the advent of the moving assembly line. Developed for the Ford Model T and began operation in 1913, at the Highland Park Ford Plant, it continued to evolve after that, using time and motion study.

Today, assembly lines are the core of any factory and are used to assemble anything from automobiles to household consumer goods. Human workers have, for a long time, also been progressively replaced with automated machines and robots, wherever possible.

These 27+ inventions are either still in use today or paved the way for considerable advances in industries around the world. Have we missed any critical inventions?

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27+ Industrial Revolution Inventions that Changed the World

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The Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid social and technological change that has shaped the world we live in today. It was a period of great innovation and many of the tools we see today were inventions of the Industrial Revolution.

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The industrial revolution that transformed western Europe and the United States during the course of the nineteenth century had its origins in the introduction of power-driven machinery in the English and Scottish textile industries in the second half of the eighteenth century. But far more than the cotton textile industry was transformed in the course of that revolution. Non-industrial wage labor increased; urban centers grew; and in farming areas, outwork occupations and commercial agriculture transformed the rural labor market. Finally, these economic developments coincided with dramatic changes in family life, particularly declining family size and increasing life expectancy. A greater role for women in the labor force, contemporary politics, and reform activities was certainly one of the unintended consequences of technological change in nineteenth-century America.

The industrial revolution in the United States was dependent from the outset on the transatlantic movement of British immigrants and British technology, including the adoption of the spinning jenny, water frame, and spinning mule that made the textile industry possible. The flood of British exports to the United States after the American Revolution stimulated efforts to replicate the inventions that gave English manufacturers such an advantage in the American marketplace. Out of these efforts emerged the first permanent cotton spinning mill in the United States, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. English emigrant Samuel Slater-himself a former apprentice at the English textile firm of Arkwright & Strutt-reconstructed an Arkwright water frame under the sponsorship of Providence merchants William Almy and Moses Brown. The firm of Almy, Brown, & Slater pioneered in the machine production of cotton yarn between 1790 and 1840. This company expanded, gave rise to a number of other firms, and established the basic set of business practices that came to be called the Rhode Island system. These southern New England textile firms followed British practices, employing entire families, with children comprising the vast majority of the mill workforce. While the mills focused on carding and spinning, they relied on rural and urban hand weavers to finish the cloth. Thus the first cotton textile mills were very much a part of the region's rural landscape.

The success of these first factories spawned new competitors, however, and the new factories contributed to a wave of urbanization in northern New England. The new wave of textile investment followed on the heels of a famous bit of industrial espionage by Boston merchant Francis Cabot Lowell. Lowell visited mills in Great Britain and, on his return to Massachusetts, began efforts to reconstruct the power loom he had seen there. By 1814 he had succeeded and, armed with a charter of incorporation from the state legislature, he established the Boston Manufacturing Company in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Textile mills of the Waltham-Lowell system sprang up across the northern New England countryside between 1814 and 1850 and grew steadily across the second half of the century. Mills of the Rhode Island variety expanded as well, and the earlier regional differences faded over time. At mid-century, New England's textile workforce had grown to number 85,000 producing cloth goods valued at $68 million annually. Adding in a substantial textile industry in the Philadelphia area, cotton and woolen textile mills were the nation's leading industrial employers at this date.

The adoption of the power loom permitted the vertical integration of all steps in the cloth manufacturing process under a single roof. From opening the bales, to carding, spinning, dressing the warp yarn, and finally weaving the cloth, all production steps were conducted within the mill. This change led to a change in the labor force as well. Both the power loom and the dressing frame required fairly tall workers and children simply wouldn't do as they had for the mills in southern New England. Thus, the Waltham company depended from the outset on a workforce of young, single women recruited from the countryside. The firm reached far into the countryside for this workforce and had to construct boardinghouses to accommodate the rural women it recruited. Finally, to entice this new pool of labor, management offered monthly cash wages, a definite competitive advantage in comparison to practices in the family-style Rhode Island mills.

Between 1830 and 1860, women remained a key labor force for this growing industry. Mill superintendents paid recruiters to circulate through northern New England and to bring suitable young women to work in their mills. The wages, typically set at $3.00 to $3.50 per week, were much higher than anything farm daughters could earn in their hometowns and proved a strong attraction.

What motivated young women to leave their families in the countryside to work in the mills of New England's growing urban centers? Between analysis of the economic backgrounds of the families of mill women and what they had to say in their correspondence it is clear that mill employment permitted young women to earn their own support without depending on their families; second, the wages permitted young women to save something for their future marriages; finally, some daughters used their earnings to assist their families.

On the whole, a mix of personal and familial motivations led daughters to leave their farming homes and take up mill employment. There was, in fact, a continuum stretching from those who went to the mills for entirely personal reasons and those who went to earn money to help support their families. Long-term economic considerations-particularly how to save in anticipation of marriage-had more to do with the migration than the short-term consideration of immediate self-support. Women came from farming families that were able to maintain a modest standard of living. So it was not poverty, per se, but the lack of future opportunities that pushed young women into the mills. And while young women were attending to their futures, and supporting themselves in mill towns, they achieved a measure of economic and social independence not possible while living under the parental roof.

Beyond the economic consequences of the growth of factory employment, significant cultural changes accompanied women's work in the early mills. Contemporaries repeatedly expressed concern that the mills were making young women unfit in a variety of ways for what was expected of them as nineteenth-century women. Some were concerned that mill employment made farmers' daughters less fit for marriage because they had become citified. They argued that the urban mill experience made young women dissatisfied with the country life of their parents. Thus one writer complained in 1858 that young working women no longer wanted a farm life. "They contemn," he wrote, "the calling of their father, and will, nine times out of ten, marry a mechanic in preference to a farmer." And this perception was based to a considerable degree on reality. Tracing a sample of mill women over their lifetimes reveals that only about a third married men who were farmers or farm laborers and only a quarter of those who married lived the rest of their lives in their hometowns. Mill employment led many rural women to marry artisans or other urban workers and to migrate from the farming homes of their youth to New England's growing cities. Young people voted with their feet and their elders did not approve.

Mill employment also led some farmers' daughters to become engaged in the reform movements of the antebellum decades. There were labor protests in Lowell and other New England mill towns in the 1830s and 1840s, and the women who became involved in these struggles were active across a wide range of reform activity.

The height of labor protest in the New England mills before the Civil War came with the emergence in the 1840s of a Ten Hour Movement aiming for reduction in the hours of labor in the mills. The mills ran for seventy-three hours a week in this period, averaging slightly more than twelve hours a day. As the pace of work in the mills increased without any wage gains, millworkers came to demand a ten-hour workday, giving them time to relax, attend meetings and lectures, and participate in the urban cultural scene around them. These protests built on earlier strikes, known as "turn-outs" in the language of the time, reveal much about the sensibility that New England women brought to the mill experience. In October 1836, on the occasion of the second turn-out in Lowell, women founded the Lowell Factory Girls Association to organize their protest. The preamble to the association's constitution reveals mill women's sense of themselves as "daughters of freemen" and their connection to the young nation's republican tradition. The mill women, some 2,500 in number, left the mills to protest an increase in charges at company boardinghouses unaccompanied by a corresponding increase in their wages. The women held out for several months and displayed a keen sense of tactics in their struggle with the mill agents. In the end, the companies reduced boardinghouse charges for a good proportion of their workers, and the mill women returned to work.

Ten years later, women organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association with a view to restricting the hours of labor. The association survived for two and a half years and organized petition campaigns calling on the state legislature to set ten hours as the legal limit for the working day. Republicanism from the revolutionary tradition and perfectionism from evangelical Protestantism were two major threads that both working men and working women drew upon to protest the new impositions of industrial capitalism in nineteenth-century America.

These traditions also led mill women to become involved in a variety of other reform movements. Anti-slavery was strong in Lowell and mill women sent several petitions to Washington opposing slavery in the District of Columbia and opposing war with Mexico, which might contribute to an expansion of slavery into the Southwest. Woman reformers came to see opposition to black slavery and wage slavery as related causes. Some also participated in the women's rights conventions that mushroomed after the first one was held in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. Mary Emerson, a leader in Lowell's ten-hour movement, attended a women's rights convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, in October 1851. She shared the broad reform perspective that launched woman mill workers into labor protest in these two decades and contributed to the widening perspectives of American women in politics and social reform in the mid-nineteenth century.

The experiences of mill women demonstrate that factory employment not only brought women's work out of the home but also provided women a collective experience that supported their participation in the world of broader social reform. Lowell women became involved in anti-slavery, moral reform, peace, labor reform, prison reform, and women's rights campaigns. Furthermore, working women, like working men in this period, drew initially on republican traditions to defend their rights and interests but ultimately came to justify their concern for social justice on a combination of religious and rationalist grounds. They came to oppose the growing inequality evident in American society and to demand for themselves as workers and as women greater rights and rewards in that society.

Thomas Dublin is State University of New York Distinguished Professor of History at Binghamton University, SUNY and co-director of the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender. His books include Transforming Women's Work: New England Lives in the Industrial Revolution (1994), Farm to Factory: Women's Letters, 1830-1860 (1981), and Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860 (1979).

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Women and the Early Industrial Revolution in the United States | AP US History Study Guide from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History