The transformation of the world

Make a list of the machines around your house, from bicycles to cell phones to microwaves. You might be surprised by how many there are. Now imagine young people who grew up before such machines were invented. How did they travel from place to place? How did they communicate? How did they cook?

At one time, physical labor provided much of the energy needed to feed and maintain a household. People burned wood for warmth and cooking. Domestic animals help with chores and transport. Under the right conditions, windmills and waterwheels powered simple machines.

However, the early 1700s saw the first developments of what became the Industrial Revolution. Now, people found an extra source of energy that could work for them. That source was fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. These fuels had been forming from the remains of plants and animals from much earlier geologic times. When burned, these fuels released much more energy than wood.

Early steam engines

The story of the Industrial Revolution begins in Great Britain and its coalfields and coal mines. By the early 1700s, coal was being used more and more. The mines that produced this coal, though, often filled with water, slowing work. In 1712, Englishman Thomas Newcomen created a coal-powered steam engine. It was capable of pumping water from the mines. More than fifty years later, Scotland’s James Watt designed a better version. His steam engine was soon adapted for other uses. These included milling and weaving. Other inventors and engineers continued to fine-tune Watts’ design, making it more versatile.

Factories soon found many productive uses for coal-fueled steam engines. Textile mills were among the first to adopt them. Historically, textiles were woven by hand. In some places, river-driven waterwheels powered textile workshops. Now steam-powered machines could spin the cotton thread and drive the looms for weaving. They allowed much more work to be done much faster. Such engines were installed in factories where they could power many machines at once. Companies hired more and more workers to operate them. Early in the 1800s, the British added steam engines to locomotives and ships. The new technology made transportation faster and more reliable.

The Industrial Revolution continued to gain momentum. Its products were on display at the first world’s fair, hosted by Britain in 1851. There, companies demonstrated a growing assortment of equipment. They included telegraphs, sewing machines, farm equipment, and steam hammers.

Why Britain?

Britain wasn’t the only place that had deposits of coal. So why didn’t the Industrial Revolution begin somewhere else, like China, that had similar fuel resources? What influence did geography and cultural institutions have? Historians continue to investigate these questions.

Possible reasons why industrialization began in Britain include:

• Convenient and abundant coal deposits and shortage of wood
• A wealthy ruling class interested in economic development
• A capitalist economic system, with little government interference
• A strong navy to protect commercial shipping
• Profits from the transatlantic slave trade that provided Britain with capital to invest in industrialization
• Relative safety of Britain as an island nation
• British colonies in India, Africa, and the Americas which provided land, natural resources, labor, and markets

Possible reasons industrialization did not begin in China include:

• Location of China’s coal—the north—while most economic activity was in the south; underground coal
• deposits difficult to reach
• A large population, making human labor cheap
• Cultural ideals that discouraged experimentation and change
• China’s focus on threats from nomadic tribes in the north and west

Global forces that led to industrialization in Britain include:

• Britain’s location on the Atlantic Ocean
• British colonies in North America provided land, labor, and markets
• Silver from the Americas, used in trade with China
• New thoughts about the economy encouraged an entrepreneurial spirit

The spread of the Industrial Revolution

Industrial technologies, practices, and ideas soon spread out from Britain. In Europe, countries established their own factories and railroads in the first half of the 1800s. Developing a rail system was an important step in industrialization. Trains provided fast and cheap transportation to and from factories.

Industrialization took a major step in the United States in 1789. That year Samuel Slater left Britain for Rhode Island. There, he set up the first textile factory on U.S. soil. Railroad construction followed, booming from the 1830s to the 1870s. The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the first truly industrial war. Factories mass-produced supplies and weapons for the war effort. The more urbanized and factory-based North used its industrial superiority to defeat the agriculture-based South.

After the war, industrialization experienced explosive growth worldwide. Russia and Japan shifted more and more from agricultural to industrial economies. By 1900, the United States had overtaken Britain in manufacturing. It now produced 24 percent of the world’s output.

Consequences of the Industrial Revolution

Industrialization gained momentum in Europe and the Americas throughout the 1800s. Industrialized nations now began to use their military might to colonize other parts of the world. They conquered and exploited these colonies for their natural resources and labor. Colonies also served as markets for factory-made goods. The age of imperialism was a direct result of the Industrial Revolution.

Industrialization also had remarkable effects on the global population. In 1700, the world’s population was 670 million. By 2011, it had exploded to 6.7 billion. This was a tenfold increase in only 300 years. In the twentieth century alone, the world’s economy grew fourteen times larger. Meanwhile, per capita income quadrupled. In turn, workers and their families migrated in numbers never seen before. People in search of work moved by the millions from the country to the city, and even emigrated to new countries.

Table 1: Percentage of urban population growth, 1600 to 2000 CE

Source: Population data adapted from Goldewijk, K.K., A. Beusen, and P. Janssen. “Long-term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1.” The Holocene 20, no. 4 (2010): 568.

Today, many people around the world enjoy the benefits of industrialization. Much less physical labor is required than in previous periods. Hunger and child mortality rates have fallen. Life expectancy has increased. Large numbers of people enjoy higher levels of wealth, health, and education than at any other time in history.

The benefits of industrialization, though, have come at a cost. It has led to social problems as communities have been disrupted by rapid social change. In addition, the resources that industrialization depends on are being overused. Pollution from fossil fuels has also done serious environmental damage. Balancing industrialization’s negative and positive effects is an ongoing challenge.