Industrial Revolution: Forging the Future, Unveiling the Industrial Revolution

By Fouad Sabry

What is Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution, also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was a period of global transition of the human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution, starting from Great Britain and spreading to continental Europe and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820-1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanized factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Industrial Revolution

Chapter 2: Manufacturing

Chapter 3: Industrialisation

Chapter 4: Industrial Age

Chapter 5: Cotton mill

Chapter 6: Textile manufacture during the British Industrial Revolution

Chapter 7: Steam power during the Industrial Revolution

Chapter 8: Textile industry

Chapter 9: Line shaft

Chapter 10: Trencherfield Mill

Chapter 11: Proto-industrialization

Chapter 12: Economic history of Europe (1000 AD-present)

Chapter 13: Orme Mill, Waterhead

Chapter 14: Majestic Mill, Waterhead

Chapter 15: Malta Mill, Middleton

Chapter 16: Productivity-improving technologies

Chapter 17: Industrial Revolution in Scotland

Chapter 18: Machine industry

Chapter 19: De-industrialisation of India

Chapter 20: Industrialization in Germany

Chapter 21: History of the cotton industry in Catalonia

(II) Answering the public top questions about industrial revolution.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of industrial revolution in many fields.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Industrial Revolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Feb 12, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Industrial Revolution

Following the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution (also known as the First Industrial Revolution) was a period of global economic transition toward more efficient and stable manufacturing processes, beginning in Great Britain, continental Europe, as well as United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840.: 40 and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, monetary output, in addition to invested capital.

On a structural level, the Industrial Revolution posed the so-called social question, which demanded new methods for managing large groups of people. Visible poverty on the one hand, and a growing population and materialistic wealth on the other, caused tensions between society's wealthiest and poorest members. and gave rise to philosophies like socialism, communism, and anarchism.

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain, and numerous technological and architectural innovations originated there.

In July 1799, French envoy Louis-Guillaume Otto used the term Industrial Revolution for the first time, announcing that France had entered the race to industrialize.

High levels of agricultural productivity (see British Agricultural Revolution) to provide excess manpower and food; a pool of managerial and entrepreneurial skills; available ports, rivers, canals, and roads to cheaply move raw materials and outputs; natural resources such as coal, iron, and waterfalls; political stability and a legal system that supported business; and financial capital available for investment. Once industrialization began in the United Kingdom, new factors can be added, including the eagerness of British entrepreneurs to export industrial know-how and their willingness to import the process. Britain met the criteria and industrialized beginning in the 18th century, and then exported the process to western Europe (particularly Belgium, France, and the German states) at the beginning of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the United States copied the British model, and in the late 19th century, Japan copied the Western European models.

Beginning in the second half of the 18th century, a handful of innovations are intimately connected to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. By the 1830s, the following technological advances had been made::

Textiles – mechanized cotton spinning powered by steam or water increased worker output by approximately 500 times. The power loom increased a worker's output by over 40 times.

The efficiency of steam engines improved to the point where they consumed between one-fifth and one-tenth as much fuel. The adaptation of stationary steam engines to rotary motion suited them to industrial applications. After 1800, steam power experienced a rapid expansion.

The substitution of coke for charcoal drastically reduced the cost of producing pig iron and wrought iron. The rolling mill was fifteen times quicker than the hammering process. Hot blast, which was invented in 1828, greatly increased iron production's fuel efficiency in the following decades.

The screw-cutting lathe, the cylinder boring machine, and the milling machine were among the first machine tools invented. Although it took several decades to develop efficient techniques, machine tools made economical production of precision metal components possible.

Handloom weaving in 1747, industry and idleness from William Hogarth's Industry and Idleness

In 1750, the British Empire imported 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton, the majority of which was spun and woven by Lancashire's cottage industry. The work was performed manually in workers' homes or occasionally in the shops of master weavers. In 1770, wages in Lancashire were approximately six times those in India, while overall British productivity was approximately three times that of India.

The earliest attempts at mechanized wool spinning were made by Europeans; however, wool spinning proved more difficult to automate than cotton spinning. During the Industrial Revolution, wool spinning productivity increased significantly but significantly less than cotton.

Lombe's silk mill site today, reconstructed as Derby Silk Mill

John Lombe's water-powered silk mill in Derby, which opened in 1721, was arguably the first highly mechanized factory. Lombe learned how to manufacture silk thread by taking a job in Italy and acting as an industrial spy; however, the industry's state at the time is unknown because the Italian silk industry closely guarded its secrets. Even though Lombe's factory was technically successful, the Italian supply of raw silk was cut off to eliminate competition. To promote manufacturing, the Crown paid for Lombe's machinery models to be displayed at the Tower of London.

Parts of India, China, Central America, South America, and the Middle East have a long history of producing cotton textiles by hand, which became a major industry around 1000 A.D. In tropical and subtropical regions where it was cultivated, the majority was grown by small farmers alongside food crops and spun and woven in households for domestic use. China began requiring households to pay a portion of their taxes in cotton cloth in the 15th century. By the 17th century, nearly every Chinese person wore cotton clothing. Cotton fabric could be used as a medium of exchange nearly everywhere. Significant quantities of cotton textiles were woven by professionals in India for export to distant markets. Additionally, some merchants owned small weaving workshops. India manufactured a range of cotton fabrics, some of which were of exceptional quality.

European colonial empires at the start of the Industrial Revolution, imposed on contemporary political boundaries

The Age of Discovery was followed around the 16th century by a period of colonialism. After the Portuguese discovered a trade route to India around southern Africa, the British founded the East India Company, along with smaller companies of various nationalities that established trading posts and employed agents to engage in trade throughout the Indian Ocean region.

A weaver in Nürnberg, c.

1524

In 1600, Flemish refugees began weaving cotton cloth in English towns where cottage wool and linen weaving was well established.

Cotton was not considered a threat by the guilds, so they left them alone.

Italy in the 12th century and southern Germany in the 15th attempted cotton spinning and weaving for the first time, However, these industries ceased to exist when the cotton supply dried up.

The number of Moors in Spain increased, spun, and wove cotton beginning around the 10th century.: 823

The aircraft shuttle, John Kay's 1733 patent and a number of subsequent improvements, including an important one in 1747, doubled a weaver's output, deteriorating the disparity between spinning and weaving.

It became widely used in Lancashire after 1760, when John's son began to use it, Robert, conceived of the dropbox, which facilitated changing thread colors.: 821–822

Lewis Paul patented the roller spinning frame and the flyer-and-bobbin system for more evenly drawing wool. John Wyatt of Birmingham was instrumental in developing the technology. Paul and Wyatt opened a mill in Birmingham that utilized their donkey-powered rolling machine. In 1743, a factory with 50 spindles on each of five Paul and Wyatt machines opened in Northampton. This lasted until approximately 1764. Daniel Bourn constructed a similar mill in Leominster, but it burned down. In 1748, Lewis Paul and Daniel Bourn both patented carding machines. It was later used in the first cotton spinning mill and was based on two sets of rollers moving at different speeds.

A model of the spinning jenny in a museum in