Industrial Revolution

A sudden explosion of technological and economic change, initially in Britain (c.1750-1800). It began with the accumulation of trading capital and the mechanization of the textile factories of northern England and then of Scotland. Dependent on the application of steam power, it also required factory production and an urban workforce. Populations grew and the working classes suffered in the new towns. Industrialization was stimulated by the wars of the 18th and early 19th century, whose technology was transferred to the iron and steel industries, improving railroad construction. Certain inventions are traditionally associated with the beginning of industrialism, including J. Watt’s steam engine (1775), J. Kay’s flying shuttle (1733), J. Hargreaves’s spinning jenny (c.1754), S. Crompton’s spinning mule (1779) and Edmund Cartwright’s power loom (1785). The Industrial Revolution thereafter spread to other countries: France after 1830, Germany after 1850 and the United States after 1860.