Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th century resulting from the replacement of an economy based on manual labor to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. It began in England with the introduction of steam power (fueled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing). The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the nineteenth century enabled the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries.

The Second Industrial Revolution

:Main article: Second Industrial Revolution

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The insatiable demand of the railroads for more durable rail led to the development of the means to cheaply mass-produce steel. Steel is often cited as the first of several new areas for industrial mass-production, which are said to characterize a "Second Industrial Revolution", beginning around 1850. This "second" Industrial Revolution gradually grew to include the chemical industries, petroleum refining and distribution, electrical industries, and, in the twentieth century, the automotive industries, and was marked by a transition of technological leadership from Great Britain to the United States and Germany.

Related Topics:
Railroads - Steel - Second Industrial Revolution - 1850 - Chemical industries - Petroleum - Electrical industries - Automotive industries - Germany

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The introduction of hydroelectric power generation in the Alps enabled the rapid industrialization of coal-starved northern Italy, beginning in the 1890s. The increasing availability of economic petroleum products also reduced the relation of coal to the potential for industrialization.

Related Topics:
Hydroelectric power - Alps - Industrialization

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By the 1890s, industrialization in these areas had created the first giant industrial corporations with often nearly global international operations and interests, as companies like U.S. Steel, General Electric, and Bayer AG joined the railroads on the world's stock markets and among huge, bureaucratic organizations.

Related Topics:
U.S. Steel - General Electric - Bayer AG - Stock market

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