The Industrial Revolution Spreads

By the 1880s, steel had replaced steam as the symbol of the Industrial Revolution. While the Industrial Revolution began with the use of iron, steam engines, and machinery in the British textile industry, the revolution entered a new phase in the mid-1800s. This second Industrial Revolution transformed the economies of the western world.

New Industrial Powers Belgium was the first European country outside of Britain to industrialize. By the mid-1800s, countries like Germany, France, and the United States also began to use their abundant natural resources to join the industrial age. The first American textile factory was built in Pawtucket, Rhode Island with plans that had been smuggled out of Britain. Germany and the United States became two of the leading industrial nations in the late 1800s.

Like Britain, the new industrial nations also experienced major changes. Men, women, and children worked long hours in difficult conditions, although these conditions began to improve by 1900. The factory system produced huge quantities of new goods at lower prices than ever before. Workers could buy goods that only the wealthy could afford in earlier times. Increased demand for goods, and the building of cities, railroads, and factories worked together to create jobs. Politics also changed as leaders had to meet the demands of a changing society.

Technology and Industry By 1880, companies had begun hiring professional chemists and engineers to create new products and machinery. In 1856, Henry Bessemer developed a way to purify iron ore and produce a new substance, steel. It was lighter, harder, and more durable than iron. Steel rapidly became the major material used in tools, bridges, and railroads. Industrialized countries began to measure their success in the amount of steel they were able to produce each year.

Chemists began to create hundreds of new products – from medicines like aspirin to perfumes and soaps. Chemical fertilizers helped to increase food production. In 1866, Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, a material that was widely used in construction. Unfortunately, it was also used in warfare. Nobel used the fortune he made from dynamite to fund the Nobel peace prize. In the late 1800s, a new power source replaced steam – electricity. Alessandro Volta invented the battery around 1800. Then Michael Faraday created the first simple electric motor and the first dynamo, a machine to generate electricity. Even today, electrical generators and transformers work on the same principles as Faraday's dynamo.

In the 1870s, Thomas Edison made the first electric light bulb In the 1870s, Thomas Edison made the first electric light bulb. His invention meant that factories could continue to operate after dark. The basic features of the factory system remained the same during the 1800s. To improve efficiency, however, manufacturers began to design machines with interchangeable parts, or identical components that could be used in place of one another. They simplified assembly and repair of machines. By the early 1900s, manufacturers had introduced the assembly line, a process in which workers add parts to a product that moves along a belt from one work station to the next. The assembly line made production faster and cheaper, lowering the price of goods. Henry Ford invented the assembly line, for use on his Model T Ford.

Technology Speeds Transportation and Communication Technology of the Second Industrial Revolution transformed the fields of transportation and communication. Steamships replaced sailing ships, and railroad building took off. In the United States, a new transcontinental railroad provided rail service from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

A German engineer, Nikolaus Otto, invented a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. In 1886, Karl Benz received a patent for the first automobile, which used Otto’s engine, and had only 3 wheels. Then Gottlieb Daimler invented the first 4-wheeled automobile. These “horseless carriages” quickly transformed transportation. An American, Henry Ford, produced an automobile that could travel a breath-taking 25 miles an hour. His use of the assembly line enabled him to mass-produce his automobiles, lowering the cost so that many more people could afford them. He made the United States a leader in the automobile industry.

The internal-combustion engine was used to boost farm production as it came to power mechanical threshers and reapers. It also fulfilled a dream of many when Orville and Wilbur Wright used the engine to design a and fly a small airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903. Commercial passenger travel began in the 1920s. There was also a revolution in communication when Samuel Morse developed the telegraph, an instrument that could use electricity to send coded messages over wires. His first telegraph line connected Baltimore and Washington D.C. in 1844. In 1876, the American inventor Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. By the 1890s, Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian, had invented the radio. In 1901, he sent a radio message across the Atlantic using Morse’s dot-and-dash code.

New Directions for Business New technology required the investment of large amounts of money. Entrepreneurs developed new ways of organizing businesses. Business owners began to sell stock, or shares in their companies, to investors. Each investor became an owner of a tiny part of the company.

By the late 1800s, “big business” came to dominate industry By the late 1800s, “big business” came to dominate industry. Large companies needed so much capital that they sold hundreds of thousands of shares of stocks. They formed corporations, or businesses that are owned by many investors who buy shares of stock. Investors were liable only for the amount of money they had invested in the company. They could not be held personally responsible for debts of the corporation. Powerful business leaders began to create monopolies and trusts, or huge corporations that controlled entire industries or areas of the economy. In the US, one of these trusts was the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, founded by John D. Rockefeller.

In their pursuit of profit, ruthless business leaders destroyed competing companies. Then they were free to raise prices as much as they wanted. Sometimes, the leaders of corporations in a particular industry would join forces and form a cartel, an association to fix (set) prices. The rise of these big businesses sparked a stormy debate. Some people viewed the Rockefellers and others like them as “captains of industry” or visionaries who added to the general prosperity. Others viewed them as “robber barons” who damaged free enterprise by crushing competition. Reformers called for laws to prevent monopolies and regulate trade. By the early 1900s, some governments did move against monopolies, but many business leaders used their economic and political power to prevent regulations against them.