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The Industrial Revolution is the name given to the massive social, economic, and technological change in 18th century and 19th century Great Britain. It commenced with the introduction of steam power (fuelled primarily by coal) and powered, automated machinery (primarily in textile manufacturing).

The technological and economic progress of the Industrial Revolution gained momentum with the introduction of steam-powered ships, boats and railways. In the 19th Century it spread throughout Western Europe and North America, eventually impacting the rest of the world.

Causes

The causes of the Industrial Revolution were complex and remain a topic for debate, with some historians seeing the Revolution as an outgrowth of social and institutional changes wrought by the final end of feudalism in Great Britain following the English Civil War in the 17th century.

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The colonial expansion of the 17th century with the accompanying development of international trade, creation of financial markets and accumulation of capital is also cited as a set of factors, as is the scientific revolution of the 17th century.

The importance of a large domestic market should also be considered an important cause catalyst of the Industrial Revolution, particularly explaining why it occurred in Britain. In other nations (e.g. France), markets were split up by local regions often imposing tolls and tariffs on goods traded among them. The restructuring of the American domestic market would trigger the second Industrial Revolution over 100 years later.

Effects

The application of steam power to the industrial processes of printing supported a massive expansion of newspaper and popular book publishing, which reinforced rising literacy and demands for mass political participation. Universal white male suffrage was adopted in the United States, resulting in the election of the popular General Andrew Jackson in 1828 and the creation of political parties organized for mass participation in elections.

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In France, the July Revolution widened the franchise and established a constitutional monarchy. Belgium established its independence from the Netherlands, as a constitutional monarchy, in 1830. Struggles for liberal reforms in Switzerland's various cantons in the 1830s had mixed results. A further series of attempts at political reform or revolution would sweep Europe in 1848, with mixed results, and initiated massive migration to North America, as well as parts of South America, South Africa, and Australia.

Textile manufacture

In the early 18th century, British textile manufacture was based on wool which was processed by individual artisans, doing the spinning and weaving on their own premises. This system is called a cottage industry. Flax and cotton were also used for fine materials, but the processing was difficult because of the pre-processing needed, and thus goods in these materials made only a small proportion of the output.

Use of the spinning wheel and hand loom restricted the production capacity of the industry, but a number of incremental advances increased productivity to the extent that manufactured cotton goods became the dominant British export by the early decades of the 19th century. India was displaced as the premier supplier of cotton goods.

Step by step, individual inventors increased the efficiency of the individual steps of spinning (carding, twisting and spinning, and subsequently rolling) so that the supply of yarn fed a weaving industry that itself was advancing with improvements to shuttles and the loom or 'frame'. The output of an individual labourer increased dramatically, with the effect that these new machines were seen as a threat to employment, and early innovators were attacked and their inventions wrecked. The inventors often failed to exploit their inventions, and fell on hard times.

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He created the cotton mill which brought the production processes together in a factory, and he developed the use of power - first horse power, then water power and finally steam power - which made cotton manufacture a mechanised industry.

Why Europe?

One question that has been of active interest to historians is why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe and not in other parts of the world, particularly China. Numerous factors have been suggested including ecology, government, and culture. Benjamin Elman argues that China was in a high level equilibrium trap in which the non-industrial methods were efficient enough to prevent use of industrial methods with high capital costs.

Kenneth Pommeranz, in The Great Divergence, argues that Europe and China were remarkably similar in 1700, and that the crucial differences which created the Industrial Revolution in Europe were sources of coal near manufacturing centres and raw materials such as food and wood from the New World which allowed Europe to economically expand in a way that China could not. Indeed, a combination of all of these factors is possible.

Why Great Britain?

The debate around the concept of the initial startup of the Industrial Revolution also concerns the thirty to hundred year lead the British had over the continental European countries and America. Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources the United Kingdom received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the British slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment.

Alternatively, the greater liberalisation of trade from a large merchant base may have been able to utilise scientific and technological developments emerging in the UK and elsewhere more effectively than other states with stronger monarchies, such as China's Emperors and Russia's Tzars.

The UK's extensive exporting cottage industries also ensured markets were already open for many forms of early manufactured goods. The nature of conflict in the period resulted in most British warfare being conducted overseas, reducing the devastating effects of territorial conquest impacting much of the rest of Europe.

Another theory believes that Great Britain was able to succeed in the Industrial Revolution due to its dense population for its small geographical size, and the availability of natural resources like copper, tin and coal, giving excellent conditions for the development and expansion of industry.

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The "Protestant work ethic"

Another theory is that the British advance was due to the presence of an entrepreneurial class which believed in progress, technology and hard work. The existence of this class is often linked to the Protestant work ethic and the particular status of so-called Dissenter Protestant sects that had flourished with the English revolution.

Reinforcement of confidence in the rule of law, which followed the establishment of the prototype of constitutional monarchy in Great Britain in the Glorious Revolution of 1689, and the emergence of a stable financial market there based on the management of the National Debt by the Bank of England, contributed to the capacity for, and interest in, private financial investment in industrial ventures.

The Dissenters found themselves barred or discouraged from some public offices when the restoration of the monarchy took place and membership in the official Anglican church became, once more, an important advantage.

Historians sometimes consider this social factor to be extremely important, along with the nature of the national economies involved. While members of these sects were excluded from certain circles of the government, they were considered as fellow Protestants, to a limited extent, by many in the middle class, such as traditional financiers or other businessmen.

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This argument has, on the whole, tended to neglect the fact that several inventors and entrepreneurs were rational free thinkers or "Philosophers" typical of a certain class of British intellectuals in the late 18th century, and were by no means normal church goers or members of religious sects.

Examples of these free thinkers were the Lunar Society of Birmingham (which flourished from 1765 to 1809). Its members were exceptional in that they were among the very few who were conscious that an industrial revolution was then taking place in Great Britain. They actively worked as a group to encourage it, not least by investing in it and conducting scientific experiments which led to innovative products.

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Industrialization also led to the creation of the factory. One of the earliest reformers of early factory conditions was Robert Owen. Josiah Wedgwood was another prominent early industrialist. The factory system was largely responsible for the rise of the modern city, as workers migrated into the cities in search of employment in the factories.

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