BG Steyr 

The industrial revolution 

 
Without any doubt the industrial revolution is and was one of the most important parts of human 
history. It changed the life of nearly every human being on our whole planet and the results are so 
common for us that we don’t even think about them in our daily lives.  
 
Industrial changes: 
 
The industrial revolution began at the 2nd half of the 18th century. There exists no uniformed 
theory how it came up. We can separate the industrial revolution in three parts: 
 
1. industrial revolution (approx. 1760 - 1830) 
 
It started in England because this country had colonies with a huge amount of natural resources, a 
good traffic system, great financial reserves, sufficient workers and a lot of people with 
revolutionary ideas. Another important fact was that the state itself didn’t interfere in the economy 
and so a free economy market could grow. 
 
First there was an  agrarian revolution: The great land owners got rich at the expense of the small 
farmers. Because of this many of them went into the rapidly growing cities where they hoped to 
find a better life. 
 
The former small factories were replaced by larger more efficient ones. So large stock companies 
developed. Banking institutions, the industry and the financial world supported each other because 
in these times political power of the Europeans was based on industrial superiority. It resulted in a 
world-wide economy and commercial room with international exchange of goods.  
 
The most important inventions of the 1

st

  industrial revolution: 

 
1764 

• 

James Hargrieves built `Spinning Jenny´ a spinning frame with the name of his daughter  

1779 

• 

Samuel Crompton improved the spinning frames with the help of water power and steam 
engines  

1784 

• 

First mechanical loom of Edmund Cartwright 

• 

James Watt finished his project of the steam engine 

1804 

• 

Richard Trevithick built the first high pressure steam locomotive 

1819 

• 

the first steam powered ship crossed the Atlantic 

• 

steam engines were inserted in coal disassembly 

 
2. industrial revolution (end of the 19

th

  century) 

 
The use of electric power and the chemical sector became the leading secorts in the second 
industrial revolution. Many new inventions in these sectors initiated another great industrial growth. 
 
 
 

BG Steyr 

The most important inventions of the 2

nd

 industrial revolution: 

 
1837  

• 

Samuel Morse invented the electro-magnetic telegraph 

1872  

• 

Graham Bell invented the phone  

1881  

• 

Thomas Edison presented the electric light bulb 

• 

Werner Siemens developed the dynamo  

1876 

• 

August Otto and Gottfried Daimler constructed the four stroke gas engine  

1900 

• 

started the first zeppelin of count Zeppelin 

1927 

• 

Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic with an airplane 

 
3. industrial revolution (now) 
 

• 

plastics dissolves iron in much importance 

• 

computer & robots replace human workers in production and manufacturing 

• 

nuclear power replaces in most parts of the world the traditional water and coal power 

 
Social changes 
 
The industrial revolution formed two new society groups:  The entrepreneurs and the wage workers 
(mostly proletarian). 
The entrepreneurs: The owners of the new companies and factories were mostly financially 
powerful merchants and sometimes also members of the nobility. The entrepreneurs were carrier of 
a new mind. Their leitmotif was: Work means no reduction of social reputation but was a life 
content. The affiliation to industry bourgeoisie already appeared purely external through big and 
well arranged apartments, fashionable and elegant clothes, a villa on the outskirts of a town and an 
own domestic. 
 
Wage workers: The factory workforce formed itself from the group of persons that worked in the 
factories, from the craftsmen and from the farmers. They owned no own estate and could only offer 
their working power. Women and children were also forced for work at factories and mines. They 
also had no politically rights because in these times only the rich or noble persons were allowed to 
vote. The state prevented the solidarity of the workers simultaneously through strike and coalition 
prohibitions. 
 
The industrialisation didn’t only bring good things. It also laid the fundamentals for many problems 
that are still existing: 

• 

mass poverty 

• 

dangerous and unhealthy conditions of work 

• 

long working times 

• 

severe discipline 

• 

bad payment 

• 

physical overstrain 

By 

Autschi@liwest.at