Scientific discoveries and technological advancements led to the rise of modern industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The following factors made rapid industrialization possible:
| Domestic Effects | Global Impact |
| Growth of urban centers | Widened gap between industrial and non-industrial nations |
| Creation of middle class of merchants and factory owners | Competition for colonial territory to secure natural resources |
| Unsafe, harsh conditions in factories | Greater economic power in Europe |
| Loss of traditional artisan guilds | The Revolutions of 1848 |
| Rising standard of living |
World trade increased |
England was the first modern industrial economy for several reasons:
Other nations were close behind Great Britain in developing industrial capability. The United States and Germany both surpassed Britain in terms of steel production by 1900, while Russia, Japan, and the Ottoman Empire followed behind. Spain and the rest of continental Europe were largely excluded from industrialization during this period.
Though it is counterintuitive, the Industrial Revolution was partially made possible by agricultural advances. The Dutch began this process by erecting earthen walls to reclaim land from the sea and using fertilizer from livestock to renew soil nutrients. In the 1700s, British farmers began experimenting with crop rotation, and Jethro Tull invented a mechanical seed drill that sped up the planting process. Farmers began to share their knowledge and techniques through farm journals. This resulted in higher agricultural output, which in turn created the population growth so key to maintaining an industrial labor force.
Technological development was the driving force of industrialization. For example, hydropower was used to make mills more efficient. A major advancement was the steam engine, which would become the foundation of this new mechanical age. Coal was vital in the production of iron, which was used to construct machinery and steam engines. New methods for producing iron resulted in a better product produced at lower costs. Iron was a vital material during the Industrial Revolution, especially in railroad construction. Cars, ships, and factories were both products and tools of further industrialization. A second industrial revolution in steel, chemicals, and electricity transformed society in the late nineteenth century. These advancements led to innovations in scientific fields such as engineering and medicine.
New financial systems also developed to support the new industrial production. More complex corporate structures, stock markets, and insurance enabled businessmen to raise the capital they needed to begin or expand production as well as to protect their investments from loss. Large businesses often had a global reach. Transnational corporations such as the United Fruit Company had operations that affected lives in North, Central, and South America. The ideals of laissez-faire capitalism that Adam Smith had proposed became the inspiration for these changes.
Industrialization greatly affected gender roles and families. It also radically altered the traditional social structures of the day. The family, which previously had been a self-sufficient economic unit, moved economic production outside the home. Working-class women and children entered the industrial workforce as low-paid factory laborers.
A sharp distinction now existed between family life and work life. The status of men increased because industrial work and the wage were considered more important than domestic work, which was largely performed by women. Middle-class values became distinct from those of the industrial working class, which were stereotyped as promiscuous, alcohol-abusing, and immoral. Middle-class women generally did not work outside the home, but instead were pressured to conform to the new models of behavior often referred to as the “cult of domesticity”—the glorification of women as the center of the well-kept home.
The Industrial Revolution led to the establishment of the factory system in which factories employed large numbers of workers and power-driven machines to mass-produce goods. In the late 1800s, manufacturers sought to increase productivity and profits by designing products with interchangeable parts: identical components that could be used in place of each other. This process simplified assembly, but also made factory work tedious and repetitive. Factory work was also dangerous and had a negative impact on the health of laborers, both from environmental factors such as dust and chemicals and from accidents with machinery.
As a result of industrialization, a new global division of labor emerged. Industrial societies needed raw materials from other lands and there was a large demand for materials such as raw cotton from India and Egypt, and rubber from Brazil and the Congo. Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia became dependent on exporting cash crop products to the industrialized nations, but established little or no industrialization themselves. Most of the profits from these cash crops went abroad, and wealth was concentrated among the owners and investors in these corporations.
During the First Industrial Revolution (approximately 1760–1820), the development of the steam engine led to creation of steamships and steam-powered locomotives, which rapidly sped up transportation. The creation of canals enabled heavy loads to be transported long distances and linked previously separate waterways. The development of the telegraph revolutionized the speed at which businesses, people, and armies could communicate.
During the Second Industrial Revolution (1870–1914), the development of the internal combustion engine transformed how machines operated and initiated the rise of oil as a global commodity. It also saw the beginning of widespread electrification. Economic inequality within industrialized countries, spurred on by the growth of industries like steel and railroads, led to a sharp increase in socialist parties and unions.