The
Four Industrial Revolutions
The
Industrial Revolution was a period of major industrialization and innovation
that took place during the late 1700s and early 1800s. The Industrial
Revolution began in Great Britain and quickly spread throughout the world. The
American Industrial Revolution commonly referred to as the second Industrial
Revolution, started sometime between 1820 and 1870. This time period saw the
mechanization of agriculture and textile manufacturing as well as a revolution
in power, including steamships and railroads, that affected social, cultural,
and economic conditions.
Although
the Industrial Revolution occurred approximately 200 years ago, it is a period
in time that left a profound impact on how people lived and the way businesses
operated. Arguably, the factory systems developed during the Industrial
Revolution are responsible for the creation of capitalism and the modern cities
of today. Prior to the revolution, most Americans earned a living farming, and
with the advance of factories, people began working for companies located in
urban areas for the first time. Although the wages were low and conditions were
often harsh, working for businesses paid a better living than farming.
The
Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every
aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income
and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists
say that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of
living for the general population began to increase consistently for the first
time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to
meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The
precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among
historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes. Eric Hobsbawm held
that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully
felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while T.S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly
between 1760 and 1830. Rapid industrialization first began in Britain, starting
with mechanized spinning in the 1780s, with high rates of growth in steam power
and iron production occurring after 1800. Mechanized textile production spread
from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early
19th century, with important centres of textiles, iron and coal emerging in
Belgium and the United States and later textiles in France.
An
economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s when the
adoption of the original innovations of the Industrial Revolution, such as
mechanized spinning and weaving, slowed and their markets matured. Innovations
developed late in the period, such as the increasing adoption of locomotives,
steamboats and steamships, hot blast iron smelting and new technologies, such
as the electrical telegraph, widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s, were not
powerful enough to drive high rates of growth. Rapid economic growth began to
occur after 1870, springing from a new group of innovations in what has been
called the Second Industrial Revolution. These new innovations included new
steel making processes, mass-production, assembly lines, electrical grid
systems, the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the use of
increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories.
Meet
the Three Industrial Revolutions
·
The
First Industrial Revolution: The Age of Mechanical Production
As
it turns out, when you heat up water, you get steam. And beginning around 1760,
through the advent of the steam engine, steam was powering everything from
agriculture to textile manufacturing.
Society
used to be largely agrarian, which is a fancy way of saying that life used to
be centered around farming. But with steam power, those agrarian societies gave
way to urbanization. The world began to rely on steam power and machine tools,
while steamships and railroads revolutionized how people got from A to B. And
what emerged as the new center of community life? The factory.
But
factory life was difficult. Unskilled factory laborers were cheap and
plentiful. They were made to work long hours, often in unsafe conditions. Even
children worked in factories, putting in 14-hour shifts alongside adults. Such
conditions endured into the 20th century.
Ultimately,
advancing industrialization created a middle class of skilled workers. Cities
and industries grew more quickly than ever before, and economies grew along
with them.
·
The
Second Industrial Revolution: The Age of Science and Mass Production
Things
started to speed up with a number of key inventions. Think gasoline engines,
airplanes, chemical fertilizer. All inventions that helped us go faster and do
more.
That’s
science, folks. It works.
But
advancements in science weren’t limited to the laboratory. Scientific
principles were brought right into the factories. Most notably, the assembly
line, which effectively powered mass production. By the early part of the 20th
century, Henry Ford’s company was mass producing the groundbreaking Ford Model
T, a car with a gasoline engine built on an assembly line in his factories.
People
follow the jobs, and the early 1900s saw workers leaving their rural homes
behind to move to urban areas and factory jobs. By 1900, 40% of the US
population lived in cities, compared to just 6% in 1800. Along with increasing
urbanization, inventions such as electric lighting, radio, and telephones
transformed the way people lived and communicated.
When
you stop and think about it, it was this industrial revolution, the second one,
that ushered in the modern world.
·
The
Third Industrial Revolution: The Digital Revolution
So,
if you’re reading this, you’re experiencing some of the wonders of the digital
revolution right now. You’re enjoying the cloud, the Internet, and some kind of
handy device that lets you access both. You can even be reading this on your
phone.
Hello
there. Welcome to the digital revolution.
Beginning
in the 1950s, the third industrial revolution brought semiconductors, mainframe
computing, personal computing, and the Internet—the digital revolution. Things
that used to be analog moved to digital technologies, like an old television
you used to tune in with an antenna (analog) being replaced by an
Internet-connected tablet that lets you stream movies (digital).
The
move from analog electronic and mechanical devices to pervasive digital
technology dramatically disrupted industries, especially global communications
and energy. Electronics and information technology began to automate production
and take supply chains global.
·
The
Fourth Industrial Revolution: Starting Now!
Each
of these first three industrial revolutions represented profound change. We’re
talking major societal transformation. Life went from being all about the farm
to all about the factory, and people moved from the country into town with the
introduction of mechanical production. How people lived and worked
fundamentally changed with the discovery of electricity and mass production.
And most recently, the digital revolution altered nearly every industry, once
again transforming how people live, work, and communicate.
So
where are we now? Well, at this moment, many of the technologies people dreamed
of in the 1950s and 60s have become a reality. Maybe we don’t have flying cars
yet, but we’ve got robots! Plus there’s genetic sequencing and editing,
artificial intelligence, miniaturized sensors, and 3D printing, to name a few.
And when you put some of these technologies together, well, let’s just say the
innovations are unexpected and surprising.
IMPACT
INDUSTIRAL REVOLITUION HAD ON SOCIETY
Effects of the
industrial revolution were primarily bad. It had numerous ill affects on the
society.
Firstly there were
cases of abuse of children and women and it was considered a new norm for
factory owners.
Factory owners were
happy to employ children as they were too small to resist anything they were
asked of.
Factory owners can
deter them by beating if they show some sign of resistance. Also because they
were physically small it was easy to employ them to work with machines as their
small hands can go to the smallest of the cavity of machines. They were made to
work for 18 hours a day which took their entire childhood away from them.
The unprecedented
economical growth made capitalism flourish. There were little or no government
regulations against factory owners and they were free to pursue any path which
took them to profit.
Because people were
made to work 18 hours a day therefore workers had very little or no time to
share some moments with family. This lead to the breakdown of family units.
Because of this children received very little education, had poor cultural and
moral values, had poor growth, and were sickly.
Living conditions of
workers were pathetic, they were living in slums with no sanitation facilities.
How Is the Fourth Different from the Third Industrial Revolution?
According to Schwab,
there are three key factors which differentiate between the two:
·
Velocity
·
Breadth and depth
·
Systems impact
Velocity
The world is more
connected than ever before, and this revolution is transforming the world far
more quickly than the first three did.
Breadth
and Depth
Salesforce CEO Marc
Benioff observes, “The convergence of digital technologies with breakthroughs
in materials science and biology means that we are seeing the emergence of
entirely new ways in which to live. In both subtle and explicit ways,
technology is also changing what it means to be human.”
Systems
Impact
Fourth Industrial
Revolution advances are so sophisticated and interconnected that they’re
transforming major systems (politics and the economy, for example) as well as
entire countries and societies.
SOURCE
