Overview Of The Industrial Revolution

Overview:

The Industrial Revolution was a major turning point in world history. It had a dramatic effect on all aspects of human life.

“We are capable of doing anything” by Queen Victoria (Wyatt 2)

• IR stimulated a major increase in production and mass consumption. The ancient sources of power ( human, draught animal, wind , and water) were replaced by coal and sophisticated machinery and stimulate new inventions and increasingly higher level of productivity. These changes required modified forms of labor organizations to ensure sustained profits and resulted in the growth of factory enterprises and new business arrangements to replace the former widely dispersed domestic workshops and cottage industries. (2Wyatt)

• Transition from agrarian to one fueled by machines, factories, and more specialized labor.

• Rise of a wealthy and politically influential middle class and the massive growth of an urban proletariat whose initially fain voice slowly became loud as the 19th century progressed, a clamor that eventually transformed the nature of Western politics. (3 Wyatt)

• This new environment stimulated in Western nations a fresh and insatiable appetite for raw material and new resources to pursue ever-increasing levels of economic growth. (Wyatt 3 )

• The relationship of Western states with each other and the rest of the world as industrial power became the major vehicle by which nations attempted to subdue wide portion of the globe and compete for economic, territorial, and strategic advantage. (Wyatt 3)

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