How does an industrial revolution form? Despite the long history of the human race, why did the first industrial revolution take place so late? Does it mean that prior to the 1760s, our ancestors didn’t have tools to help them get jobs done? In retrospect, our ancestors had them. Some of the products still we use today like Tablet PC have roots in ancient civilization. But they were not scalable. Even the steam engine was invented in ancient times, but it was not scalable due to a lack of science and engineering.
For scalability, we need technology cores amenable to progression through a Flow of Ideas. How to create that flow is a challenge. For this, we need science, engineering, and competition. The development of Newtonian mechanics and Thermodynamics made steam engines and Craftsmanship scalable. They formed a powerful technology core to reinvent products and processes. Hence, the first industrial revolution unfolded as creative waves.
An industrial revolution comprises numerous creative waves. Emerging technology cores fuel them. The unfolding of creative waves not only creates new opportunities, they also destroy existing ones. Hence, it transforms society. The steam engine was the underlying technology core in unfolding a series of creative waves, forming the first industrial revolution. Besides, the up-gradation of craftsmanship to mechanical engineering, forming the core of mechanization, played a complementary role in fueling creative waves. The transformation started in the 1760s. The epicenter was England. Along with the maturity of steam engine technology, the creative waves started reaching saturation. Subsequently, the steam engine’s transformation effect, marked as the first industrial revolution, came to an end in the 1870s.
The genesis of the unfolding of the first industrial revolution
Prior to the 1760s, human beings got energy delivered by muscle, water wheels, and windmills to power productive activities. The invention of the steam engine offered an alternative technology core to supply energy. The energy supplied by the steam engine was far more abundant, reliable, and less costly. This new energy source started to offer the window to innovators to change the technology core of the industry, transportation, and shipping–among others. Furthermore, due to mechanization out of the development of mechanical engineering, the productivity, and quality of industrial outputs started accelerating. On the other hand, rail networks and ships powered by steam engines made it easier to mobilize natural resources to factories. The change of technology core of the transportation system also facilitated the distribution of industrial outputs. Hence, economic activities sparked. In addition to technology, the adoption of Market Economy principles also intensified competition to profit from technology ideas.
Invention and evolution of the steam engine for driving the first industrial revolution
The steam engine has a long history. In the first century AD, its name was aeolipile or Hero’s engine. The bladeless radial steam turbine spins when the central water container is heated. Steam jets exiting the turbine produced the torque, much like a tip jet or rocket engine. Upon explaining the working principle of it in Roman Egypt, Hero of Alexandria got the credit for its invention. It went through a series of improvements, leading to the first commercially successful engine that could transmit continuous power to a machine. It was developed in 1712 by Mr. Newcomen. During the period 1763-1775, James Watt made a critical improvement for increasing efficiency. He developed a technique for removing spent steam to a separate vessel for condensation that greatly improved the amount of work obtained from per unit of fuel consumed.
However, by 1760, the steam engine got enough maturity to be technologically feasible and economically viable for taking over roles from windmills and water wheels to fuel productive activities. Along with the technological progression, steam engines started to emerge in diverse forms. Some of them are piston steam engines, high-pressure engines, horizontal stationary engines, engines for road vehicles, marine engines, steam locomotives, and many more. These steam engines offered suitable means for changing the technology core of major productive activities. Subsequently, creative waves started to unfold.
Unfolding creative waves powered by steam engines
In the 1780s, the first creative wave out of the steam engine started to unfold in England’s spinning and weaving industries. Mechanized spinning led to rapid industrialization first in Britain. Higher productivity led to cost reduction. The expansion of the market due to the falling price of textiles also led to growing industrial jobs. Hence, people started migrating towards cities. However, due to the maturity of mechanized spinning and weaving, an economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s. Fortunately, the steam engine technology advanced further for fueling creative waves in shipping and transportation by this time. Innovations developed late in the period led to the increasing adoption of steam locomotives, steamboats, and steamships. Technologies like hot blast iron smelting and electrical telegraph, widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s, also contributed to powering creative waves.
The first steam locomotive appeared in 1804, from the Coalbrookdale ironworks in Shropshire in the United Kingdom. Subsequently, it led to the use of steam locomotives in railways and the creation of the steam locomotive engineering industry in the UK. Many of the earliest locomotives for American railroads were imported from Great Britain. Furthermore, the “first practical steamboat”, the Charlotte Dundas, appeared in 1802 in England. In fact, England was the epicenter of the steam engine-powered first industrial revolution. The invention of other complementary technologies like the flying shuttle in 1733, and spinning jenny in 1770 also contributed to the unfolding of the steam engine-powered mechanized wave of production.
Continued progression of steam engine technology kept making the creative wave bigger
Moreover, the safety, power, reliability, and efficiency of steam engines also kept growing. Such continued progress of the steam engine played a critical role in unfolding creative waves. For example, steamboats initially had a short-range and were not particularly seaworthy due to their weight, low power, and tendency to break down. However, continued progression led to the first successful transatlantic crossing by a steamship in 1819.
Productivity, Economic growth, and jobs
The textile sector got a significant boost from steam engine-powered mechanization. Mechanized cotton spinning powered by steam increased the output of a worker by a factor of around 500. This productivity growth accelerated the expansion of Britain’s textile industry. For example, in 1750 Britain imported 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton, most of which was spun and woven by the cottage industry’s manual labor in Lancashire. The adoption of machines for cleaning, carding, and spinning drove the raw cotton consumption to 22 million pounds by 1787, which grew to 52 million pounds in 1800 and 588 million pounds in 1850.
Along the way, Britain’s spindles grew from 50,000 in 1788 to 7 million over the next 30 years. These data are good enough to indicate how much the steam engine’s creative wave in the textile industry drove productivity and economic growth in Britain. Furthermore, a high rate of expansion of mechanized textile production also led to accelerated growth in iron and coal production.
Diffusion of steam-powered innovations
Mechanized textile production spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and the United States in the early 19th century. In continental Europe, important centers of textiles, iron, and coal emerged in Belgium, and later textiles in France. Following the steamboat by a Scottish engineer in 1802, in 1807, the American Robert Fulton built the world’s first commercially successful steamboat. Its name was North River Steamboat and powered by a Watt engine. In continental Europe, Belgium quickly followed Britain’s path to enter into the first industrial revolution by leveraging coal, iron, and textile. France was a latecomer. And the rest of Europe was laggard. For example, despite having vast coal and iron resources, Germany did not begin its industrial expansion until after national unity was achieved in 1870.
Colonies became suppliers of raw materials to Britain’s industrial economy
In addition to technical competence, Britain also benefited from its political position. To fuel the industry’s rapid expansion, Britain harnessed natural resources from her formal colonies, starting from North America to the Caribbean. Besides, through the activities of the East India Company, Britain succeed in sourcing raw materials from the Indian subcontinent as well.
Starting of idea and knowledge trade—opening the path of growing inequality
Before the first industrial revolution, trade was limited to natural resources and handmade products. The advent of the steam engine created the window of charging a premium for knowledge and ideas. Besides, many inventors in Brian took patents of different components of the steam engine and associated technologies. In addition to exporting textile products produced by mechanized means, Britain also started exporting steam engines and associated technologies to different parts of the world. Apart from knowledge superiority, Britain also used patents to prevent others from imitating exported technology innovations. Hence, this first industrial revolution opened the opportunity of earning premium prices due to ownership of knowledge and patents. In fact, this opportunity of transferring knowledge and ideas into revenue led to growing income inequality between Britain and the rest of the world.
Maturity of the first industrial revolution and the emergence of the 2nd
By 1870, the first industrial revolution started showing the sign of an end. This is primarily due to the fact that the steam engine reached maturity. By that time, innovators exhausted all possible Innovation opportunities in using them. Besides, the growth of technologies like the internal combustion engine and electricity started opening new waves of innovations. In fact, in many of those innovations, innovators started replacing the role of steam engines. Subsequently, the unfolding of the 2nd industrial revolution started.
