Talk:Industrial Revolution/Archive 2

Agriculture sub section
The mention of the work of John Fowler from 1850 onwards is strictly speaking  Second Industrial Revolution. By this article's own broadest definition the period under view is around 1760s to 1840s. Agricultural traction engines were second wave developments and their effects were not really felt until the end of the 19th century. I think its confusing to include it here. Lumos3 (talk) 23:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree. --Old Moonraker (talk) 05:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have rewritten the agriculture section to focus more on the effects of industrialisation and machinery on agriculture. Lumos3 (talk) 10:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Britain/England
I'm removing the stupid re-direction to England (labelled Britain) in the lead paragraph of this article. What a stupid thing someone has done by putting that in, and how desperately ignorant. Are we forgetting the role of the Welsh Coal and Iron Ore fields, or of the inventors such as James Watt (scottish) in the industrial revolution in the UK? Can we please not make this mistake again. Thanks W2ch00 (talk) 23:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I've a more fundamental problem-- beyond the inventors and a mention of resources in the Socttish lowlands, there is no mention at all of the revolution in Scotland. I'm English so I've no inherent vested interest here, but it seems there should be more (and perhaps Wales and Ireland too). If OTOH the Revolution was mostly English plus a few Scots inventors and intellectuals, we should say so more clearly rather than call it British. SimonTrew (talk) 13:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Things that are wrong with the Title, Text, Pictures and Format

 * 1) .I don't think that the page really provides any helpful information at all.
 * 2) .It needs more pictures and a bit more about everything in the 1900
 * 3) .I think that the text could be a little simplier as it can be hard to understand sometimes.
 * 4) .I also think that the title should be underlined and in bold.
 * 5) .Also I think that also the highlighted words should not be highlighted because it makes the writing very hard to read.It also makes it quite confusing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.43.198 (talk) 17:17, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This has become an over-complicated article, but no one has for a long time felt strong enough to tackle that by removing unecessary material. 1900 and after has nothing to do with it, as that date is after the end of the period.  The format is standard Wikipedia format (including headings).  The "highlighted" words are in fact words linking to other articles.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:29, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

This Article Needs Major Clean-up!

Inventions
I removed the following


 * The most significant inventions had their origins in the Western world, primarily Europe and the United States.

The sentence is unclear. I would have tried to improve it but I am really not sure what the point is. The industrial revolution involved a great deal of innovation, this clearly took place where the industrial revolution took place. I don't think this sentence really adds anything to this. Furthermore, the citation is a very strange list of "important inventions". Most of these have nothing to do with the industrial revolution, and a casual reader may find the choice slightly pussling. For example "chewing gum" is important but the spinning jenny is not. Thehalfone (talk) 11:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * But it needs spelling out in the article so I have reverted your deletion. The inventions are shown and described in the article below the statement. Peterlewis (talk) 13:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I take your point. However I think it belongs before the second paragraph, to emphasise the causality. Also, at present, the article does not mention any inventions made in continental Europe or North America. It rather emphasises the transfer of inventions from Britain. Perhaps at the end of the first paragraph, we could have "this change took advantage of new scientific techniques and fueled voluminous technological innovation." - though I am not so happy with the word "voluminous". Regards Thehalfone (talk) 08:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Surely the industrial revolution began in Britain so naturally inventions there are going to predominate, the steam engine being the obvious example. If you can cite any other foreign inventions which were critical then feel free to do so! Peterlewis (talk) 08:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In my view, the person who wrote the sentence did not know what is meant by the Industrial Revolution (as a historical concept). My view (and this may be controversial) is that the key inventions that allowed a take-off in growth were (1) new yarn-spinning methods - first the spinning jenny and then the water-frame (2) new methods of producing bar iron without charcoal, notably puddling (3) the steam engine as a prime mover for factories, to which may be added improved transport infrastructure.  These three were English inventions of the 1770s and 1780s and were widely adopted when they came out of patent.  Peterkingiron (talk) 00:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You are right of course, Mr Lewis, - I don't know enough to comment on your input Mr Kingiron. I think I should explain myself a bit better. I think you are right that invention needs to be prominent in the article as a key factor in the industrial revolution. My point, well __a__ point, is that the sentence talks about Europe and the US, I think Britain is probably more appropriate if we feel the need to say a place name. As you pointed out, however, I think it is clear from the context. Another point is where this information should be - as regards the lede. At present it looks tacked on to the end, I think it should be placed in context as a cause and effect of the IR. Thehalfone (talk) 11:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for restructuring
This whole article has become bloated as too many editors have each added their halfpenny's worth to it. What it needs is some one to take it to their sandbox (after reading the leading text books on the subject, and to prune it down to a manageable size. I would suggest that there should be the following articles: This needs a volunteer, some one (preferably) with a degree in economic history (or at least in history).  Having a doctorate in economic history, I would qualify, but I lack the time needed.  Peterkingiron (talk) 00:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) Industrial Revolution - a brief article describing the concept. This will need to be defended against those who want to expand it back to its present bloated state
 * 2) Origins of the Industrial Revolution - This would be a home for material such as why in Britain and not China.
 * 3) Industrial Revolution in Britain - A description of the economic history of Britain c.1760-1830, focusing on the changes in leading sectors. This will almost certainly have various sub-articles on particular topics (as the presetn articvle does.
 * 4) Industrial Revolution in Continental Eutope - This came later, and largely after the Napoleonic War
 * 5) Industrial Revolution in the United States - This also came later.
 * Is not this table History of Wallonia very interesting fort this page? It is a "clever" table and is it not possible with him to understand the stages of the IR amonf Europe and the USA? Sincerely, José Fontaine (talk) 18:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is an interesting table, but is it correct? I feel this article is already too big and would discourage its addition to this article.  Peterkingiron (talk) 23:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think so. In reality (I didn't quote it on Wallonia's page: I made a mistake), it is a table drawn by Paul Bairoch. I don't claim that it must be on this page. But it seems to me that it would be very interesting from an historical point of view. And  from a pedagogic point of view too. Sincerely, José Fontaine (talk) 21:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Effects on inequality
I would just like to add a few points concerning (in)equality. But I am not getting access to editing the article. The wages in Britain increased because of not only technological change but also by emigration to the new world. When low skilled labor emigrated the supply of labor decreased at the same time as demand for low skilled labor increased. The result was increased equality in Britain. In the new world including USA, Canada and Australia the case was the opposite. The new world was abundant in land but scarce in labor which caused the high difference in wages between Europe and the new world in the first place. When faced with major inflow of immigrants the wages decreased in the new world while land and rent prices increased. Hence inequality increased in the new world. Source: WIDER Annual Lecture 6, Winners and Losers over Two Centuries of Globalization, Jeffrey G. Williamson

Masalih (talk) 08:39, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * A very interesting topic. Just to bring another vegetable to the stew, I read 3 to 6 months back about some challenging of the conventional wisdom on what drove the development in America of the American system and later automation. The conventional wisdom was that labor was too scarce, driving a demand for those developments. But someone challenged that idea by saying that it was actually labor turnover, not lack of laborers, that drove that demand. In other words, there were plenty of butts for the chairs, but the constant swapping of chairs, the musical-chairs aspect, was poisonous to production efficiency because half your people were new and untrained and the ones you'd just invested training in promptly left. Sadly I am forgetting already whether it was in Hounshell 1984 or Noble 1984 that I was reading this. One of those. Anyway, this is tangential to your point, but just more food for thought related to the same themes. — ¾-10 19:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph written in over-complex style.
This edit seems at odds with the "how to write better articles" advice to use a businesslike manner without jargon: in fact this could apply to the whole paragraph. Furthermore there is an unanswered question on the contributor's talk page: "Are you in fact G. D. Snooks?", presumably because his/her contributions to Wikipedia consist only of adding material regarding Snooks. I am proposing to simplify, or even exclude, this paragraph. --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Take it out.DonSiano (talk) 14:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. Relying on WP:MTAA I have done so. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Steam Engine
The steam engine was created in between the years of 1650-to-1715. A steam Engine converts potential energy that exsits as pressure in steam, and it converts that to mechanical force. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.170.155.129 (talk) 03:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC) the steam enginee was a beast (: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.2.102.240 (talk) 14:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Causes for occurrence in Britain—key inventions in the industrial revolution were made by slaves
This edit is sourced from student course notes and added in good faith. However it's somewhat contentious, repetitious and inconsistent. The source may not be strong enough to bear its burden. I'm inclined to delete, subject to other contributors' views. See WP:V. --Old Moonraker (talk) 07:05, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Revert the whole thing if you like: so far, I have only removed the sentence on slave inventors, because it refers to the mid-19th century inventions, the period after the first industrial revolution. I know it is frustrating for Americans not to be able to include details of American industrialization in this article, but it does not belong here:
 * "It should also be noted that several key inventions in the industrial revolution were made by slaves, Benjamin Bradley and Norbert Rillieux being famous examples."
 * I should perhaps have removed more. This article has reached a stage where it ought to be relying on fully academic sources, not what has been put together for a student curriculum.  It is possible thatnthe material belongs in an article on American industrialization.  It is certainly NOT part of the CAUSES of the British industrial revolution, which should refer to the 1750s, not the 1850s.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:57, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
 * More removed. --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:46, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * A similar issue arises from this edit . The source given states that few records exists of inventions made by African-Americans before 1860, the edit states that "Some inventions in the industrial revolution in America were made by slaves" what quite a reinterpretation of the source text. Apart from that, it is not even clear whether these inventions had any notable impact on the course of the industrial revolution, after all that is the subject of this article, not American inventions in the 19th century. Thus removed. Afroghost (talk) 19:01, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I strongly support your action. I am not convinced that this article is in any event the right place for detailed material on how and why American industrialisation occured.  Peterkingiron (talk) 22:38, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Just as a point of interest, the US refused to sign any form or Patent Agreement with Britain until as late as 1906, so many UK patents were simply copied and then re-patented in the US by US 'inventors'. Edison apparently had people waiting for the ships from Liverpool, which brought the published patents to the US, for just this purpose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.254.12 (talk) 17:54, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not that the info isn't good; it's just that the correct home for it needs to be found or created
Hi all! I am currently not at all involved with the development of this article, but I just thought that I would add two cents to try to help Full Shunyata from feeling "shut out". One of the things that we deal with recurrently in developing articles is how to broach a topic (in this case, inventions by slaves in the 19th-c U.S.) that's related to the article at hand (in this case, the Industrial Revolution and what caused it), but too digressive to be fully explored there. Fortunately, our medium provides workable solutions to this recurring challenge. The beauty of hyperlinking is that you can broach a related topic quickly and simply in one article, and allow any reader to click through to a different article, where the topic can be fully explored, if that particular reader is sufficiently interested. You don't have to sacrifice any information to the cutting room floor; you simply move it to a better home, and it is not lost and forgotten there, because copious hyperlinks allow it to be tangentially referenced as often as needed. People can still find it. And its connection to related topics can still be well known. Anyway, I'm out of time for the moment, and not sure if I'm getting my idea across well enough, but hopefully you'll see the gist of what I'm getting at. "In a hyperlinked world, the solution to digression isn't to obliterate it, but rather to move it somewhere else and leave behind a link to it." Hope this helps. Cheers, — ¾-10 17:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Well said. I should add that good sources such as scholarly articles published in peer-review journals or books published by reputable academic presses are very much preferred, and are absolutely necessary if Wikipedia wants to be a serious encyclopedia. Afroghost (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Full Shunyata has been bringing forward interesting information. It just is that the inforamtion does not belong in this article.  It is off-topic and therefore irrelevant.  Some of it comes from his lecturer's course notes, which is not a satisfacitry source for an article that has reached this stae in its deveolopment.  The subject of this article is an enormous one: whole books have eben written on it.  It is thus necessary for the article to be selective, and to stick to its main subject.  The correct place for the information may be in Technological and industrial history of the United States, or perhaps in a more specialist article.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The material, in slightly different form, has re-appeared. Not one of the sources given covered the additions—for example one print source was describing colonialism at the end of the nineteenth century—so once again it has been reverted. Note on contributor's talk page. --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Recent addition on Iron Act and other matters
I have removed a recent addition, which I consider to be irrelevant: The emerging troubles between Britain and her American colonies cast a shadow on the mother country's desire to see greater industrial development offshore. A 1750 Parliamentary act stated: "No mill or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron, or any furnace for making steel shall be erected . . in His Majesty's Colonies of America." Transgression of this act carried a penalty of £200, a huge sum at that time. After the colonies were independent this act was amended to read: "No export of tool, engine or persons connected with the iron industry . . " This law caused skilled people wishing to emigrate to do so dressed as common laborers, often carrying their tools of the trade disguised or marked as agricultural implements. The section of the article in question is about the tranmission of knowledge. The Iron Act restricted the use of knowledge, not its transfer: the processes were laready known and used in America. The second matter probably does not refer to an amendment of the Iron Act, which would have become ineffective at American independence. It refers to the Tool Act, which (I think) goes back the the 1720s. In any event, this article is largely about Britain, not America. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:43, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Useful Source
I just thought I might mention that a particular book I saw might give a lot of useful information for the article. It was called The Times Complete History of the World. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross Rhodes (talk • contribs) 21:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Part about comparisons with China
At least the impression I had from covering much of the available research about standard of living and GDP comparisons between developed parts of China contrasts greatly with the current language in the article. I would say the entire part and the part about reasons for the revolution needs a quite extensive rewriting by a more nuanced person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.230.162.43 (talk) 15:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree with this strongly. In particular the sentence "However, most historians contest the assertion that Europe and China were roughly equal because modern estimates of per capita income on Western Europe in the late 18th century are of roughly 1,500 dollars in purchasing power parity (and Britain had a per capita income of nearly 2,000 dollars[22]) whereas China, by comparison, had only 450 dollars" contradicts the one preceding it or is at best irrelevant. The question is not why IR happened in 18th century Britain rather than 18th century China but rather why IR happened in 18th century Britain rather than, say, 15th century China (when it's income was comparable to 18th century British income). I also agree that the 1,500 and 2,000 estimates seem a bit high though it depends on what currency units you're using - but that means that this should be made explicit in the article (either that or just put in the ratio of British to Chinese incomes).radek (talk) 20:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Any such comparison is extremely difficult: which currency do you measure in? The value of an ounce of silver (or gold) bullion (or in coins) is not necessarily a constant across the world or from one century to another. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The most important thing is to use a common measure and to specify which measure you're using. Incomes have been measured in pounds of wheat for example.radek (talk) 23:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The Industrial Revolution happened in Britain because at the time there were the people with the money, there were the inventors able to invent the machinery (which provoked further invention), and the British Empire provided a large market for the manufactured goods. In comparison, China was a backward-looking state with no incentive for any of these, being composed of a vast reservoir of relatively cheap labour, where simply there was no need or reason for any revolution in industry. Britain was also greatly helped by the Enlightenment, whereby the conditions necessary for modern science were born. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.252.131 (talk) 11:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

manufacturing and production
"The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, production, mining, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain." Is there any difference between manufacturing and production?! If so, please explain it to me. If not, we no longer have to use both terms. - 15:12, 29 March 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.44.157.156 (talk) 15:12, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I would say that production is an umbrella term covering all economic outputs, so not just manufactured items, but what is produced from mines and agriculture as well. In the context of the article I think its unnecessary verbiage and I'll remove it. Lumos3 (talk) 22:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If used strictly (as it should be in dealing with that period), manufacture refers to operations done by hand (Latin --manus (hand) + fact- = past particle of facio (make). Production is an omnibus term covering both that and the use of articifially-powered methods, but in the economic history of the period tends to be limited to artificially powered processes.  Thus the smelting of iron ore to produce pig iron and the fining of that into bar iron are classified as production, but subsequently operations undertaken by the strength of smeiths wheilding a hammer are the manufacture of iron.  In the pre-Industrial Revolution period, spinning and weaving were undertaken by manual processes, but from the 1780s, spinning and then weaving were mechanised.  This distinction will not apply to every industry.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Relationship with 18th century Enlightenment
The article should maybe try to explain the links between the Industrial Revolution and the 18th century Enlightenment. The intellectual revolution of that century was closely related to the growth of Freemasonry as an academic, political and social movement. Could it be that after the Masons were done with that, they decided to create a new revolution based on technical capabilities, as illustrated by the invention of the railway and the steam engine ? ADM (talk) 17:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It is my view (though I may be controversial) that the most important innovations, cotton spinning and iron production had nothign to do with the enlightenment, or scientific advacne or anything of that kind. Locomotiove-hauled railways came only at the end of the industrial revolution.  I was not aware that James Watt was a freemason.  He was a member of The Lunar Society, a scientific discussion group, but his improvement of the steam engine came before he reached Birmingham.  Thoams Newcomen who inventedf the steam engine some 70 years earlier was a Baptist, not a Mason.  You are building a great edifice on very thin foundations.  Peterkingiron (talk) 23:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Why are the negative effects omitted?
please include them. 199.117.69.60 (talk) 20:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The II. Ind.revolution, and deprication of England and it's importance
It must be mentioned that Britain lost its European leadership in technology and industrial power after the unification of Germany. --Celebration1981 (talk) 19:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Ein bisschen voreingenommen, vielleicht? :-) I think a more accurate way to say it, rather than "lost its leadership," is "shared its leadership." But really, the whole schema of ranking the countries is flawed, because the reality is that after a while brilliant things were happening in many countries—the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and others. It ceased to be a model of leader and followers. — ¾-10 23:45, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Before WW1 Austria-Hungary had more famous inventors and more Nobel-awarded Scientist than France. Of course, Austria-Hungary was geographically the second largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire (239,977 sq. m in 1905), and the third most populous (after Russia and the German Empire).

From 1870's all type of American industry were bigger than British. From 1880's, the German heavy industry, machine industry, chemical industry were bigger than British. --Celebration1981 (talk) 07:42, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Hatnote in "Causes for occurrence in Europe"
Would having the links to Scientific Revolution, Industrial Revolution in China and Islamic Golden Age in the "See also" section, alongside for example Technological and industrial history of the United States, make more sense? Surely they relate to this topic in a general way rather than specifically to "Europe". Thanks to User:Mdwh for making the links, BTW. --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:02, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:34, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

New Book
Robert C Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in global perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2009) throws a great deal of new light on the causes of the industrial revolution. The last text book that I read on the subject effectively said that we did not know why it happened. Allen (Professor of Economic History at Oxford University) argues that England had a comparatively high wage economy, and abundant cheap coal. This provided fertile ground for the mechanisation and industrialisation constituting the industrial revolution.

The present article has become far too long and collected a lot of material that is probably not necessary - not necessarily wrong but probably better elsewhere. I would suggest that some one should start to rewrite this article in their sandbox, with others of us contributing. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Date confusion
The terms "19th century" et al should be changed to dates i.e. "late 18th century" should be changed to "from about 1750". The primary aim of the entry (and all entries here) is to transmit information and not only to be accurate. The argument regarding the accuracy of the concept of describing years 0-99 AD as the first century is therefore secondary to that of communication. In Finland I have found the term 19th century used widely in print to refer to the years 1900 - 1999. People generally I think believe that we are now in the second millenium. It would be great if the myth of our populations being well educated was true, but in my opinion it is only a folly to write in that belief. LookingGlass (talk) 09:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not know about Finnish dating, but I do know that in Swedish 19-talet (or some thing similar) means 1900-99, but in English usage that is 20th century. However this is the English language WP.  Anyway, I see nothing incorrect in the dating at a quick glance.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I would say that your suggestion would be absolutely valid if this were the Simple English Wikipedia, but I can't agree with it for here. Here at en:wiki we can't be held responsible for what other languages use as their system of understanding.  At the very most the 18C & 19C words could be wikilinked to the appropriate time pages in case any reader was left in doubt, but I can't agree with changes to "from about 1750" etc., that just sounds schoolbook, and not even advanced schoolbook. SFC9394 (talk) 22:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

At this point the statement of the period seems wrong to me: "The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 17th and early 18th centuries"

Beginning in appr. 1780 surely this should be late 18th and early 19th ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.52.86.61 (talk) 17:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Fixed, someone must have been messing. SFC9394 (talk) 19:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I think I had misunderstood the problem. It sounds like a case of vandalism: well done.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I have seen elsewhere (sorry; can't remember the source) that the first elements of the Industrial Revolution started in the 17th century (1600s); I believe it might have had something to do with weaving or milling. Shanoman (talk) 06:03, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've got it: both factories and steam engines were invented before the 1700s. Now, perhaps neither was able to transform the entire civilization socially, economically, etc. until decades afterward, but I do believe this leads at least some credence to the view that the Industrial Revolution may have begun in the 1600s.  Shanoman (talk) 06:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Please do not interfere with the general consensus (not merely a WP consensus) that the Industrial Revolution is a period about 1760/80 to 1830/40.  of course there was industry before that, but steam engines were virtually only used for pumping out mines.  Only from the 1780s were they used for driving machinery.  Factories in the modern sense of the term were also rare before then: arguably Derby Silk Mill was the first.   Peterkingiron (talk) 18:01, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Child labor
"The industrial revolution caused unspeakable misery both on England and in America. ... In the Lancashire cotton mills (from which Marx and Engels derived their livelihood), children worked from 12 to 16 hours a day; they often began working at the age of six or seven. Children had to be beaten to keep them from falling asleep while at work; in spite of this, many failed to keep awake and were mutilated or killed.  Parents had to submit to the infliction of these atrocities upon their children, because they themselves were in a desperate plight. Craftsmen had been thrown out of work by the machines; rural labourers were compelled to migrate to the towns by the Enclosure Acts, which used Parliament to make landowners richer by making peasants destitute; trade unions were illegal until 1824; the government employed agents provocateurs to try to get revolutionary sentiments out of wage-earners, who were then deported or hanged. Such was the first effect of machinery in England."

Bertrand Russell, THE IMPACT of SCIENCE on SOCIETY, p. 31. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhburns (talk • contribs) 16:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Your adding of this expressive description to the Child labour page was useful, and I have added a further link to that page in the "social effects" section here. --Old Moonraker (talk) 17:08, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Intro paragraph
The first paragraph might be better if it introduced the Industrial Rev as "a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions. The changes began in the United Kingdom as early as 1680 and subsequently spread throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world." Characterizing the Industrial Rev as a single period in the late 17th and early 19th century in the UK is a little confusing. I am not offering insight into specific dates (eg 1750 v. 1780), but the general ones should be more clear. I've never edited before, but if I don't get any pushback in the next few weeks, maybe I will edit this. 173.79.152.74 (talk) 15:35, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It would be helpful if you learnt to log in, so that the rest of us know who you are. I think you may have been looking at a version that some one had vandalised.  I do not see these dates in the current text.  I do not think it is useful to quote any earlier date as to when things "started": change is a continuous process, and any date for a start to change will be controversial, and ultimately the point of view of the particular historian.  This is an issue of great controversy among the top academics in the field, and not the place for you (or me) to put in out halfpennyworth of original research.  The statistical compilations of Crafts and Harley on the British economy do not go back beyond 1700.  This is probably for the simple reason that the overseas trade statistics start in 1697 (and those only for England and Wales), before that estimates of the size of the British economy are weak.  You may well see precursors from 1680 (or 1660 or even 1560, but I have not seen a serious suggestion of a start earlier than perhaps 1750.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Along with this I believe that there needs to be more creative interpretive views of the Industrial Revolution present. There are many essays out there that could be linked to this page with deeper understandings of the ideologies present within the Industrial Revolution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.214.92.139 (talk) 09:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Intellectual paradigms and criticism
I think that in this section, capitalism is somehow confused with industrialization. No matter how intertwined their histories are, they are two separate things. Also, in the Marxism subsection there is this reference to an essay from Murray Rothbard, father of anarcho-capitalism and a polemicist of marxism. I don't think there is much point in making the reference to give credibility in that statement.--JokerXtreme (talk) 23:56, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This article is a mishmash: Far too much detail has ben added in some areas, to things that ought to be in sub-articles. I very much dooubt that Marxism has a place in the article at all, save as a short paragraph pointing to a main article such as Marxist interpretation of the Industrial Revolution.  One day, I hope to construct a new article perhaps British Industrial Revolution in order that we can make a fresh start on the subject.  Peterkingiron (talk) 13:29, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Obsolete literature
What's with all the obsolete literature leading to questia.com in this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.129.168.182 (talk) 14:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

misspelling of "monopolize"
In return for publicly revealing the workings of an invention the patent system rewarded inventors such as James Watt by allowing them to monopolise the production of the first steam engines, thereby rewarding inventors and increasing the pace of technological development. However monopolies bring with them their own inefficiencies which may counterbalance, or even overbalance, the beneficial effects of publicising ingenuity and rewarding inventors.[

Monopolize is the correct spelling. Can't edit myself because article is locked. Thought to point out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.173.98.134 (talk • contribs) 03:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Thanks for noticing. --Old Moonraker (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I have changed it back as this article uses British English, as per ENGVAR. SFC9394 (talk) 13:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You are quite right: it was British English in the 16th century (citing OED). In the 21st, however, I feel a revert coming on. --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The article adheres to WP:ENGVAR; British English should be used. Nev1 (talk) 13:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * According to the OED there is no such word in English: the "ise" variant having dropped out of use in the sixteenth century. I'm happy to use the British, or "Cambridge", spelling "-ise" wherever appropriate (c.f. my old edits, if you have the time, to confirm) but this is just a misspelling. Or is there a source of equal authority that tells us differently? --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:40, 5 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Found the time: example here.--Old Moonraker (talk) 13:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I only have Chambers Dictionary (which says either -ize or -ise is acceptable), not the Oxford English Dictionary. If the OED says use -ize, then who am I to argue. Nev1 (talk) 13:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

No, if it's in Chambers that negates my argument and the latest version should stand. Looks like I may have fallen for the WP:IDONTKNOWIT pitfall.--Old Moonraker (talk) 13:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Various dictionaries will give both spellings, but "ise" is usual in England and "-ize" in America. I suspect that this is ultimately the result of choices made by OED and Websters respectively.  I take this from the instruictions to authors in various academci periodicals.  However, it appears that monopolize is preferred by OED - strange.  Peterkingiron (talk) 17:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Cradle of Indust. Revolution
The article was citing the 1800's Lowell plant as a cradle to the Industrial Revolution. I removed this because it was too confusing and contradictory -- someone reading that might believe Lowell was the creator and first settlement for textiles. RM'ed the line, replacing it with some major contributor description stuff. Silivrenion (talk) 14:49, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Caption for Bethlehem Steel site is inaccurate
Only part of the Bethlehem Steel site has been converted to a casino. Much of the original facilities remains. This is shown in the photograph, in fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heydenberk (talk • contribs) 20:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Addition of Sub-Articles to Social Effects.
The sub-category of population growth, if not in its own category, should be added under social affects, along with the development of social theories (i.e. socialism, communism, captialism). ItalA19 (talk) 22:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that the article is already complicated enough, and would discourage additions. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Remove request: "By 1900, there were 1.7 million child labourers" - Reason: footnoted site doesn't include source for the numbers stated
The referenced website in the footnote #32 of the quote "By 1900, there were 1.7 million child labourers" gives no source for this data. I followed up with other sites which mention the same figure, and they also didn't give a source. The sentence should be removed, or a new footnote should replace it with the correct reference data/study.

CSJscience (talk) 06:54, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Who is in charge of this page? Somebody respond to this and make the update, or I'm going to get myself put on this article so I can update it.

CSJscience (talk) 19:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Undue weight on Britain
The article has undue weight on Britain. The information needs to be globalised. Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're writing about the industrial revolution you have to follow the history: Britain is where it started. Discussed on this talk page several times before, for example here.--Old Moonraker (talk) 13:48, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to keep topic together, this comment, posted today, that the article may represent a British view may be relevant. Is the similarity in posters' names a coincidence, by the way? --Old Moonraker (talk) 10:24, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Afterthought: "British view" comes from the edit summary here. Playing with an online translator, I couldn't find this opinion stated in the original piece. Anyone with better knowledge of the language help me out?--Old Moonraker (talk) 10:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It is to be found in the next to last paragraph in the article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:37, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The fact is that the Industrial Revolution was initially a British phenomenon. Accordingly the British emphasis is inevitable. I think there are appropriate articles on the industrialisation of other countries. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The inventions of the Industrial Revolution were almost all British and the industries were first located in England. They spread elsewhere in a few decades; however, England remained the most industrialized country for most of the 19th century.Phmoreno (talk) 13:27, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Coal as organic fuel
A minor point in the metallurgy section, coal is an organic fuel like wood, why it gives off carbon dioxide when it burns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.132.223.239 (talk) 01:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That is not the usual understanding of "organic" in this context. Coal is usually described as a mineral fuel, even though the origins of it (and oil) were organic in the carboniferous period of geology when the coal measures were laid down.  Peterkingiron (talk) 22:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * In mining it would be considered a mineral fuel made of carbon and organic chemicals.Phmoreno (talk) 13:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 66.229.206.224, 2 June 2010
66.229.206.224 (talk) 03:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC) [[[[[[[[[[

Not done: I'm sorry, what is it you want us to do? {&#123; Sonia &#124;talk&#124;simple}&#125; 04:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Consequences in Wallonia
I received the following on my talk page in response to several editors' trimming this material. My own edit was for WP:TOPIC:

I would keep the § (Wallonia Belgium) on the general strikes but would cut the last sentences and the end of the text would be, for instance, the anarchistic movements. What do you think? Sincerely José Fontaine (talk) 19:33, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Posted here for more general comment.


 * --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:29, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

--I think the article has too much about Wallonia, and the para in question (that I removed because it referred to secondary effects well after the IR) should remain left out. Actually, the para before also refers to events in 1920 and 1910 so they should also be removed as well. It is quite incoherent and of questionable relevance, too. I fail to see how the Wallonia section section strengthens the article at all. I have a shelf full of books on the industrial revolution, none of which mention Wallonia at all. DonSiano (talk) 11:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I am not wholly clear what the subject of this discussion is, but in my view sections on the industrialisation of continental Europe should be limited to the period when industrialisation took place. This article has always been a very long one, and should not be unduly expanded.  The right place for detail on the industrial history of particular countries would be in specific articles on those subjects, and particularly so for periods after 1830/50 which is regarded as the end of the Induistrial Revolution in Britain.  Peterkingiron (talk) 22:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
 * About this (Walloon or Belgian) issue, there are several pertinent things. And among them the phenomenon of the General strikes which are not possible without the IR (not only in my opinion of course). Before the IR you have Jacquerie, but not general strikes even if (according to some scholars in Wallonia,  Belgium and other countries) a  workingmen jacquerie happened in Wallonia in 1886: the Walloon jacquerie of 1886. The second thing is the General strike. And I think Belgium was the first country (or at least one of the first industrial countries) where a general strike happpened, with - and that is very important -  an immediate and large political result (the Universal suffrage in 1893). On the other hand, I am aware I am not able to summarize (in any case in English),  too long paragraphs I placed here about Wallonia. But I would be happy if other contributors were keeping the main things and facts I wrote: Wallonia is the second industrial power, the effects of the IR in Belgium and Wallonia are not the same as in England (or Britain), there is an Anarchist movement and so on... Thank you in advance for your help if you are thinking it is pertinent. I have also informations about  the Wallonia's importance in the IR.  Sincerely, José Fontaine (talk) 00:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
 * You completely miss the point that I made. The Industrial Revolution was 1750/80 to 1830/50.  In continental Europe, with a slightly later start to industrialisation, the end might be taken as slightly later.  However, events of the 1880s, however significant nationally, come in a period a generation after the end of the industrial revolution.  They might properly be included in an article on the industrialisation of Wallonia, but they do not belong in this article, becasue they came long after the period that it covers.  One might as easily say that the British coal strike of the 1980s was a result of the reliance of the industrialised British economy on fossil fuels, which was a result of the industrialisation of GB in the industrial revolution.  Accordingly those strikes should be included.  However this is clearly not appropriate.  This article is already a very long one for WP.  It is thus important that its scope should not be expanded by the inclusion of extraneous material.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:27, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand what you mean. I must replace the image with boat lifts with eg Grand Hornu but why not to have a global vision by   a table of the different industrial powers since 1790 until 1900? Sincerely José Fontaine (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Article should concentrate on Belgium as a whole, not on Wallonia as a "superpower" after Britain. Now you get an article mentioning Wallonia as the economic power the only economic motor in Belgium "with the exception of Ghent"... first of all; pretty big exception: massive industrialisation in Ghent happened some decades before that in Liege (first major iron-industry plant in Seraing is 1817; by that time Ghent had several large industrial capitalist enterprises based on mechanised production...) second of all; Ghent wasn't the only exception: Antwerp and Brussels had their specific industrial sectors and developments (in Antwerp: cockerill yards for instance: a shipyard industry producing steamboats, in Brussels the very early sugar refinery of Delessert is typical of some devellopments in Brabant) and though Ghent was the city of King Cotton in Belgium  (which is why French diplomats chose it as a setting to conclude the treaty of Ghent of 1812 ending the Anglo-American War) and also of the Flax-industry; mechanised production spread rapidly to the small towns surrounding the city (Sint-Niklaas in 1825 counted several ateliers with powerlooms); So that by 1850 most towns of East and West-Flanders had textile factories. (the consequence being that the population, once very proliphic whilst largely dependent on domestic cottage style linen production and other fabrics was now increasingly economicly obsoleted and pauperised. Ultimately they had to migrate to the swelling towns and cities. This desperate situation of the Flemish farmer-weavers or farmer-spinsters stimulated mining because now there was a constant supply of cheap labour...) there are many interesting things about belgian early industrialisation, such as the proto-industrial preparation-phase, the different phenomena and developments that would act as stimuli on the Flemish textile industry or the Walloon heavy industry (such as pauperisation, proletarisation, investment dynamics and other multiplying stimuli such as railway building programs, financial holdings, international economic politics), as such part on Belgium in the article should investigate in an integrated attempt why Belgium was a fertile ground for early industrialisation; rather than stressing how 'important' Wallonia really was (compared to Flanders) (ahum: "with the exception of Ghent"). (and it isn't really interesting since we're looking for explanations of a specific Belgian situation, one that as such includes Ghent and textile satellites) Walloon Sillon Industriel was certainly the centre of gravity of Belgian economic make-up between 1840 and 1910 and had a relatively early development (of a bassin of heavy industry), its economic and industrial weight remained relative even within Belgium and certainly abroad... and it is according to me far more interesting to try to explain how different sectors and regions interacted with eachother on an economic basis of trade (in industrial products!), investment, politics, demographics, relation with Brittain (the first industrial power trying to squeeze all others to death), France or Holland (Cockerill; Lieven Bauwens, industrial espionnage in britain, etc!) in relating to the early industrialisation(s) in Belgium.

Belgium is a specific and interesting case with several industrial centres and diffrent phases (you could say broadly summarizing: proto-industrial and early mechanisation of textile-industry in the two Flanders dominating both economicly and demographicly between 1700 and 1840, the provinces of Hainaut and Liège having their accentuated heavy industry growspurt between 1840 and 1910 accompanied with an increasing demographic importance, and the second industrial revolution giving a growsurt to Antwerp and Brabant in the 20th century -a devellopment starting about 1875- somewhat accompanied by East-Flanders).

Tone of the “Walloon” segment of the article probably originates from chauvinistic thinking or the absorbtion of (misguided?) historic stereotypes within a current Belgian political debate between north and south which generates these kinds of discourses that then obligates strange repeated phrases like “with the exception of Ghent”;... but because Belgium as a 19th political entity developed itself as an exemplary “capitalist paradise” embodying as a whole the 19th century entrepreneurial spirit par excellence (acquiring in a later stage a colonial asset that in relative size was about as big as the British colonial empire compared to Great Brittain) with all its social, cultural and demographic and environmental consequences, knew on the whole a rapid industrialisation and development (and pauperisation!) AND also a rapid desindustrialisation both in the north as in the south... and because of the various early devellopments, it should be treated as one entity within the history of the industrial revolution.

--Monoclemask (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Dhburns, 26 October 2010
In order to balance the apparently biased view (supported with misleading statistics (such as "average income")), that this article portrays -- that the industrial revolution was generally beneficial to society, (when in fact it has been disproportionately beneficial to a small percentage of the population, while causing enormous damage in general) -- please insert the following as the 3rd paragraph:

Bertrand Russell wrote that: "The industrial revolution caused unspeakable misery both in England and in America. ... In the Lancashire cotton mills (from which Marx and Engels derived their livelihood), children worked from 12 to 16 hours a day; they often began working at the age of six or seven. Children had to be beaten to keep them from falling asleep while at work; in spite of this, many failed to keep awake and were mutilated or killed. Parents had to submit to the infliction of these atrocities upon their children, because they themselves were in a desperate plight. Craftsmen had been thrown out of work by the machines; rural labourers were compelled to migrate to the towns by the Enclosure Acts, which used Parliament to make landowners richer by making peasants destitute; trade unions were illegal until 1824; the government employed agents provocateurs to try to get revolutionary sentiments out of wage-earners, who were then deported or hanged. Such was the first effect of machinery in England."

D.H.Burns 16:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: We cannot simply cut and paste copyrighted text into Wikipedia articles because that is copyright violation. Thanks, Stickee (talk)  01:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It is unwise to rely on the work even of older economic historians; Russell was a philosopher not a historian. Marx & Engels were largely looking at the results of industrialisation in their own period: employment conditions at the end of the industrial revolution period certainly were comaparatively grim.  However, that does not mean conditions were always bad.  In fact at the beginning, industrial workers had a relatively good standard of living, compared to rural contemporaries.  Much research has been undertaken in the past decades, and views are still be revised.  Russell's language is unnecessarily emotive.  For example, Enclosure Acts were not imposed by Parliament, but normally resulted from the majority of landowners locally wanting the land inclosed, becasue it would provide a better financial return.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:10, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

GA status
I think this articel was rightly delisted, but I wonder if the time has not come for it to be renominated. My own criticism is perhpas that the lead relies too heavily on the work of Robert Lucas Jr., and does not mention more recent work, such as Robert Allen, The Industrial Revolution in its global context (possibly not the precise title), which analyses living standards in a number of regions and at differnet periods. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

hola mis amogas!!! que pasa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.36.148 (talk) 01:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Tom9682, 18 April 2011
the industrial revolution is linked to the book hard times which talks about the industrial revolution.

Tom9682 (talk) 18:14, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. — Bility (talk) 21:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Kcaz94, 15 May 2011
please change "The introduction of steam power fuelled primarily by coal, wider utilisation of water wheels and powered machinery" to "The introduction of steam power fueled primarily by coal, wider utilization of water wheels and powered machinery"

Kcaz94 (talk) 20:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Not done: See WP:ENGVAR for explanation. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:06, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

The Industrial Age The industrial age was a time of machines upgrading, creating machines that do what man would have to do, and it helped no matter what it did to the rest of the world. What was made in the industrial age and how it helped the world, what is the industrial age, what are some of the machines, and who are some of the people who created these machines? The industrial age did great things for the world but it also hurt it. The industrial age is a big part of history. If it had never happened there is no telling where we would be today. The industrial age was a time of machines upgrading, creating machines that do what man would have to do, and it helped no matter what it did to the rest of the world. It played a huge part in shaping the modern world. It came in two stages. The first stage, sometimes called the first Industrial Revolution, lasted from about 1750 until about 1850 and took place mostly in England. It was dominated by two developments in technology: the steam engine driven by coal and machines used to make textiles, or cloth. The second stage, sometimes called the second Industrial Revolution, lasted from about 1850 until about 1940 and occurred mainly in the United States as well as in continental Europe. It was dominated by two new sources of power: the internal combustion engine and electricity. The machine age occurred in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. There were a lot of machines created in the industrial age. Some of them are the first reliable steam engine, the cotton gin, the steamboat, the telegraph, the sewing machine, the transatlantic cable, the telephone, the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, the induction electric motor, the diesel engine, the first airplane, and the first assembly line. The steam engines harness the energy of steam to move machinery. It is a reasonably clean source of energy. Steam engines were used to run some trains and steamships. Another of the many inventions that occurred during the American Industrial Revolution is the cotton gin. It is a machine designed to remove cotton from its seeds. The process uses a small screen and pulling hooks to force the cotton through the screen. The steamboat really helped trade along all rivers. It brought new towns, new industry, and new jobs. As Americans pushed into the western territories, the steamboat was very helpful. The non-electric telegraph was a system visual and used semaphore, a flag-based alphabet, and depended on a line of sight for messaging. The optical telegraph was replaced by the electric telegraph later. Until the first transatlantic cable was laid, the fastest communication between Europe and North America took at least a week. Hand sewing is a skill form that is over 20,000 years old. The first sewing needles were made of bones or animal horns and the first thread was made of animal muscles. Iron needles were invented in the fourteen hundreds. The first eyed needles were made in the fifteen hundreds. The telephone was a device that could transmit speech electrically. It allowed people to talk to people all over the country as if you were right next to them. It was a similar device to the telegraph witch allowed people to communicate to each other but threw a busing noise unlike the telephone. The Phonograph was the first machine to record and playback sound. It was one of the many inventions created in the industrial age. The rotor consists of laminated, cylindrical iron cores with slots for receiving the conductors. On the earliest motors, the conductors were copper bars with ends welded to copper rings known as end rings. Viewed from the end, the rotor assembly resembles a squirrel cage; hence the name squirrel-cage motor is used to refer to induction motors. In modern induction motors, the most common type of rotor has cast-aluminum conductors and short-circuiting end rings. The rotor turns when the moving magnetic field induces a current in the shorted conductors. The speed at which the magnetic field rotates is the synchronous speed of the motor. Pure air gets sucked in by the piston sliding downward. The piston compresses the air above and uses thru work, performed by the crankshaft. Pressure and Temperature are very high. Now the black injection pump injects heavy fuel in the hot air. By the high temperature the fuel gets ignited immediately (auto ignition). The piston gets pressed downward and performs work to the crankshaft. The burned exhaust gases are ejected out of the cylinder through a second valve by the piston sliding upward again. The first airplane was made of wooden beams with canvas stretched them out over them. The plane had two horizontal wings that were parallel to each other. Behind the wings were two propellers that pushed the plane through the air. The plane also included two rudders, which the pilot could control by using a system of pulleys. The pilot crouched on the bottom wing in order to fly the plane; in later versions, the Wright brothers built a place to sit for the pilot. The assembly line was a moving conveyer belt that hade parts on it and people/mashes put pieces on and tightened things down as it went down the line. It made production of cars and other things quicker. There are a lot machines created in the industrial age but there are also a lot of people who invented them. Here are some of them, James Watt, Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton, Samuel F. B. Morse, Elias Howe, Cyrus Field, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Rudolf Diesel, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and Henry Ford. James Watt was born in 1736 in Greenock, Scotland he Died in 1819 in Heath field, Scotland. He was a Scottish engineer. James Watt was the inventor of the modern condensing steam-engine. His father was a small merchant, who lost his trade and fortune by unsuccessful speculation, and James was early thrown on his own resources. Eli Whitney was born in 1765 in Westborough, MA; he died in 1825 at New Haven, CT. He was an American inventor who created the cotton gin. He exhibited unusual mechanical ability at an early age and earned a considerable part of his expenses at Yale College, where he graduated in 1792. Robert Fulton was born in 1765 at Lancaster County, PA, he died in 1815 in New York City. He was an American engineer. His parents were Irish, and so poor that they could afford him only a very small education. Samuel F. B. Morse was born in 1791 in Charlestown, MA, he died in 1872 in New York City, and he died because of an illness. Bu Samuel Finley Breese Morse studied art under Benjamin West, and worked as a successful and respected sculptor, painter, and art teacher until, based on a rudimentary understanding and curiosity of electricity, he invented the telegraph. In brief, the telegraph sends electricity over a wire, and the electric flow can be interrupted by holding down the key of the transmission device, resulting in gaps short (dots) or long (dashes). Elias Howe was born in 1819 in Spencer, MA; he died in1867 in Brooklyn, NY. He was the inventor of the sewing machine, born in Spencer, Massachusetts, on the 9th of July 1819. His early years were spent on his father's farm. In 1835 he entered the factory of a manufacturer of cotton machinery at Lowell, Massachusetts, where he learned the machinist's trade. Subsequently, while employed in a machine shop at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he conceived the idea of a sewing machine, and for five years spent all his spare time in its development. Cyrus W. Field was born in 1819 in Stockbridge, MA; he died in 1892 in New York City. He was an American capitalist, projector of the first Atlantic cable. He was a brother of David Dudley Field. At fifteen he became a clerk in the store of A. T. Stewart & Co., of New York, and stayed there three years; then worked for two years with his brother, Matthew Dickinson Field, in a paper mill at Lee, Massachusetts. Alexander Graham Bell was Born on 3-Mar-1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland, he Died in 2-Aug-1922 in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada, he died because of Diabetes complications. Even as a boy, Alexander Bell was fascinated by the mechanics of speech and sound, and told friends that one day they might be able to speak over the telegraph. His father taught the deaf, and had developed what was called the "visible speech" system to help deaf children learn to speak. Even his grandfather had worked with children to overcome their speech impediments. Thomas Edison was born on 11-Feb-1847 in Milan, OH, he died on 18-Oct-1931 in Llewellyn Park, NJ. He died because of diabetes complications. Arguably the most successful inventor in human history, Thomas Edison held 1,093 U.S. patents and hundreds more in other nations. His most famous work includes the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the alkaline storage battery, and a forerunner of the motion picture projector. Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, he died in 1943 in Manhattan, NY. He died because of heart failure. He was the son of a Serbian Orthodox clergyman. Tesla studied engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic School. He worked as an electrical engineer in Budapest and later immigrated to the United States in 1884 to work at the Edison Machine Works. Rudolf Diesel was born in 1858 in Paris, France, he died 1913 in the English Channel. He died because of suicide. German engineer Rudolf Diesel invented the pressure-ignited heat engine, adapting the internal combustion engine so that a spark is no longer needed to ignite the fuel-air mixture. His parents were Bavarian by ancestry, but lived in Paris until being forced out of France at the 1870 outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Orville Wright was born in1871 in Dayton, OH; he died in 1948 in Dayton, OH, because of heart failure. Wilbur Wright was born in1867 in Millville, IN, he died in 1912 in Dayton, OH. He died because of Typhus. Both invented the first air plane. Henry Ford was born in 1863 in Greenfield, MI, he died in 1947 in Dearborn, MI. He died because of cerebral hemorrhage. From the time he was a young boy, Ford enjoyed tinkering with machines. Farm work and a job in a Detroit machine shop afforded him ample opportunities to experiment. He later worked as a part-time employee for the Westinghouse Engine Company. So this just goes to prove that the industrial age was a time of machines upgrading, creating machines that do what man would have to do, and it helped no matter what it did to the rest of the world. It helped and hurt the world. It played big part in history. A lot of machines were created in it that would be hard to live without, and it is all thanks to the inventers that we have them. Without the American Industrial Age, life would be really hard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.80.99.48 (talk) 23:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

D. Woodward citation
The "standards of living" section needs revision; the cited article discusses wages and conditions in pre-industrial England. The article text uses this citation to support the idea that living conditions declined during industrialization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.134.224.1 (talk) 02:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

improvements to get to good article
Your article is hopeless, give up now! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Power2794 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 11 March 2012
Please change "industrialize" at the end of the first sentence in the Etymology section to "industrialise", to be consistent with the spelling of "industrialisation" throughout the article.

46.226.191.181 (talk) 20:06, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

✅--JayJasper (talk) 20:14, 11 March 2012 (UTC)--JayJasper (talk) 20:14, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 21 April 2012
In the section titled Belgium there is a typo in the second paragraph where England is spelt "Engeland"

70.65.81.226 (talk) 17:26, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅. Thanks! __ Just plain Bill (talk) 18:26, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Qualification needed in section "canal"
The image caption for the section "Canals" is misleading. While the article text seems to refer only to British canals, the image caption makes the claim "first successful canal", sans that qualification ("British canal", or the like) anywhere in the caption. The first successful canal would arguably have been the at least as early as the Grand Canal in China, or something earlier. Given that image-boxes are often read prior to the body text (if the body text is read at all) and should be written as such, is this qualification correct? Thanks. Morgan Riley (talk) 13:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * this article is about the Industrial revolution not ancient China. verhy few readers will get mixed up. Rjensen (talk) 13:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree generally: the Industrial Revolution was primarily a British phenomenon, subsequently spreading elsewhere, so that there is no serious ambiguity. The atddition of the word "British" would however do not harm: the Bridgwater Canal may well have eben inspired by Canal du Midi.  Peterkingiron (talk) 15:28, 10 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The Bridgewater Canal is famous because it was hugely profitable. Barges could actually go in the coal mine to the face of the coal seam and take coal to market at a very low transportation cost.  The success of the Bridgewater Canal started the canal investment mania that led to many more poor routes that were commercial failures. Phmoreno (talk) 01:20, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Revision: Trying to achieve "Good article" status
I'll be doing a systematic revision with the intent of bringing this up to "good article" status. Some parts may be edited out with the intention of replacing with either abbreviated or expanded sections, but this may take some time, so please don't panic. In some cases the reader is going to be referred to main articles in place of some of what was here. Please use the talk page for comments rather than reverting.Phmoreno (talk) 16:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Transportation during the Industrial Revolution has its own main, so this needs to be shortened here. Also, this is sometimes called the Transportation Revolution, which is a different concept than Industrial, but obviously the two are related.Phmoreno (talk) 01:30, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I completed the revisions I proposed here, but have a question: What does this article now need to be reinstated as a "good article"?Phmoreno (talk) 02:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Need period appropriate images
I deleted several images of factories and infrastructures that post dated the Industrial Revolution. Anyone having appropriate illustrations from the period, especially of factories or workshops, is welcome to post.Phmoreno (talk) 03:22, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit Request from Cgarns3941 (7, February. 2013)
If you could please add these citations to the bibliography.

(Corrick, James). The Industrial Revolution. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1998. Text. (Connolly, Sean). Witness to History: The Industrial Revolution. Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2003. Text. (Collins, Mary). Cornerstones of Freedom: The Industrial Revolution. Canada: Children’s Press, 2000. Text. (Wilkinson, Philip and Michael Pollard). Ideas that changed the world: The Industrial Revolution. United States: Chelsea House Publishers, 1995. Text.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cgarns3941 (talk • contribs) 22:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit Request: Contradictory statements.
Under section 9 "Causes" / "Causes in Britain" there is the following statement: "These values were self-interest and an entrepreneurial spirit. Because of these interests, many industrial advances were made that resulted in a huge increase in personal wealth. These advancements also greatly benefitted the British society as a whole."

- Apart from being, at best arguable or, in my view, patently untrue, this statement contradicts earlier text, particularly under 3 Social Effects / Standard of Living, "The history of the change of living conditions during the industrial revolution has been very controversial, and was the topic that from the 1950s to the 1980s caused most heated debate among economic and social historians.[53] A series of 1950s essays by Henry Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins later set the academic consensus that the bulk of the population, that was at the bottom of the social ladder, suffered severe reductions in their living standards.[53]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chivanova (talk • contribs) 21:41, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I found that para very POV as well. 1Z (talk) 14:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Crime aspect
You guys need to talk about the crime related aspects of the I.R. Sorry I can't do this... Perhaps a paid WP employee?...


 * In what part of the title "Industrial Revolution" do you see any reference to crime? It's bad enough that we talk so much about social conditions, especially the negative ones at the expense of the positive, like the beginning of the end of starvation, extreme poverty and back breaking physical labor.Phmoreno (talk) 20:14, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Black Country
An article on the industrial revolution that does not mention the Black Country or Birmingham in the 17th century is not covering the history of the revolution in much detail. For example where is the mention of Dud Dudley and Metallum Martis: "In 1620 Dud Dudley estimated that 20,000 smiths were at work within 20 miles of Dudley." (Archaeology in Worcestershire 1500 – 1750). Where is there mention of the 30 foot seam? (You may be asking or wonderingWHAT ... or WHERE ... IS "THE BLACK COUNTRY" ?)

-- PBS (talk) 15:17, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 24 April 2013
In the first paragraph, Robert E. Lucas, Jr. is misquoted. I have the source in front of me (2002 edition of Lectures on Economic Growth). The first part of the quote is okay: "For the first time in history, the living standards of masses of ordinary people have begun to undergo sustained growth." However, the next part actually goes: "Nothing remotely like this economic behavior is mentioned by the classical economists, even as a theoretical possibility." Maybe a minor point, but hey, just checking the sources.

Proof: Pages of said text


 * Yes check.svg Done -- El Hef  ( Meep ? ) 18:38, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Refs and arguments in lead
The lead section contains 12 refs and presents arguments (e.g. by Clapham) that aren't in the body of the article. It would be better to create a section for these and to have a (new) lead that summarizes the body rather than going off in new directions. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:06, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

3rd, 4th, ... nth revolutions
Additional 'revolutions' have been added in two very short sections, which don't actually say what the "third" and "fourth" IRs actually are - nor whether they are at all widely accepted. I suspect that while the original one is very widely agreed, later ones are less and less widely acknowledged, and possibly partisan (one school of thought's point of view, perhaps). My feeling would be to group these things in a single section of the 'Later revolutions' type (no doubt people can think of a better title), and then to explain that 'Professor of industrial history Joe Bloggs has called xyz the nth industrial revolution'. This would get over the impression that Wikipedia endorses such views but is simply reporting them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:25, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Reworking machine tools
I am going to do a little more reworking of machine tools based on my reference notes. This may take a few days so please be patient.Phmoreno (talk) 18:35, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

False information contained in this article
The Bridgewater Canal was NOT the first successful canal, not even the first successful canal constructed during the Industrial Revolution. That title goes to the Sankey Canal, as already articled by Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.170.205.195 (talk) 19:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Indians at it again
Yet another English article that has been interfered with by Indians, they keep editing English and British articles with the most inconsequential and reaching statements suggesting all achievements and inventions lead to India, next we'll probably see how it was India who first landed on the moon! For some reason Indian editors keep plastering Indian article content into any article they can find, most of it really reaching especially from so-called Indian communist 'experts'. 81.110.28.183 (talk) 22:38, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Unless there are specific examples of inadequately sourced content here, the above seems designed to read like an offensive rant. I'd suggest providing specific suggestions as to how the article can be improved. JNW (talk) 22:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Women In the Workforce
I read through the article and realized the author didn't touch upon women in the workforce. So i did some research and went into depth about the lifestyle of women in the industrial revolution. In the first industrial revolution, employers often preferred women workers over men. Women adapted quicker and more easily to textile machines and employers were able to pay women less for the same work. However, for women, working in factories ended up creating more problems not only for their own health but also their families. Their new jobs took them away from their children and homes for 12 hours or more a day. After working for long hours they would return to crowded and unhealthy slum tenements too feed, clean and clothe their families. This made family life even harder for poor rural cottagers, especially while living in the grimy conditions of the industrial age. I've also came across how working in factories promoted many health risks. Workers would suffer many accidents from machines, some would lose a finger, a limb or even their own lives. Machines in the industrial age had no safety devices, making machines even more dangerous to be around. The heavy dust from coal destroyed the lungs of miners and textile workers constantly inhaled air filled with lint. If any of these workers ever got sick or injured, they would lose their jobs. This information is crucial during this time period and someone has more in depth info can update this topic — Preceding unsigned comment added by Morganbhs (talk • contribs) 18:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This article is not some kind of social commentary; it's about technology and economics. Social commentary on the Industrial Revolution should be a separate article.Phmoreno (talk) 13:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

China - The 3rd Industrial Revolution (in the midst)
I have been travelling through the cities in China, from Beijing to Xiamen and I truly can see how they (approx.1.26 billion people) are in the midst of causing what I believe will be considered the 3rd "global scale" industrial revolution. With first access to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, and access to the European Union and markets in North and South America, they are revolutionizing the world's "free" markets with products. It is getting harder and harder to find any industrially made product that does not have "Made in China" on it. I hope someone with in-depth business analytic experience (and Wikipedia editing expertise) updates the topic on "Industrial Revolution". Billgdiaz (talk) 02:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


 * What you are discussing is industrialization, which is not the same thing as the Industrial Revolution.Phmoreno (talk) 14:11, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Too much white space at the top
This article has a long info box and a long TOC, resulting in excesively large blocks of white space - at least it does on my browser. Is there something that can be done about this? I've tried re-ordering things in the lead but it doesn't help. --Roly (talk) 19:53, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Not quite sure where you are seeing the whitespace. Is it after the infobox, or between the box and the TOC? Also what is your display resolution as that might help.--  SabreBD  (talk) 21:50, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Most of the area to the left of the info box and to the right of the TOC is blank. If it's not obvious to you then it's probably a combination of my browser and display. I'll leave it to see if anybody else says anything.--Roly (talk) 23:09, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * OK I don't think I am quite seeing what you are, but I think I get the idea. I think the best solution is to remove the navbox (which just doubles for a navbox footer and only deals with one aspect of the topic) and move one of the pictures to the top. We can then limit the toc to level 2 headings (which is recommended when they get this big). I will have to remind myself how to do that. If anyone objects I am happy to discuss it here.--  SabreBD  (talk) 11:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for more pictures
There are several reader comments suggesting more pictures; however, there is no explanation of what pictures are wanted. There is a video of mule spinning and of fly shuttle weaving, which are necessary to see how these machines operated. Photography did not exist during the Industrial Revolution and not many paintings showing related subjects, even counting those made after the period.Phmoreno (talk) 14:04, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Important missing section: The Industrial revolution's impact on biodiversity & global temperatures
These texts should serve as reference for the new section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene#Biodiversity http://www.livescience.com/43132-preindustrial-global-warming-estimated.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.164.194.214 (talk) 12:25, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The climate change debate concerns industrialization, which is a different concept from the Industrial Revolution. Also, the change from hunter-gathers to farming is not related to industrialization, except as a distant precursor.Phmoreno (talk) 13:26, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Had anyone predicted the Industrial Revolution before it started?
If anyone here knows anything about it, we may be able to hunt down a source and add the information to the article. This is fairly interesting to me personally. 213.109.230.96 (talk) 05:54, 23 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It's doubtful that anyone could have predicted it and it wasn't until it was well underway that it was recognized that a change had occurred. Hardly any of the later great innovations were appreciated until they were well underway.  For example,David Ames Wells devoted only a sentence or two to electrification in 1891 when he wrote Recent Economic Changes.  Another example is that Henry Ford and his financial officer had been turned down by so many banks that the financial officer sat down on a curb and wept.Phmoreno (talk) 16:10, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I wanted to add that the Industrial Revolution took place over two generations, which made it difficult to recognize the extent of progress at the beginning, especially since it accelerated after 1800. By the end, which I consider the depression of the late 1830s, the textile market was saturated and the next phase of industrialization was to bring continued growth.Phmoreno (talk) 01:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It's all so amazing to think about this, and there are so many implications to point out, but I'd like to avoid spamming the talk page. Perhaps the most significant implication is the one pertaining to the debate within philosophy of history on whether it is individuals or collective, impersonal processes that drive societal progress. It seems that political parties and movements of the time, if they addressed the subject of industrialization and mechanization at all, were more likely to oppose it than support it. 213.109.230.96 (talk) 01:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Your comments reminded me that I have some good material to add regarding causes of the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps time will allow me to do some editing in the next few weeks.Phmoreno (talk) 02:45, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Contradictory dates
The article on Derby says " As home to Lombe's Mill, the first factory in the world, Derby is considered the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution." This article says the revolution started much later even though the world's first factory is a clear indication of the beginning. (And the article Lombe's Mill doesn't even mention the Industrial Revolution!) --Espoo (talk) 19:24, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Lombe's mill was not the first factory. That title would probably go to one of the ancient Chinese factories that made weapons.  The significance of Lombe's mill is that it was a large scale example of a factory with complex machinery and that it set an example for how a mechanized process could work.  Lombe was an industrial spy who learned the silk technology in Italy, where it was kept secret, so we will never know the extent of the industry there.  Because Lombe's factory was a single example that occurred before the great surge in production and economic growth that began in the last quarter of the 18th century, it does not mark the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.Phmoreno (talk) 22:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, could you please edit those two articles accordingly? I can't agree with you completely though. According to the source provided, that factory was the first fully mechanized factory in the world. The IR would seem to by definition consist of the creation of many fully mechanized factories, so the establishment of the first one is very definitely the beginning of the IR from the perspective of technology and history. Other disciplines are more interested in the surge in production and economic growth that occurred on the national and international levels later due to the establishment of many more fully mechanized factories, but the first one and its date should most definitely be mentioned in the intro and the timeline of the IR article. (It of course caused "only" a local but historically very significant surge in production and economic growth.) --Espoo (talk) 04:33, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Besides Lombes mill there are a few developments, such as crucible steel, that predate the period most historians call the Industrial Revolution. I am planning to work on the causes section and may list those there.Phmoreno (talk) 18:29, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The biggest problem with Lomb's mill is that it went out of business long before the IR began. By contrast, the cotton spinning and weaving industry was the largest industry in the UK in terms of employment and capital by the end of the IR.  The cotton industry had also seen productivity of spinning improve by 1000 times, weaving by about 40 times.  The puddling process and rolling mill were extremely important processes.  Great improvements were made in the steam engine, causing a tremendous increase in installed steam power.  Lomb's mill, by contrast, went nowhere.Phmoreno (talk) 18:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Interlink to Quiz
For the sake of uniformity I tried to put the interlink to the Quiz in the boxes to the right, along with the interlinks to Commons and Wikiquote (See Industrial_Revolution). Only the inline interlink seems to work. For documentation see User_talk:Guy_vandegrift/sandbox.--guyvan52 (talk) 16:14, 28 July 2014 (UTC)