The Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolutions happened in the late 18^th century and early 19^th century in Britain. During this time the world has experienced a huge change. It made a good impact on the economy; new jobs, new ideas and new technologies has emerged. Also living standard and social progress has improved. The country became urban as new roads, railways, canals, etc. were built. In other words the country improved as a whole and which was also a huge improvement to the world. Transportation and communication improved in this period, where new machines were invented such as the steam engine. Also the textile industry has made a huge improvement as new machines’ such as the spinning jenny and loom machines were invented.

Before this revolution, wood was the only source of energy while afterwards coal steam have become a good source of energy as a fuel to machines. This was also the start of mass production were most of the things were made by machines and not by hand, which made the objects produced cheaper.

The assembly Line

A very important invention at the time was the assembly line, were workers are to assemble a specific part to a product on a moving belt. It was invented by Henry Ford.  This invention made it faster in mass production of automobile. People employed were unskilled such as children, women and men, who were treated badly and in bad working conditions.

Ford Assembly Line - 1913

The steam engine

The discovery to the mechanism of steam engines is unknown but James Watt then continued to develop further the same idea and started to mass-produce them in collaboration with Matthew Boulton. The steam engine was a huge impact on the transportation such as railways, ships, etc. this has resulted in a huge improvement in the economy as more people started moving to the city and new jobs had been created, although the machinery took place the production by hand and wages had become lower.

The steam engine made a huge impact on our daily life. It changed the way people used to travel, which at that time they used to travel mostly by animals mostly horses. Today we’re used to having machines everywhere you look, and it’s because of the industrial revolution that we have all these machinery from simple car to huge factory machines, etc. 

Steam Engine

Transport

The Spinning Jenny

During the industrial revolution, the textile industry was becoming more famous by several important inventions to this sector. The spinning jenny was invented during that time by James Hargreaves who was a carpenter and a weaver with no educational knowledge about reading and writing. The spinning wheel was a huge improvement in the textiles industry. The spinning jenny was to create threads from raw cotton. Before this invention people used to make threads by hand using a spinning wheel. By this invention then they were able to create large pieces of fabric which lead to mass production in textiles.  Also fashion design was emerged and started to become as a business. 

The Spinning Jenny

References:

Elizabeth Palermo, Associate Editor, 2014. Who Invented the Steam Engine?. [online] Available at:http://www.livescience.com/44186-who-invented-the-steam-engine.html. [Accessed 3 April 2016].

  

History.com Staff, A+E Networks, 2009. Industrial Revolution. [online] Available at: http://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution. [Accessed 3 April 2016].

Hauffe, T., 1998, Design A Concise History. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Mary Bellis, n.d . Spinning Jenny - James Hargreaves. [online] Available at:http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blspinningjenny.htm. [Accessed 3 April 2016].