Western History 165: What were some of the principle inventions of the First Industrial Revolution?

The time period between 1760 and 1840 largely spans what has become known as the First Industrial Revolution (although the boundaries aren’t always that clear). There was an obvious and abrupt movement away from  the traditional cottage/domestic mode of manufacturing, especially in the field of textiles, towards large scale industrial production. The factory had come of age.

The Revolution which was trans-formative on both an economic and social level (not always for the better in the short run) and appears to have arisen from the fusion of English/Scottish Enlightenment thinking, the Age of Exploration and the Scientific Revolution.

Great Britain is widely seen as the hub of the First Industrial Revolution although there was a rapid spread to the continent as well as the North-Eastern United States soon afterward. John Jay’s Flying Shuttle and James Hargreaves’ Spinning Henry revolutionized the textile industry by increasing production rates. Richard Arkrwight’s Water Frame spinning machine as well as Samuel Compton’s Spinning Mule continued this trend that was further boosted by Edmund Cartwright’s Power Loom.  Across the pond American Eli Whitney reduced the intensity of labour required in the same field by his invention of the Cotton Gin. All of these breakthroughs improved the efficiency of their respective processes that in turn translated to a net profit windfall for the factory owners.

The Spinning Jenny source: Britannica.com

However it wasn’t just textiles that dominated the First Industrial Revolution. Scotsman James Watt greatly improved on the Steam Engine of Thomas Newcomen with his integrated system of gears and cranks. His work here would not only find applications  across many several factory platforms but would also inspire the emerging Age of the Locomotive (a topic I will look at in another question entry). Indeed transportation stood front and center in the Industrial Revolution. John McAdam laid down the foundation (no pun intended) for the modern method of road construction that now bears his name with canal building projects supervised by the prolific James Brinkley opening water transport structures across the British Isles.

A Schematic of the Watt Steam Engine source: interestingengineering.com

Soon to follow were improvements in  material manufacturing such as the Bessemer Steel Process and before that the invention of concrete by Portland cement. The Bessemer Process (named after Henry Bessemer) itself was the latest development in a series of metal production innovations that logically followed from Henry Cort’s technique of converting pig iron into wrought iron.

The Bessemer Process and its use ion Modern Steel production source: Sabel Steel.

Telecommunication capacity was augmented by the invention of the telegraph. The First Electromagnet was built in the 19^th century on the heels of such work done by such luminaries as Christian Oersted, Andre-Marie Ampere, Dominique Francois Jean Arago, William Sturgeon and Joseph Henry. The Electric Motor would follow suit as would the Dynamo/Generator that made use of Faraday’s Principle of Electromagnetic Induction (again another topic question). 

The Morse Telegraph (named after its inventor the American Samuel Morse) source: Maglab

In addition there were other advances that saw the invention of the Mackintosh raincoat, friction matches, street gaslights, the development of the food canning process, the camera obscura (first photograph camera), the typewriter, the Hydrogen Fuel Cell, the light bulb, dynamite and of course the Internal Combustion engine. Oh yes... I forgot. The humble sewing machine  (invented by the German-born engineer called Charles Fredrick Wiesenthal) has its origins in the First Industrial Revolution. It was later on improved by Isaac Merritt Singer whose name graces its fair share of machines today.

An early sewing machine source: Smithsonian Magazine.

Source for detail: Industrial Revolution Breakthroughs