Talk:Industrial Revolution

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Contents 1 Effects 2 Old messages 3 History section 3.1 History section talk 4 Use of "phase" to describe the Industrial Revolution 5 US Influence and the 2nd Industrial Revolution 6 Improvement Drive 7 Better steam engine image, please 8 Footnotes 9 Industrial Espionage 10 Hostility to industry 11 British Industrial Revolution 12 Social Problems > Strikes 13 Vandalism 14 Protestant Ethic 15 Rubbish 16 What was the Industrial Revolution? 17 Tea 18 Historiography 19 Origins of 'Industrial Revolution' 20 The black country 21 I still dont quite undersatnd this whole concept! 22 Housing situation 23 Lunar Society 24 Metallurgy 25 Headline text 26 Causes of the British Industrial Revolution 27 Industrial Revolution "abusive" 28 Rising wages 29 Introduction 30 Child Labour 31 "Industry-based economy" 32 Vandalism 33 Spread of Industrialization 34 POV 35 Uneditable vandalism in References section 36 Vandalism?

[edit] Effects

Shouldn't the part about the effects on women be under social effects? William conway bcc 01:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old messages

The concept of industrial revolution is so central to our conception of what it is to be modern and what it is for a society to 'develop' (tricky concepts, I know) that this ideally needs to be broadened beyond an account of industrial revolution in 18th century onwards Europe. How is industrial revolution essential in producing a modern society, or how has it been at least? What have the essential processes been, in what cultural circumstances? Generalisations from Europe often fail in analysing other countries, even in successful revolutions like Japan's. --Rich Shore 13:14, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--- Historians who cover the 17th and 18th centuries consider that the modern period starts before the industrial revolution. Things like the Scientific revolution of the 17th century come into play, and so does the phenomenon of the The Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century. The industrial revolution in Japan is an interesting phenomenon, comparable to the industrial revolution in Russia in more ways than one. In both cases a new interest in Natural Philosophy (later to be known as Science) predated the top-down industrialisation, so many sections of the elites and the merchants were ready, mentally, for the industrial change. --AlainV 03:44, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

--- what about oxen and wind power? They were used to power grist mills and pumps, were they never used to drive machinery?

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Oxen and wind were used, but wind is sporatic, and oxen do not provide the horsepower or force that steam power can provide, nor in such a controlled fashion.

my opinion, Mike Dill

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Wasn't the revolution more in the 19th century than the 18th? -rmhermen

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The Industrial Revolution was definitely underway in Britain by 1750, and had started to spread to the Low Countries by 1800. Much of the rest of the world joined up in the 1800s, but that's rather like the spread of the Renaissance (1400s in Italy, 1600s in Britain). Like ripples of water spreading from a point source.-- PaulDrye

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Didn't the transition cause a wave of rural poverty (and consequently an increase in crime) and a drift to the cities? I thought one of the major reasons for the growth in crime in the 18th century (and thus the impetus for transportation to Australia) was the unemployment the transition caused. --Robert Merkel

In a word, yes. Standards of living dropped enormously, and did not recover until (from memory) the late 19th Century. More generally, the article needs a comprehensive re-write. As it stands, it follows a very shallow technocratic line which belongs to the "Kings and Queens of England" school of history popular in the 1940s. The rise of the factory, for example, preceeded industrial machinery and was a major reason for its development. Factories came first, steam power followed. (And then the fsctories got bigger, and so on.) Indeed, the very word "factory" itself is significant: it is a contraction of "manufactory" from the Latin "manus" = "hand". "Manufacture" = "hand" + "make". Steam power (and even, to a lesser extent, water power) was pointless when production was dispersed in thousands of tiny centres (mostly individual homes): only after labour had been concentrated into centralised locations did the need for it become apparent. Mother of invention and all that. Tannin

Because industry required energy source (coal), transportation (sea port), and workers (new industrial cities), there was a mass migration out of villages into anonymous cities. This dislocation separated people from their traditional supports (social, cultural, spiritual). The answer to these losses was found in the industrial mentality of centralization, standardization, and co-operation (conformity). This shift found expression in the rise of professionalism (medicine, nursing, teaching, accounting, etc.), science (Darwin, etc.), classical music (Mozart then Beethoven), and mass political movements (Paris commune, oligarchy then democracy). This unprecedented change in human life is reflected in many, many statistics: world population, carbon dioxide content of Greenland ice-cap, population of mental hospitals (peaked in 1949).-- Robin Routledge

"The Industrial Revolution" should be a seperate topic than "industrial revolution". I'm sure 172 will agree. Dietary Fiber

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Is there a reason for the unexplained deletion of so much text? Failing an explanation, I'll revert shortly. (Or, if there is a good reason, say so and I'll hold off.) Tannin 12:29 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

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Actually, I do agree with Lir/Vera, aka Dietary Fiber this once! I'd call what contemporary China's going through an "industrial revolution". It's like the capitalized "Civil War" referring to the civil war in the United States in the 1860s (in my country at least!) and lower case "civil war" referring to any civil war.

This article also needs a much more complex analytic framework for dealing with what led up to the Industrial Revolution and its impact on economic structures, political structures, class structures, and culture. I'm definitely adding this article to my list of long-term projects. Anyone willing to join me? Three excellent contributors come to mind very capable of doing this: Tannin, Sluberstein, and Jtdrl. 172

It's been on my list for some time, AS. Currently, it is very shallow. I have a part-finished major re-write of it somewhere on my hard drive (or is it still in rough notes?), probably sitting right next to the dozens of other forgotten, half-finished contributions to other things. I'm rusty, but it's one of the two or three areas of history that I know best ... er ... "knew" best. Use it or lose it - memory is a harsh taskmaster. Tannin

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Note: everybody else is not welcome. (User signing as 172.172.13.108 - not to be confused with User:172 - disambiguation added by me, Tannin)

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Thanks for the distinction, Tannin.

It would be great if some engineers and natural scientists, and especially historians of science, jumped into this article as well. I am completely illiterate in this area, merely knowing what was invented and whether the social structure would have been to the innovation.

Jared Diamond's assessment of the industrial revolution in Guns, Germs, and Steel is also very interesting. The users who participated in the article on this book would probably be interested in upgrading this article as well. 172

The city of Zaandam in the Netherlands claims to be the first industrial city in Europe. (http://www.zaanstad.nl/functies/pagfunctie.cfm?parameter=1807) [[Opa 12:09, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)]]

I could not read the pages in Dutch but I read the page in English, and it is a bit overly generous in its definition of what is "industrial". There is no mention of steam power or of the other traits of countries which are undergoing their first industrial revolution. On the other hand, there seems to have been, sometime around 1600, what is usually described as a very intensive pre-take-off economy, similar to that found in the most developed parts of China at a similar time or a wee bit earlier. AlainV 23:34, 2004 Apr 16 (UTC)

[edit] History section

The sentence beginning "In 1771, Richard Arkwright..." has lost its ending, and the links section for the "Transportation" section appears slightly confusing/items run together.

I could add a bit to the Textile Industry section (and the link should be to something of this nature, rather than textiles as such), if requested.

Jackiespeel 15:36, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I have now taken the section out and put it in "Industrial Revolution/history" (now being deleted - Noisy | Talk 11:24, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)) so that it can be developed before being put into the main article. Please feel free to hop in there and mess about, because I think it will take me a few weeks to get enough content in there to put it back on the main page. Noisy 11:07, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've moved this back, because it was listed on Wikipedia cleanup/leftovers, and you didn't make it obvious that this was a temporary thing. Please do so in the future. JesseW 23:22, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] History section talk

Don't forget to add something about the importance of mechanical engineering, mining and metallurgy in this.

• In mechanical engineering, the millwright, machinery and machine tool maker made the machines which went into the factories. See, for example Richard Roberts, Henry Maudslay and his pupils, Portsmouth Block Mills.

• In mining both coal,and metal mining had an important impact.

• In metallurgy, as well as iron there were the non ferrous metals,like copper and alloys like brass.

From the start of the industrial revolution, publications like encyclopaedias, technical periodicals and patents were vital for the dissemination of information about machines and processes.

I hope to be adding to this work in due course Apwoolrich 07:17, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've heard it mentioned a number of times that the start of the industrial revolution is marked by the invention of the seed drill by Jethro Tull early in the eighteenth century. Does anyone know if this statement is supportable, because if so maybe it should be mentioned. It did bring about the mechanisation of crop planting, part of the increased efficiency in agriculture mentioned in the article as leading on to the industrial revolution. I wasn't sure whether people would agree with this as being the start of industrialisation, so didn't want to alter the article myself.~~DJ 2 Sept 2006

This was only part of what is called the British Agricultural Revolution which played a part in starting the industrial revolution. This is already mentioned in the Causes for occurrence in Britain section. Lumos3 09:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of "phase" to describe the Industrial Revolution

Alain V.: I have reverted your addition of the term 'first phase' because I have never come across it in any of the research I've done, and because most references that do cite an 'end' to the Industrial Revolution say that it's something like 1830 or 1840. (1840 is, I think, Toynbee's view, writing in the 1870s.) My personal view is that the IR extends from ca. 1700 to 1830, but that's all it is — a view. If you can document this use of 'phase', then I'll be happy to reconsider. Meanwhile, I'll do a search of the internet resources listed on my user page, and see if any of them mention it. Cheers, Noisy | Talk 14:29, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Use any term you wish instead of phase, as there is no consensus amongst economic historians or historians of technology on what to call these different steps or periods in the continuing phenomenon of rapid technological and economic change which starts in the United Kingdom sometime in the 18th century. Some call it the first and the second industrial revolution instead of the first and second phases of the changes. And there is no way any serious historian can give a precise end to the first phase/industrial revolution. Too many technologies of the first and second overlap. Toynbee by the way is not considered a serious scholar, but an out-of date populariser by modern professional historians. For the sake of convenience some good historians will pick a date when giving a lecture or writing an elementary textbook, but it is just a convenience. The classic, scholarly source for the history of technology is the multi volume (4 or 5 or 6 volumes depending on the edition you can get) history of technology edited by Derry and Wiliamn, and later by Charles Singer. I have put its abridged version in the references at the bottom of the article. It covers the Industrial revolution(s) quite well. By the way, I just did a Google search with the term "phases of the industrial revolution" and I immediatley got relevant hits. AlainV 03:19, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] US Influence and the 2nd Industrial Revolution

I've removed this line from the end of the final paragraph on 'Causes' -- "The restructuring of the American domestic market would trigger the second Industrial Revolution over 100 years later."

Since the article has no prior statements of what date the "100 years later" starts from, nor does it have any explanation or amplification of how changes in the US domestic market might have triggered a second industrial revolution -- I don't see the relevance or reason behind including the line I removed from the article.

Your comments are welcome and invited. Cheers, Madmagic 09:26, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement Drive

moved comments from Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive:--Fenice 19:27, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Reason 

This article was actually posted on Wikipedia:Cleanup as needing work, and I thought it could be a decent AID candidate. Here was the comment from User:Madmagic:

"This article needs work. There are sections which are well-written and documented, and other sections which are blank or under-written and under-documented. The relationships between the first, second (and perhaps third) Industrial Revolutions are not made clear nor easy to understand; the Talk page is equally confused and could use streamlining. Given the ongoing importance and the relevance of the subject to daily life, including the net and Wikipedia, this is a signifigant article which IMO should be strengthened to feature article status. Right now, it's a source of confusion and uncertainty to any new reader unfamiliar with the subject."

[edit] Better steam engine image, please

Can somebody change the image to one reflecting the Instrial Revolution.This is a portable engine of I guess late 19th - early 20th century, and not a steam engine used for driving a factory There are more apt imagines on the German Wiki article Damphsmaschine Apwoolrich 18:13, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good idea. Done.--Fenice 18:30, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to carp, but can the Cameron image be changed for the Newcomen engine on the German page. Its the wrong date for the article and Cameron's ideas did not get used in main steam engine technology. Thanks Apwoolrich 19:47, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This here looks like an even earlier model than the current one in the intro:--Fenice 20:27, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It certainly is. Its a pity about the background though. Ideally it should be a line drawing for clarity. Many thanks for the Newcomen engine. I must get down to learning how to find images for myself:) Apwoolrich 20:34, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes

We need a lot more footnotes in this article.--Fenice 18:18, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agreed, but do you mean real footnotes or references and links within each section? I am inclined to get the text fleshed out a little bit more and then add then afterwards. Apwoolrich 19:04, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Industrial Espionage

Added, as requested Apwoolrich 18:52, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hostility to industry

Should we have in here somewhere a section about the intellectual hostility to industry from about 1800 by the Romantic Movement - William Blake etc? Apwoolrich 19:01, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and more concrete reactions too, such as the Arts and Crafts movement more or less led by William Morris. --AlainV 04:36, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we should have a section on that. How about a section "Criticism" towards the end of the article, after "Intellecutal paradigm" and before "second industrial revolution". Marxism should probably also go under "Criticism" rather than "intellectual paradigm".--Fenice 05:56, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The arts and crafts movement was divided over its attotude towards technology. Some in it were totally against technology and new industry while others rejected only the inhumane division of labour which cheapened products and made the worker,s life meaningless. It was criticism on a certain level and reactionary impulse on another. On the other hand Marxism embraced technology completely and saw the industrial revolution as a necessary stage towards the seizire of power by the proletariat, so it was an intellectual paradigm as well as criticism. --AlainV 15:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're right, on a political level Marx sees it as a necessary stage. He was critical on the theoretical level however. Marx and Marxian Economists criticize classical/neoclassical economics as being incomplete at best.--Fenice 14:11, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] British Industrial Revolution

Why is this a red link? It would be logical to have a separate article on this. But looking closer at this article: it is geographically imbalanced anyway and maybe we should move it to British Industrial Revolution. But we need an overview-article Industrial Revolution as well.--Fenice 14:11, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think its a good idea to split away British Industrial Revolution as a distinct article. This is because all other industrial revolutions came after it. As we have a section about the Second Industrial Revolution it would be better to add another section describing how the first one spread into Europe and America during the first half of the nineteenth century. The red link to the BIR should, be removed from the list of links at the bottom. Apwoolrich 08:24, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Alright, lets not move it. The red link could be filled by a redirect, or we could just leave it, I don't know. I will adjust the box at the bottom and create new sections for other countries.--Fenice 10:45, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Social Problems > Strikes

Hmmm...i learn about this in history class. If i remember corectly people weare sick of working so much...and they start Strikes agains machines. They sayd that the machines are evil...they even made some sort of "Machine destroyers group". I'm to tired now to look after the notebook. Can someone comfirm what i sayd ? Atleast if you understand... :) --PET 01:04, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Luddites? J Milburn 21:58, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

Does anyone have any thoughts on why we have been having so much vandalism on this page in recent weeks? Apwoolrich 15:39, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

New school year - fresh subject? Noisy | Talk 17:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

It was the same question I had. My guess is the same; must be assigned reading at one or more schools. Antandrus (talk) 16:57, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

yes, the luddites. They were specially popular among handloom weavers, who hated being displaced by textile mills.

[edit] Protestant Ethic

Bertrand Russell's offhand comments in praise of a 4 day workweek are irrelevant and don't belong in an analytical history.

[edit] Rubbish

Dunno if this is intentional, but on Macs the text is full of rubbish "mouse over" and stuff like this. 192.115.133.141 01:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

No, it was vandalism, and it has been corrected. Titoxd^(?!?) 01:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What was the Industrial Revolution?

One problem I think is that this article really doesn't give a strong defintion beyond the usual and very general "socioeconomic changes" sort of explanation. Maybe we're all comming to this article with different conceptions of what the IR exactly was, and so it never occurs to any of us to offer more solid definitions. If an alien from Mars read this article, I don't think he'd really know what the IR was, other than that it involved some very big changes. Which changes? The best and most consice definition I've heard is that the IR was "a massive and unprecedented increase in the rate of change of technological innovation." Though possibly implied, this point isn't explicitly expressed in the article.

It's my understanding that people like Karl Marx and Adam Smith, though they lived during or immediatly after the IR, neither wrote of an "Idustrial Revolution." This doesn't seem strange when you consider that people in the "neolithic revolution" mentioned in these talkbacks probably didn't realize that they were part of any agricultural revolution. This kind of contemporary ignorance seems to hold true during many historical changes. Does anyone know when and where the realization of the IR as a historical even actually arose?

[edit] Tea

On the tea article it mentions, as I have heard from a documentary myself, that some historians believe that tea was an important factor in allowing the industrial revolution to take place in Britain at the time it did - the boiling of the water and natural antibiotics in tea (if I remember it correctly) apparently helped improve people's health and work rate. Is this worth mentioning? --El Pollo Diablo Talk

[edit] Historiography

Would it be worth adding 'Slow Growth' criticisms of the idea of an Industrial Revolution? (Crafts and Harley spring to mind). If so, I've recently completed an essay on the subject (Entitled 'Despite slow growth from 1780-1830, had there been an industrial revolution by 1870?') which could be editted and put in, along with a more detailed historiography ranging from Toynbee to Hudson. (From Sanf (talk • contribs))

[edit] Origins of 'Industrial Revolution'

I believe this term surfaced in the early 20th Century and was popularised by Toynbee. It is used for a number of purposes (hence the above post)and even it's use as a phrase is disputed. Clapham made a point of boycotting the phrase. (From Sanf (talk • contribs)

I also had doubts about dating this term. However, Raymond Williams in Culture and Scociety does say that Industrial Revolution was coined by French authors, but in the 20s, not in the thirties or forties. --Wikipedius 15:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure it was Arnold Toynbee first. Sanf

It may be that the French coined the term, but it became fixed as a hisotrical concept as a result of Arnold Toynbee's 1884 lectures - according to P. Hudson, The Industrial Revolution (1992), 11. Peterkingiron 20:37, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The black country

how about someone write a little about netherton in the black county and all the chain and anchor making, nail making iron forging that went on there

[ttianics anchor]

[edit] I still dont quite undersatnd this whole concept!

§I have to do a paper on this for AP World History and I am CONFUSED! 24.209.118.111 21:53, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Housing situation

I don't believe that this section is appropriate to the article. What in the world is it doing plumped down here? It features only a couple of quotes, both of which say the same thing. This is an article on the industrial revolution, after all! It has this long paragraph of dubious relevance, but nary a word, for example, of the development of the chemical industry during the industrial revolution. It adds to the length of the article, which is too long already. I am deleting the whole section for these reasons. DonSiano 17:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lunar Society

The Lunar Society was significant, but I think that some one's addition about it has given this a prominence that it does not deserve. One sentence on it (with a link) ought to be sufficient, not a whole section.

This is a good (though brief) discussion of an important subject, and I would suggest that it should not be altered save by those who really know what they are talking out. Peterkingiron 00:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Metallurgy

I have substantially rewritten this section based, which was of much lower quality than the rest of the article. In doing so, I have eliminated the following text: In the early 18th century, small-scale iron working and extraction and processing of other metals were carried out where local resources permitted. Fuel was primarily wood in the form of charcoal, but consumption was starting to be constrained by lack of available timber. At the same time, demand for high-quality iron was dramatically increasing to keep pace with the improvements in military technology and the involvement of Britain in numerous European wars.

To fuel the iron smelting process, people moved from wood to coal and coke. Production of pig iron, cast iron and wrought iron improved through the exchange of ideas (although this was by no means a fast process), with the most well-known name being Abraham Darby, although this was principally due to the nature of the coke he was using, and the scientific reasons for the improvement were only discovered later. His family followed in his footsteps, and iron became a major construction material. Peterkingiron 15:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Headline text

[edit] Causes of the British Industrial Revolution

This is a subject about which historians have been arguing for many years. The section here on this fails to reflect the most recent debates on this subject, and merely gives a few of the ideas that were current several decades ago, some of which are now discredited. Peterkingiron 20:41, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The industrial revolution was good.

[edit] Industrial Revolution "abusive"

If you want to make the stock claims that the industrial revolution led to all kinds of horrible social ills such as increased child labor, poverty, pollution, cats and dogs living together, dissolution of the family, etc, you are going to have to cite actual evidence of this. Please try and refrain from regurgitating the "accepted" commonly believed liberal/socialist POV description of the industrial revolution. You need to actually compare the conditions during this period to those of previous periods, which were often already, very, very bad for most people.Segelflugzeugwettbewerber 01:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you actually researched before writing this statement, because it is kind of inconsistent, and in a way, contradicts itself. First of all, the only reason it would be called a "liberal/socialist POV", would be because capitalists would not care to openly disclude that most of the Industrial Revolution (which profited the big capitalists) was based upon child labor. It would create strong dislike for the classes of people who had to give up their children to the Industrial Revolution. Also, if you google, "industrial revolution child labor" and you get plenty of non-liberal results. Poverty existed throughout the ages, ever since there were classes, but was made more evident when the Revolution forced families to live in conditions where survival was based upon commerce, and not self-sufficiency. Factories, coal-burning, masses of people packed into a small space = pollution. You can't deny this. For example, look at L.A. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by cats and dogs living together, so I'll skip that. For the dissolution of the family, just google "industrial revolution dissolution of family". It gives you plenty of results; I especially like number three. So check it all out, then reply. --Anarkial 15:38, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Do you realize that child labour started being heavily documented during the industrial revolution because of the massive increase in literacy? Do you think that in rural, non-industrial areas children didn't start pulling plows from age 9? The fact that infant mortality decreased five-fold might have something to do with people not worrying about children dying and starting to worry about tough working conditions. I suggest you stop sprouting cliched marxist propaganda and do some research yourself, and not just in history books: go to Thailand or Cambodia and see what child labour is like there and why.

Have you been to Cambodia or Thailand? If you have, I must concede. But if you haven't, you can stop insulting me now. You have only refuted one argument of mine, and for the other, made it seem like infant mortality is just a small factor of society. As for me "sprouting marxist propaganda," I can say the same for you sprouting capitalist ones. -Anarkial 15:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Child labour exists when average labour productivity is so small that a large proportion of the population works to be able to make a living, with the industrial revolution and the subsequent increases of labour productivity child labour gradualy disapeared in the industrial countries. Say that the industrial revolution was based on child labour is pure ignorance of our part since the industrial revolution was what eradicated child labour in the first place.--RafaelG 15:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Rafael, thank you for being a bit more explanatory. I accept your explanation on that point. --Anarkial 22:53, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I have the opinion that the industrial revolution was greatly beneficial to the workers. Compared to modern standards, the conditions must have been abominable but before the revolution it was a lot worse. I have just added the comment (with reference) the mortality among children under the age of five decreased from around 75 to around 30%.

There is one paragraph in 'other effects' which doesn't cite it's resouces at all. I'm intending to do research on it and either find solid references or alter the paragraph with a reference of every fact. --Ekpyrosis 21:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

This has to be the worst paragraph I've ever seen in Wikipedia: "The mass migration of rural families into urban areas saw the growth of bad living conditions in cities[citation needed], long work hours without the traditional agricultural breaks (such as after harvest or in mid winter)[citation needed], a rise in child labour (the children received less pay and benefits than adults)[citation needed] and the rise of nationalism in most of Europe[citation needed]The increase in coal usage saw a massive increase in atmospheric pollution[citation needed]."

This an astounding amount of sheer mythology for just one paragraph. Bad living conditions, long work hours, and child labor were (and often still are) far more common on the family farm than in even early industry. These practices (and other cited ills) were simply far more visible to the elites in the city than in the country, and thus caused much greater concern. Nationalism was the result of cheap printing and mass government schooling, not of industrial practices. In a world full of disease air pollution was the least of their worries at the time -- concentrating so many workers into so small a space was far more deadly. 63.194.89.150 23:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed that paragraph. Some parts are inconsistent with the paragraph which follows it (which I wrote myself) and because for weeks nobody has added the required citations I think it's best to remove the paragraph completely. I have looked for citations, but I have not found any, probably because the facts in the paragraph simply lack a solid foundation. --Ekpyrosis 22:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, Segelflugzeugwettbewerber, here's a website for you to check out that has excerpts from the testimony given before the Sadler Committee, the parliament debate over the benefit of factory legislation, the testimony gathered by Lord Ashley's Mines Commission, and Edwin Chadwick's report on sanitary conditions. It's at www.victorianweb.org/history/workers1.html. It has sources for you to check if you think it's "liberal" propaganda. And, by the way, Segelflugzeugwettbewerber, just because such conditions existed before the Industrial Revolution doesn't mean we should ignore their presence in that time. We can't assume that the readers will take it for granted that there were horrible conditions. I mean, we still need to write about it. Even though it existed before, it still existed during the IR, which means it's a part of the IR and should be included.Phoenix Song 20:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I just read through the article and it hardly mentions negative effects on children, and doesn't even have a sentence about the physical deformations and deteriorating health of child workers. This seems to be a very large oversight to me, but if anyone has a valid reason for the lack of detail about child labor, then I'd be glad to hear it. I understand that we need to keep things as concise as possible, but not at the expense of information. Could we at least put a link to an article about child labor in the IR (if there is one)? I'll reread the article in the meantime just to make sure I didn't miss anything.Phoenix Song 20:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rising wages

I think it is an important omission not mentioning the income statistics, specially since there is a lot of academic work on the subject. It is not insignificant that from 1700 to 1830 incomes rose by more than half and then almost doubled between 1830 and 1860. Also per person calorie intakes, mortality rates, population growth...

I have added a referenced remark about the increase income, still doing more research.--Ekpyrosis 22:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

The Manual of Style coveres proper introductions here:

The lead should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article.

The Industrial Revolution might have began in the U.K., but the introduction should reflect what it eventually turned into. It really limits the scope to say it was an English thing, and then mention that it happen to have significant impacts throughout the world in the third paragraph. Cacophony 06:00, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

You seem to have your facts mixed up because the UK didn't exist at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and Wales and Scotland were intimately involved - so it was by no means just an 'English thing': it is better to use Great Britain.

It would be useful to indicate the move of the centre of European industrial output to the Ruhr valley, but Wikipedia seems to be totally lacking in any coverage of the history of technology and industry in Germany and its preceeding states. (Perhaps better to state that I couldn't find any, rather than that there isn't any.) Noisy | Talk 08:13, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

The importance of Germany in the second phase of the industrial revolution is mentioned briefly in the Second Industrial Revolution article. There is ample room for expansion. In fact there could be a whole article devoted to the industrial revolution in Germany. There are already some articles for companies which were at the center of it like Siemens and BASF. --AlainV 06:27, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Child Labour

Really the first law against child labour was the Factory Act of 1819. Although it was ineffective because it included no means of enforcement, it was still the first child labour law. The Factory Act of 1833 merely allowed for the investigation and enforcement of the Factory Act of 1819. Under this law, textile mill operators were prohibited from employing children under the age of nine. Children between 9 and 13 could not work more than 8 hours a day, and children between 13 and 18 could work no longer than 12 hours a day. Nine years later another law was passed that prohibited the employment of all women and children under 10 in coal mines. In 1847, the Ten Hours Act was passed. This law established a 10 hour working day for children under 18 and women. This eventually led to a ten hour workday for all workers because it wasn't profitable to keep the factories running after all the women and children were gone.

I'd add this, but I'm afraid I might mess something up seeing as I'm not totally used to editing as of yet. I'll just stick to learning with the talk pages and leave this to someone more experienced...--Gotmesomepants 22:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Industry-based economy"

Please, i want to know how this works. what is really industry-based economy, and please give me an example where this has worked most. I will be so grateful if you could render me the assistance as soon as possible. If possible now. Thank you so very much.

Emeka..........

[edit] Vandalism

Keep an eye on this page. It's been the target of recent school IP vandalism. I can't revert it anymore, as I have already reverted thrice. --Gray Porpoise 15:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

This is actually somewhat funny to me, as the 'recent school IP vandalism' is from Catherine M. McGee Middle, which is the school I go to. We have to do this eighth grade project that is comprised of summaries of certain historical events from the Contitution to the Civil War. The following is a list of subjects we must research: Lousiana Purchase, Mexican War, George Washington's Farewell Address, Industrial Revolution (US), Underground Railroad, Trail of Tears, Cotton Gin (invention of), Oregon Trail, Texas Annexation, Seneca Falls Convention, Bleeding Kansas, Compromise of 1850, Spoils System, Transcontinental Railroad (US), Manifest Destiny, California Gold Rush, Missouri Compromise, War of 1812, Monroe Doctrine, Erie Canal. We might want to disable all unregistered user editing for these pages during the month of October. Another solution, if possible, is that I can get a list of all IP adresses for my school, and we can disable editing for those IP's. -Sluggy42

I find that students working on a project and vandalizing wiki articles to generally be a bad thing being that student from my school have in the past vandalized pages immediately before a teacher looks at it contributing to the view of some teachers that wikipedia and other wiki sites are unreliable as sources when in fact wikipedia is frequently more accurate than some other sources. 216.133.186.66 22:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spread of Industrialization

Can anyone find some sort of chart or something showing the spread of industrialization? I'd greatly appreciate it. And also, would this include the spread of this type of economy to areas such as China and other parts of East Asia, where many factories have sprung up in the last century? P.S. Pardon the fact that that last statement wasn't well researched. I don't really want to get sucked into any arguments.

[edit] POV

This article seems to be POV because it neglects recent historic studies, like that of Clark, that argue that these Industrial Revolutions are a myth, concocted by mostly Marxist historians. Intangible 07:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uneditable vandalism in References section

There is some uneditable vandalism in the "References" section. Can someone who knows more fix it?

[edit] Vandalism?

I do not know much about script writing and the technical aspects of the Internet. However, I have noticed something wrong as this page, when accessed from a google search or a hyperspace link, is redirected to a page that is called "Industrial Revolution" but instead gives "a list of nominees and winners of the 2002 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards." I think that this is likely a vandalism problem, as this page seems to have experienced it before, and the edit page, when clicked on, brings up the former, solid page about the industrial revolution. I just thought that someone should note this.

Malikar 04:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)