The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were technological, socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included the following:
- The use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel,
- The use of new energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal, the steam engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine,
- Invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human energy,
- A new organization of work known as the factory system, which entailed increased division of labour and specialization of function,
- Important developments in transportation and communication, including the steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and
- Increasing application of science to industry. These technological changes made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods.
There were also many new developments in nonindustrial spheres, including the following:
- Agricultural improvements that made possible the provision of food for a larger nonagricultural population,
- Economic changes that resulted in a wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as a source of wealth in the face of rising industrial production, and increased international trade,
- Political changes reflecting the shift in economic power, as well as new state policies corresponding to the needs of an industrialized society,
- Sweeping social changes, including the growth of cities, the development of working-class movements, and the emergence of new patterns of authority, and
- Cultural transformations of a broad order. Workers acquired new and distinctive skills, and their relation to their tasks shifted; instead of being craftsmen working with hand tools, they became machine operators, subject to factory discipline.
- Finally, there was a psychological change: confidence in the ability to use resources and to master nature was heightened.
Read Also: Industrial Revolution – UPSC
