What is this about?
How did technology impact economic production
The Coal Revolution of the First Industrial Revolution
- First Industrial Revolution: mid 1700s to mid 1800s
- Steam engine invented by James Watt in 1765
- Used coal to create steam, which created energy
- Big deal as you could build and power factories everywhere as long as you had coal
Water Transportation
- Steam engines stuck on ships
- With steamships, now it doesn’t matter what direction the winds are going and now you can go in whatever direction you wanted
- Huge impact on trade
- You can now go in any direction you want without having to worry about natural stuff like the direction of a river
- Trade increased thanks to the steam engine
Locomotives
- Can transport vast amounts of people and goods throughout vast land
- Also powered by steam engine
- The Trans-Continental Railroad in the US connected the whole country and resulted in a boom in trade
- In Russia, the Trans-Siberian Railroad increased trade between Russia and East Asia
Iron
- Coal also made it possible to mass produce iron
- This is significant as iron was used as the building block for infrastructure, and the mass production of it meant that industries and transportation networks could grow rapidly
Second Industrial Revolution
- Occurred between late 1800s to early 1900s
- Major players were US, Britain, and Germany
Steel
- Rise in mass production of steel
- Much stronger than iron and became the new building block of the Industrial Revolution
- Bessemer Process: you blast hot iron with air, it removes impurities, and you get pure steel
- Gave people to make mass quantities of steel
Oil (Gas)
- New source of energy
- By mid 1800s oil wells were being set up everywhere
- Gasoline could be extracted from oil and powered stuff like the internal combustion engine
Communication
- Telegraph invented in 1837 by Samuel Morse
- Telephone invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell
- Both revolutionized communication and allowed for the growth of interconnected markets and economies
Impact of these New Technologies
- ⬆️ in trade
- Manufactured goods could be shipped faster and farther thanks to newer means of transportation
- New waves of migration
- Not only was it easier to move to new places but it was also easier to communicate with the family you left behind at home