Industrial Revolution

Introduction

Although capitalism has remained a dynamic socioeconomic system since its inception, the pace of technological and social change accelerated exponentially in the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of the Industrial Revolution. It is important not to confuse between capitalism and industrialization. In retrospect, the Industrial Revolution occurred long after capitalism began. In fact, most of capitalism's history involved preindustrial forms of production, including artisanal and household elements.

However, starting in the mid 1800s, an explosive increase in the speed and productivity of capitalist production occurred that transformed everyday life and the global economy in the process. Industrialization is a complex process that involves multiple transformations in inputs, outputs, and technology. Three dimensions are particularly important here: (1) the use of inanimate energy, (2) technological innovation, and (3) increased productivity. This discussion first describes these aspects of the Industrial Revolution and then examines its geographical development, cyclical nature, and global impact

Discussion

When industrialization first gripped Canada and the United States, developments in manufacturing technology became visible in small establishments located in the Atlantic coast states and along the St. Lawrence River. These early enterprises were closely entwined with rural activities and added factory work to an industrializing countryside. Subsequent migration and urbanization, westward frontier expansion, and railroad and telegraph construction fueled industrial development in the westward-expanding industrial belt.

In the American South, there was a relative retardation of industrial development because of weaker urbanization, limited investment in transport and communications infrastructure or farm mechanization, and a very different labor market. By 1870, the increasing prevalence of industrial activity had reached an undeniable degree in the Manufacturing Belt; led by Minneapolis and St. Louis in the west, Toronto and Montreal in the north, and Louisville, Cincinnati, and Baltimore in the south.

However, from 1860 to 1880, manufacturers in this region became functionally integrated into a continental geography of labor, market, and resource supply regions. By 1880, specialized establishments supplied products to wide market territories within the continent, factories depended on the skilled workers of well-developed urban labor markets, while their suppliers included not only mines, lumber mills, cotton gins, and grain elevators located outside the belt but also factories located in other industrial cities. Thus, the American industrial revolution was formed through a process of regional specialization.

A spatially differentiated process of cumulative causation, operating on a continental scale, produced local and regional specializations within the belt on the back of initial advantages. Clear signs of manufacturing specialization were discernible in 1880. The leading metropolitan centers for manufacturing had disproportionate shares of national employment in specific industries: In New York, it was garment production; in Philadelphia, textile production; and in Chicago, slaughterhouses and meat packing. Other local specializations included fruit and vegetable canning in Baltimore; musical instruments in Boston; furniture in Grand Rapids; tobacco in Louisville; glass, iron, and steel in Pittsburgh; and agricultural implements in Springfield, Ohio. A high-tech approach emerged in New England associated with the American system of production, featuring interchangeable parts production and focused on the ...