Talk:Industrial Revolution

Coal as organic fuel

A minor point in the metallurgy section, coal is an organic fuel like wood, why it gives off carbon dioxide when it burns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.132.223.239 (talk) 01:04, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

That is not the usual understanding of "organic" in this context. Coal is usually described as a mineral fuel, even though the origins of it (and oil) were organic in the carboniferous period of geology when the coal measures were laid down. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

In mining it would be considered a mineral fuel made of carbon and organic chemicals.Phmoreno (talk) 13:23, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 66.229.206.224, 2 June 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

66.229.206.224 (talk) 03:43, 2 June 2010 (UTC) [[[[[[[[[[

Not done: I'm sorry, what is it you want us to do? {{Sonia|talk|simple}} 04:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Consequences in Wallonia

I received the following on my talk page in response to several editors' trimming this material. My own edit was for WP:TOPIC:

I would keep the § (Wallonia Belgium) on the general strikes but would cut the last sentences and the end of the text would be, for instance, the anarchistic movements. What do you think? Sincerely José Fontaine (talk) 19:33, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Posted here for more general comment.

• --Old Moonraker (talk) 06:29, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

--I think the article has too much about Wallonia, and the para in question (that I removed because it referred to secondary effects well after the IR) should remain left out. Actually, the para before also refers to events in 1920 and 1910 so they should also be removed as well. It is quite incoherent and of questionable relevance, too. I fail to see how the Wallonia section section strengthens the article at all. I have a shelf full of books on the industrial revolution, none of which mention Wallonia at all. DonSiano (talk) 11:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

• I am not wholly clear what the subject of this discussion is, but in my view sections on the industrialisation of continental Europe should be limited to the period when industrialisation took place. This article has always been a very long one, and should not be unduly expanded. The right place for detail on the industrial history of particular countries would be in specific articles on those subjects, and particularly so for periods after 1830/50 which is regarded as the end of the Induistrial Revolution in Britain. Peterkingiron (talk) 22:49, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

About this (Walloon or Belgian) issue, there are several pertinent things. And among them the phenomenon of the General strikes which are not possible without the IR (not only in my opinion of course). Before the IR you have Jacquerie, but not general strikes even if (according to some scholars in Wallonia, Belgium and other countries) a workingmen jacquerie happened in Wallonia in 1886: the Walloon jacquerie of 1886. The second thing is the General strike. And I think Belgium was the first country (or at least one of the first industrial countries) where a general strike happpened, with - and that is very important - an immediate and large political result (the Universal suffrage in 1893). On the other hand, I am aware I am not able to summarize (in any case in English), too long paragraphs I placed here about Wallonia. But I would be happy if other contributors were keeping the main things and facts I wrote: Wallonia is the second industrial power, the effects of the IR in Belgium and Wallonia are not the same as in England (or Britain), there is an Anarchist movement and so on... Thank you in advance for your help if you are thinking it is pertinent. I have also informations about the Wallonia's importance in the IR. Sincerely, José Fontaine (talk) 00:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

You completely miss the point that I made. The Industrial Revolution was 1750/80 to 1830/50. In continental Europe, with a slightly later start to industrialisation, the end might be taken as slightly later. However, events of the 1880s, however significant nationally, come in a period a generation after the end of the industrial revolution. They might properly be included in an article on the industrialisation of Wallonia, but they do not belong in this article, becasue they came long after the period that it covers. One might as easily say that the British coal strike of the 1980s was a result of the reliance of the industrialised British economy on fossil fuels, which was a result of the industrialisation of GB in the industrial revolution. Accordingly those strikes should be included. However this is clearly not appropriate. This article is already a very long one for WP. It is thus important that its scope should not be expanded by the inclusion of extraneous material. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:27, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you mean. I must replace the image with boat lifts with eg Grand Hornu but why not to have a global vision by a table of the different industrial powers since 1790 until 1900? Sincerely José Fontaine (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

---

Article should concentrate on Belgium as a whole, not on Wallonia as a "superpower" after Britain. Now you get an article mentioning Wallonia as the economic power the only economic motor in Belgium "with the exception of Ghent"... first of all; pretty big exception: massive industrialisation in Ghent happened some decades before that in Liege (first major iron-industry plant in Seraing is 1817; by that time Ghent had several large industrial capitalist enterprises based on mechanised production...) second of all; Ghent wasn't the only exception: Antwerp and Brussels had their specific industrial sectors and developments (in Antwerp: cockerill yards for instance: a shipyard industry producing steamboats, in Brussels the very early sugar refinery of Delessert is typical of some devellopments in Brabant) and though Ghent was the city of King Cotton in Belgium (which is why French diplomats chose it as a setting to conclude the treaty of Ghent of 1812 ending the Anglo-American War) and also of the Flax-industry; mechanised production spread rapidly to the small towns surrounding the city (Sint-Niklaas in 1825 counted several ateliers with powerlooms); So that by 1850 most towns of East and West-Flanders had textile factories. (the consequence being that the population, once very proliphic whilst largely dependent on domestic cottage style linen production and other fabrics was now increasingly economicly obsoleted and pauperised. Ultimately they had to migrate to the swelling towns and cities. This desperate situation of the Flemish farmer-weavers or farmer-spinsters stimulated mining because now there was a constant supply of cheap labour...) there are many interesting things about belgian early industrialisation, such as the proto-industrial preparation-phase, the different phenomena and developments that would act as stimuli on the Flemish textile industry or the Walloon heavy industry (such as pauperisation, proletarisation, investment dynamics and other multiplying stimuli such as railway building programs, financial holdings, international economic politics), as such part on Belgium in the article should investigate in an integrated attempt why Belgium was a fertile ground for early industrialisation; rather than stressing how 'important' Wallonia really was (compared to Flanders) (ahum: "with the exception of Ghent"). (and it isn't really interesting since we're looking for explanations of a specific Belgian situation, one that as such includes Ghent and textile satellites) Walloon Sillon Industriel was certainly the centre of gravity of Belgian economic make-up between 1840 and 1910 and had a relatively early development (of a bassin of heavy industry), its economic and industrial weight remained relative even within Belgium and certainly abroad... and it is according to me far more interesting to try to explain how different sectors and regions interacted with eachother on an economic basis of trade (in industrial products!), investment, politics, demographics, relation with Brittain (the first industrial power trying to squeeze all others to death), France or Holland (Cockerill; Lieven Bauwens, industrial espionnage in britain, etc!) in relating to the early industrialisation(s) in Belgium.

Belgium is a specific and interesting case with several industrial centres and diffrent phases (you could say broadly summarizing: proto-industrial and early mechanisation of textile-industry in the two Flanders dominating both economicly and demographicly between 1700 and 1840, the provinces of Hainaut and Liège having their accentuated heavy industry growspurt between 1840 and 1910 accompanied with an increasing demographic importance, and the second industrial revolution giving a growsurt to Antwerp and Brabant in the 20th century -a devellopment starting about 1875- somewhat accompanied by East-Flanders).

Tone of the “Walloon” segment of the article probably originates from chauvinistic thinking or the absorbtion of (misguided?) historic stereotypes within a current Belgian political debate between north and south which generates these kinds of discourses that then obligates strange repeated phrases like “with the exception of Ghent”;... but because Belgium as a 19th political entity developed itself as an exemplary “capitalist paradise” embodying as a whole the 19th century entrepreneurial spirit par excellence (acquiring in a later stage a colonial asset that in relative size was about as big as the British colonial empire compared to Great Brittain) with all its social, cultural and demographic and environmental consequences, knew on the whole a rapid industrialisation and development (and pauperisation!) AND also a rapid desindustrialisation both in the north as in the south... and because of the various early devellopments, it should be treated as one entity within the history of the industrial revolution.

--Monoclemask (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Industrial Age

The term Industrial Age is becoming more prominant to cover the period from the Industrial Revolution to near modern times. The Industrial Age disamg page seems inappropriate. Let's discuss the creation of an Industrial Age article, keeping in mind that it does not supplant the Industrial Revolution, which is a historially established term. As far as creditability to the use of the term Industrial Age, even the NIST website now uses the term. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 19:53, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Dhburns, 26 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}}

In order to balance the apparently biased view (supported with misleading statistics (such as "average income")), that this article portrays -- that the industrial revolution was generally beneficial to society, (when in fact it has been disproportionately beneficial to a small percentage of the population, while causing enormous damage in general) -- please insert the following as the 3rd paragraph:

Bertrand Russell wrote that:

The industrial revolution caused unspeakable misery both in England and in America. ... In the Lancashire cotton mills (from which Marx and Engels derived their livelihood), children worked from 12 to 16 hours a day; they often began working at the age of six or seven. Children had to be beaten to keep them from falling asleep while at work; in spite of this, many failed to keep awake and were mutilated or killed. Parents had to submit to the infliction of these atrocities upon their children, because they themselves were in a desperate plight. Craftsmen had been thrown out of work by the machines; rural labourers were compelled to migrate to the towns by the Enclosure Acts, which used Parliament to make landowners richer by making peasants destitute; trade unions were illegal until 1824; the government employed agents provocateurs to try to get revolutionary sentiments out of wage-earners, who were then deported or hanged. Such was the first effect of machinery in England.

D.H.Burns 16:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Not done: We cannot simply cut and paste copyrighted text into Wikipedia articles because that is copyright violation. Thanks, Stickee (talk) 01:31, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

It is unwise to rely on the work even of older economic historians; Russell was a philosopher not a historian. Marx & Engels were largely looking at the results of industrialisation in their own period: employment conditions at the end of the industrial revolution period certainly were comaparatively grim. However, that does not mean conditions were always bad. In fact at the beginning, industrial workers had a relatively good standard of living, compared to rural contemporaries. Much research has been undertaken in the past decades, and views are still be revised. Russell's language is unnecessarily emotive. For example, Enclosure Acts were not imposed by Parliament, but normally resulted from the majority of landowners locally wanting the land inclosed, becasue it would provide a better financial return. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:10, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

GA status

I think this articel was rightly delisted, but I wonder if the time has not come for it to be renominated. My own criticism is perhpas that the lead relies too heavily on the work of Robert Lucas Jr., and does not mention more recent work, such as Robert Allen, The Industrial Revolution in its global context (possibly not the precise title), which analyses living standards in a number of regions and at differnet periods. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

hola mis amogas!!! que pasa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.36.148 (talk) 01:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Tom9682, 18 April 2011

the industrial revolution is linked to the book hard times which talks about the industrial revolution.

Tom9682 (talk) 18:14, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. — Bility (talk) 21:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Kcaz94, 15 May 2011

please change "The introduction of steam power fuelled primarily by coal, wider utilisation of water wheels and powered machinery" to "The introduction of steam power fueled primarily by coal, wider utilization of water wheels and powered machinery" Kcaz94 (talk) 20:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Not done: See WP:ENGVAR for explanation. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:06, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

The Industrial Age The industrial age was a time of machines upgrading, creating machines that do what man would have to do, and it helped no matter what it did to the rest of the world. What was made in the industrial age and how it helped the world, what is the industrial age, what are some of the machines, and who are some of the people who created these machines? The industrial age did great things for the world but it also hurt it. The industrial age is a big part of history. If it had never happened there is no telling where we would be today. The industrial age was a time of machines upgrading, creating machines that do what man would have to do, and it helped no matter what it did to the rest of the world. It played a huge part in shaping the modern world. It came in two stages. The first stage, sometimes called the first Industrial Revolution, lasted from about 1750 until about 1850 and took place mostly in England. It was dominated by two developments in technology: the steam engine driven by coal and machines used to make textiles, or cloth. The second stage, sometimes called the second Industrial Revolution, lasted from about 1850 until about 1940 and occurred mainly in the United States as well as in continental Europe. It was dominated by two new sources of power: the internal combustion engine and electricity. The machine age occurred in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. There were a lot of machines created in the industrial age. Some of them are the first reliable steam engine, the cotton gin, the steamboat, the telegraph, the sewing machine, the transatlantic cable, the telephone, the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, the induction electric motor, the diesel engine, the first airplane, and the first assembly line. The steam engines harness the energy of steam to move machinery. It is a reasonably clean source of energy. Steam engines were used to run some trains

and steamships. Another of the many inventions that occurred during the American Industrial Revolution is the cotton gin. It is a machine designed to remove cotton from its seeds. The process uses a small screen and pulling hooks to force the cotton through the screen. The steamboat really helped trade along all rivers. It brought new towns, new industry, and new jobs. As Americans pushed into the western territories, the steamboat was very helpful. The non-electric telegraph was a system visual and used semaphore, a flag-based alphabet, and depended on a line of sight for messaging. The optical telegraph was replaced by the electric telegraph later. Until the first transatlantic cable was laid, the fastest communication between Europe and North America took at least a week. Hand sewing is a skill form that is over 20,000 years old. The first sewing needles were made of bones or animal horns and the first thread was made of animal muscles. Iron needles were invented in the fourteen hundreds. The first eyed needles were made in the fifteen hundreds. The telephone was a device that could transmit speech electrically. It allowed people to talk to people all over the country as if you were right next to them. It was a similar device to the telegraph witch allowed people to communicate to each other but threw a busing noise unlike the telephone. The Phonograph was the first machine to record and playback sound. It was one of the many inventions created in the industrial age. The rotor consists of laminated, cylindrical iron cores with slots for receiving the conductors. On the earliest motors, the conductors were copper bars with ends welded to copper rings known as end rings. Viewed from the end, the rotor assembly resembles a squirrel cage; hence the name squirrel-cage motor is used to refer to induction motors. In modern induction motors, the most common type of rotor has cast-aluminum conductors and short-circuiting end rings. The rotor turns when the moving magnetic field induces a current in the shorted conductors. The speed at which the magnetic field rotates is the synchronous speed of the motor. Pure air gets sucked in by the piston sliding downward. The piston compresses the air above and uses thru work, performed by the crankshaft. Pressure and Temperature are very high. Now the black injection pump injects heavy fuel in the hot air. By the high temperature the fuel gets ignited immediately (auto ignition). The piston gets pressed downward and performs work to the crankshaft. The burned exhaust gases are ejected out of the cylinder through a second valve by the piston sliding upward again. The first airplane was made of wooden beams with canvas stretched them out over them. The plane had two horizontal wings that were parallel to each other. Behind the wings were two propellers that pushed the plane through the air. The plane also included two rudders, which the pilot could control by using a system of pulleys. The pilot crouched on the bottom wing in order to fly the plane; in later versions, the Wright brothers built a place to sit for the pilot. The assembly line was a moving conveyer belt that hade parts on it and people/mashes put pieces on and tightened things down as it went down the line. It made production of cars and other things quicker. There are a lot machines created in the industrial age but there are also a lot of people who invented them. Here are some of them, James Watt, Eli Whitney, Robert Fulton, Samuel F. B. Morse, Elias Howe, Cyrus Field, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Rudolf Diesel, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and Henry Ford. James Watt was born in 1736 in Greenock, Scotland he Died in 1819 in Heath field, Scotland. He was a Scottish engineer. James Watt was the inventor of the modern condensing steam-engine. His father was a small merchant, who lost his trade and fortune by unsuccessful speculation, and James was early thrown on his own resources. Eli Whitney was born in 1765 in Westborough, MA; he died in 1825 at New Haven, CT. He was an American inventor who created the cotton gin. He exhibited unusual mechanical ability at an early age and earned a considerable part of his expenses at Yale College, where he graduated in 1792. Robert Fulton was born in 1765 at Lancaster County, PA, he died in 1815 in New York City. He was an American engineer. His parents were Irish, and so poor that they could afford him only a very small education. Samuel F. B. Morse was born in 1791 in Charlestown, MA, he died in 1872 in New York City, and he died because of an illness. Bu Samuel Finley Breese Morse studied art under Benjamin West, and worked as a successful and respected sculptor, painter, and art teacher until, based on a rudimentary understanding and curiosity of electricity, he invented the telegraph. In brief, the telegraph sends electricity over a wire, and the electric flow can be interrupted by holding down the key of the transmission device, resulting in gaps short (dots) or long (dashes). Elias Howe was born in 1819 in Spencer, MA; he died in1867 in Brooklyn, NY. He was the inventor of the sewing machine, born in Spencer, Massachusetts, on the 9th of July 1819. His early years were spent on his father's farm. In 1835 he entered the factory of a manufacturer of cotton machinery at Lowell, Massachusetts, where he learned the machinist's trade. Subsequently, while employed in a machine shop at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he conceived the idea of a sewing machine, and for five years spent all his spare time in its development. Cyrus W. Field was born in 1819 in Stockbridge, MA; he died in 1892 in New York City. He was an American capitalist, projector of the first Atlantic cable. He was a brother of David Dudley Field. At fifteen he became a clerk in the store of A. T. Stewart & Co., of New York, and stayed there three years; then worked for two years with his brother, Matthew Dickinson Field, in a paper mill at Lee, Massachusetts. Alexander Graham Bell was Born on 3-Mar-1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland, he Died in 2-Aug-1922 in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canada, he died because of Diabetes complications. Even as a boy, Alexander Bell was fascinated by the mechanics of speech and sound, and told friends that one day they might be able to speak over the telegraph. His father taught the deaf, and had developed what was called the "visible speech" system to help deaf children learn to speak. Even his grandfather had worked with children to overcome their speech impediments. Thomas Edison was born on 11-Feb-1847 in Milan, OH, he died on 18-Oct-1931 in Llewellyn Park, NJ. He died because of diabetes complications. Arguably the most successful inventor in human history, Thomas Edison held 1,093 U.S. patents and hundreds more in other nations. His most famous work includes the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the alkaline storage battery, and a forerunner of the motion picture projector. Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia, he died in 1943 in Manhattan, NY. He died because of heart failure. He was the son of a Serbian Orthodox clergyman. Tesla studied engineering at the Austrian Polytechnic School. He worked as an electrical engineer in Budapest and later immigrated to the United States in 1884 to work at the Edison Machine Works. Rudolf Diesel was born in 1858 in Paris, France, he died 1913 in the English Channel. He died because of suicide. German engineer Rudolf Diesel invented the pressure-ignited heat engine, adapting the internal combustion engine so that a spark is no longer needed to ignite the fuel-air mixture. His parents were Bavarian by ancestry, but lived in Paris until being forced out of France at the 1870 outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Orville Wright was born in1871 in Dayton, OH; he died in 1948 in Dayton, OH, because of heart failure. Wilbur Wright was born in1867 in Millville, IN, he died in 1912 in Dayton, OH. He died because of Typhus. Both invented the first air plane. Henry Ford was born in 1863 in Greenfield, MI, he died in 1947 in Dearborn, MI. He died because of cerebral hemorrhage. From the time he was a young boy, Ford enjoyed tinkering with machines. Farm work and a job in a Detroit machine shop afforded him ample opportunities to experiment. He later worked as a part-time employee for the Westinghouse Engine Company. So this just goes to prove that the industrial age was a time of machines upgrading, creating machines that do what man would have to do, and it helped no matter what it did to the rest of the world. It helped and hurt the world. It played big part in history. A lot of machines were created in it that would be hard to live without, and it is all thanks to the inventers that we have them. Without the American Industrial Age, life would be really hard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.80.99.48 (talk) 23:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

D. Woodward citation

The "standards of living" section needs revision; the cited article discusses wages and conditions in pre-industrial England. The article text uses this citation to support the idea that living conditions declined during industrialization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.134.224.1 (talk) 02:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

improvements to get to good article

Your article is hopeless, give up now! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Power2794 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 5 December 2011 (UTC)