Inventions During The Industrial Revolution

This modern society we live in today doesn’t simply survive, but thrives with the system of industrialism and capitalism we have developed for centuries. However, progression in not just America, but the world, did not spike until a certain point in history. In this point in time, boundaries were crossed and new prospects were available due to the expansion of machinery and automation. This point in time would be a major event in history that would catapult the wealth of several different countries. This point in time was the Industrial Revolution, a major event which accelerated the growth of the United States and several other countries and empires in Europe. Industrialism was especially rare before the industrial era, due to the

This steam engine based itself off of earlier variants, the main difference being the inclusion of a separate condenser for the steam itself along with a flywheel for “smooth power transfer” and the ability to rotate a shaft (“Invention of the Steam Engine”). Due to the new additions, this steam engine was more reliable than earlier models and had possible applications in factories, contributing to industrialization and helping kickstart the spread of it in the Industrial Revolution. By transition, the the steam engine was responsible for mass production, showing the largely important role of the invention. Another invention created during the time was the cotton gin, developed by Eli Whitney, whose main purpose was to remove the seeds from farmed cotton. The process involved small hooks and a screen to push cotton, thus separating the seeds and allowing for much more produce than if the seeds were hand-picked. Thus, “after the invention of the cotton gin, the yield of raw cotton doubled each decade after 1800,” which propelled the status of “King Cotton” and allowed for greater exports internationally and to factories in the North, but promoted sectionalism and the use of slavery to maximize exports at a minimum price. A third important invention of the Industrial Revolution was the sewing machine,

The key point of industrialism, factories brought craftsmans’ work to the average citizen by using machines for each part of a process and division of labor per person. Using division of labor, the total produce of a team of specialists working on one production line would be greater than the total produce of a team with one production line per person. This concept was once observed by famous economist Adam Smith: “A workman not educated to this business, nor acquainted with the use of machinery employed in it, should scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day…, I have seen a small manufactory of this kind, where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations… They could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day, There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size” (Grant