Industrial Revolution | Timeline (2024)

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The Industrial Revolution begins in Great Britain. About 1764 James Hargreaves conceives the idea for a yarn-spinning machine called the spinning jenny (which he patents in 1770). Another influential innovation is James Watt’s steam engine. In 1764, while repairing a Newcomen steam engine, Watt notices that it wastes a lot of steam. Watt develops a way to improve the Newcomen machine and in 1769 receives a patent for his own steam engine, which will be widely utilized during theIndustrial Revolution.

Richard Arkwright isthe first to use Watt’s steam engine to power textile machinery. By 1775 Arkwright develops mills in which the whole process of yarn manufacture is carried on by one machine.(Arkwright is later recognized as the father of the modern industrial factory system.) In 1779 Samuel Crompton invents the spinning mule, a cross between machines invented by Arkwright and Hargreaves. The spinning mule permits large-scale manufacture of high-quality thread and yarn.

Samuel Slater, a former apprentice to Jedediah Strutt (partner of Arkwright), constructs versions of Arkwright’s machinery and establishes a cotton mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the first successful cotton mill in the United States. Meanwhile, in Georgia, Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, a machine for cleaning cotton of its seeds. Whitney later develops the concept ofmass productionofinterchangeable parts.

In the United States Cyrus McCormickinvents several machines used to mechanize farming. His mechanical reaper, patented in 1834, revolutionizes harvesting, making it quicker and easier.Elias Howe’ssewing machine, patented in 1846,makes the manufacture of clothing less expensive. In 1859 Edwin Drake completes the drilling of the first productive oil well in the United States, nearTitusville, Pennsylvania.

Alexander Graham Bellpatents histelephone. Networks of telephone lines are built quickly across the United States.

At Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright achieve the first powered, sustained, and controlled airplane flight.

There is mounting evidence of what has been called a second Industrial Revolution (despite overlap with the first). Many new products are devised, and important advances are made in the system of mass production.In 1913, for instance,Henry Fordintroduces assembly-line methods in the manufacture of his Model T Ford. Parts are assembled on a moving conveyor belt, and the Model T takes shape as it moves from one work station to the next. The assembly line greatly increases the speed of manufacture and soon is used in many industries. Developments inmachines,tools, andcomputerslater give rise to the automatic factory.