The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution

The title of the text is "The chief features of the industrial revolution" and it deals with the most relevant aspects connected to the Industrial Revolution. The argumentation is developed into ten different paragraphs, each having a different function.

The text begins defining the essence of the Industrial Revolution that is the period between the 18^th and 19^th centuries when in Europe and in the United States machines were invented and the first factories were established. According to Industrial Revolution, some of the most important writers of the period wrote some essays about it. For example in 1776 Adam Smith wrote "The wealth of Nations" in which he analyzed and investigated the causes of wealth; in 1798 Malthus' "Essay on Population" directed its investigations to the causes of poverty; in 1817 Ricardo's "Principles of political economy and taxation" sought to ascertain the laws of distribution of wealth and in 1848 John Stuart Mill's "Principles of political economy" distincted  the laws of production and those of distribution and  tried to solve the problem of how wealth should be distributed.

In the text the most relevant facts are described: there has been a relative and positive decline in agricultural population; at the end of 18^th century an agrarian revolution broke out for three most effective causes: the destruction of the common-field system of cultivation, the enclosure of common and waste lands  and the consolidation of small farms into large that reduced the number of farmers. This period was one of great agricultural advance; enclosure brought an extension of arable cultivation: the breed of cattle was improved, rotation of crops was introduced, the steam-plough was invented and agricultural societies were instituted.

Agricultural produce had increased thanks to mechanical discoveries which altered the character of the cotton manufacture. The new inventions were the spinning-jenny, the water frame, Crompton's mule and the self-acting mule. James Watt discovered the steam engine, applied 16 years later to the cotton manufacture. Thanks to these discoveries the period from 1788 to 1803 had been called "the golden age", in which the conditions of the workman has became very different. The iron-industry has been revolutionised  by the invention of smelting by pit-coal and the application of the steam-engine to blast furnaces. A further growth of the factory system was possible due to the great advance of the means of communication: the canal system was rapidly developed throughout the county and in 1830 the first railroad was opened: these changes improved means of communication and caused an extraordinary increase in commerce, but this system meant a change from independence to dependence.

The effects of the enclosure system, of the consolidation of farms, and of the high price of corn during the French war made an enormous rise in rents in agriculture and represented a great social revolution and a change in the balance of political power and in the relative position of classes. The farmers shared in the prosperity of the landlords; they ceased to work and live with their labourers  and became a distinct class: they changed in their habits, had new food and furniture, luxury and drinking, they had more money into their hands.

The effects of the Industrial Revolution prove that free completion may produce wealth without producing well being.