The Second Industrial Revolution it was born with the scientific and technological progress that took place in England, France and the United States, around the second half of the 19th century.
Summary of Main Features
Between 1850 and 1950, the search for discoveries and inventions was long, which represented greater comfort for the being. human being, as well as the dependence of countries that did not carry out the scientific and technological revolution or industrial.
The whole world started to buy, consume and use industrialized products manufactured in England, France, United States, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Japan.
The discovery and use of new energy sources - oil (in the combustion engine), water (in hydroelectric plants), uranium (for nuclear energy), further revolutionized production industrial. The list of inventions and discoveries is huge, which represented greater comfort for human beings.
In the search for greater profits, the specialization of work was taken to an extreme, production was expanded, starting to produce articles in series, which made the cost per unit cheaper.
Assembly lines emerged, conveyor belts on which the parts of the product to be assembled circulated, in order to streamline the process.
The Ford automobile industry, from the entrepreneur Henry Ford, implemented in the United States, was the first to make use of the tracks that took the car's chassis to cover the entire factory.
Workers assembled the cars with the parts that arrived in their hands on another conveyor belt. This method of production rationalization was called Fordism.
Fordism
This form of production integrated the theories of North American engineer Frederick Taylor, the Taylorism, which aimed to increase productivity, controlling the movements of machines and men in the production process.
This entire revolution led to the emergence of large industries and the generation of large economic concentrations, which formed the holdings, trusts and cartels.
Inventions of the Second Industrial Revolution
Among the various discoveries and inventions made during the Second Industrial Revolution are:
- new processes of steelmaking, allowing its use in the construction of bridges, machines, buildings, rails, tools etc;
- technical development of production of electricity;
- invention of incandescent lamp;
- emergence and advancement of means of transport (railroad expansion followed by the inventions of the car It's from plane;
- invention of the means of communication (telegraph, telephone, television and cinema);
- advances in chemistry, with the discovery of new substances; the discovery of the multiple use of Petroleum and its derivatives as a source of energy and lubricants; the emergence of plastics; development of weapons such as the cannon and the machine gun; the discovery of the explosive power of nitroglycerin etc;
- in medicine the antibiotics, at vaccines, new knowledge about diseases and new surgical techniques.
To learn all about the Industrial Revolution see the articles:
- Industrial Revolution
- English Industrial Revolution
- First Industrial Revolution
- Third Industrial Revolution
- Phases of the Industrial Revolution
- Causes of the Industrial Revolution
- Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
- Industrial Society
- Industrialization
- Industry
- Queen Victoria
- Industrial Revolution Questions
