• What was the Second Industrial Revolution?
• Characteristics of the Second Industrial Revolution
• Causes of the Second Industrial Revolution
• Consequences of the Second Industrial Revolution
• Inventions and scientific advances of the Second Industrial Revolution
• The Third Industrial Revolution

We explain what the Second Industrial Revolution was and its main characteristics. Also, what were its causes and consequences.

Technological changes played a central role in the Second Industrial Revolution.

What was the Second Industrial Revolution?

The Second Industrial Revolution was a period of profound social changes, political and technological that between 1850 and 1914 went through several powers of the time, such as Germany, France, Belgium, Russia, the United States and Japan. Its name is due to the fact that it constitutes a kind of continuation or second act of the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the middle of the 18th century.

As in the First Industrial Revolution, technological changes played a central role in this new period of accelerated change. However, this time, they went hand in hand with a significant variation in the model of economic growth, since the foundations were laid for an internationalization of the economy, that is, a first and very restricted globalization.

This was due to the emergence and widespread use of new and more efficient methods of transport, such as the steamboat or the locomotive, which allowed the transfer of goods and raw Materials from one place to another in a short time.

The Second Industrial Revolution laid the foundation for the technological landscape of the 20th century. Scientific and technical changes and advances accelerated and diversified not only geographically, but also towards many other productive sectors and society.

During this period, and as the capitalism was advancing towards its most intense monopolistic phase (because the large empires Europeans vied with each other for industrial and economic dominance), new materials, new chemicals, and great inventions and machines were invented or discovered.

In this way, the Second Industrial Revolution can be interpreted as the most acute stage of changes and transformations within the complex historical process that was the Industrial Revolution.

Characteristics of the Second Industrial Revolution

Experimentation brought new materials and new sources of energy.

The main characteristics of the Second Industrial Revolution were:

• It was a stage of acceleration or intensification in the changes of the Industrial Revolution, which lasted approximately between 1850 or 1870 and the beginning of the First World War in 1914.
• Local markets expanded and began to internationalize, based on the possibility of moving goods from one place to another quickly. This happened in the framework of the First Globalization.
• New materials were developed (for example, new alloys), new chemical products and new ways of obtaining Energy, in a true era of inventiveness and industrial creation whose changes were only comparable to those of the so-called Scientific revolution 17th century.
• Mass production was imposed as a working model and the great business as a successful economic model, which changed the oligarchic model of property of the means of production that existed in the First Industrial Revolution, since companies allowed the participation of third parties through the purchase of Actions.
• With the business boom, moreover, began the massive application of scientific knowledge and research to the development of new industrial projects. Scientific knowledge began to be very profitable for the bourgeoisie.
• Notable scientific advances were produced that impacted the quality of life and in Western culture, such as the Theory of Evolution of Darwin or the first steps towards modern medicine.
• He grew unemployment and social unrest, at the same time as the rivalry between the great European imperial powers. In addition, new industrial rivals such as the United States or Japan were added to this panorama.

In addition, the Second Industrial Revolution brought with it profound social, political and economic changes, based on three major aspects:

• mechanization. Machines were used to do work previously done by humans. This got some jobs done more quickly and efficiently, but caused unemployment and social unrest.
• Transport. New methods of transporting raw material and passengers over long distances were implemented, such as the railway or the steamship.
• The electrification. The massive use of electricity to enhance work machines, to illuminate and for the first telecommunicationslike the telegraph.

Causes of the Second Industrial Revolution

To a certain extent, the Second Industrial Revolution was a logical next step after the first, since the success of machines in the industrial field in England, and the economic success that it brought with it, would soon be replicated and desired by other rival powers. . But among the reasons that led to this stage of acceleration of changes are also the following:

1. The political triumph of liberalism and the bourgeoisie during the eighteenth century in the old European monarchies, which brought with it new forms of economic association typical of democratic and non-absolutist systems.
2. the competition mercantilist between the European powers, which led to protectionist policies that sought to promote the development of national industry and limited the importation of foreign goods.
3. The imperial expansion of the European powers in Asia and Africa, which allowed the accumulation of raw materials essential for industrial growth.
4. The professionalization of industries and the formation of a working class, which made the industrial world the most important segment of modern economies.
5. Population growth in Europe, the result of technical improvements in agricultural production and the first advances in modern medicine.

Consequences of the Second Industrial Revolution

Both the railway and the ship expanded the possibilities of transportation.

The Second Industrial Revolution brought with it the following consequences in the short, medium and long term:

1. The application of scientific knowledge and technical research to industrial development and serial productivity. This translated into obtaining new materials, new industrial procedures and new economic models.
2. The transport revolution, thanks to the development of revolutionary inventions such as the steam engine and especially the railway, which in 1870 already had more than 100,000 kilometers of tracks laid in Europe and 70,000 in the United States, which made it the main terrestrial means of communication in the world.
3. The consolidation of capitalism as a world economic system, hand in hand with the so-called First Globalization and the internationalization of markets, thanks to the rapid movement of raw materials and manufactured goods over great distances.
4. The large companies became political actors with influence and the ability to exert pressure within the governments which led to economic protectionism and international competition among the industrial imperial powers.
5. The rise of new industrial rivals for Britain, some in Europe such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands, and others outside such as Japan and the United States, increased the economic and geopolitical tensions in Europe that later caused the First World War.
6. The growth of unemployment and social discontent in the working and working classes, as they are displaced by machines and automated procedures. This also caused the massive displacement of European citizens to various countries in America.
7. Great scientific and cultural changes in Western society, hand in hand with new world views such as the Theory of evolution and the origin of species by Charles Darwin.
8. A gigantic urban growth in the main cities of the industrial powers.

Inventions and scientific advances of the Second Industrial Revolution

The first automobiles were created at the end of the 19th century and became popular in the 20th.

The Second Industrial Revolution was prolific in discoveries, inventions and new scientific and technical procedures. Among the most important are:

1. It was discovered and/or gave rise to the massive use of new metals such as steel, zinc, aluminum, nickel, manganese, and chrome.
2. The first artificial dyes were developed from benzol and coal, displacing virtually all natural dyes.
3. There was a gigantic development of explosives to replace traditional gunpowder: nitroglycerin, nitrocellulose, and in 1866 Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, an explosive that revolutionized the military and mining fields.
4. New and powerful fertilizers were invented, such as superphosphates and sodium nitrate, used mostly in agriculture in Europe.
5. Portland cement was invented and played a vital role in the urban growth of the 19th century.
6. The first steam-powered commercial vehicles were invented, after the first steamship (the “Savannah”) crossed the Atlantic in 1819. In 1850, the first exhibition of “steam locomotives” was held in France.
7. In 1864 Louis Pasteur discovered pasteurization, which revolutionized the food industry and also showed that microorganisms imperceptible to the eye were responsible for the decomposition and contamination of food. At the same time, he showed that life did not arise spontaneously, but that living beings must necessarily come from other living beings.
8. In 1866 Jean Villemin showed that tuberculosis is transmitted from one person to another, and in 1882 the microbial agent that causes it was discovered.
9. In 1867 the typewriter was invented, and in 1876 the electric telephone by Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray appeared. In 1878 Thomas Alva Edison invented the first light bulb in history.
10. In 1874 Émile Baudot patented his fast telegraphy system, revolutionizing the existing telegraphy since 1836 (invented by Samuel Morse).
11. In 1880 the bicycle was invented, in 1885 Daimler and Benz built the first gasoline-powered vehicle and in 1895 Peugeot circulated the first vehicle on rubber wheels, a material that Goodyear had managed to vulcanize for the first time in 1839.
12. In 1895 the Lumiere brothers created the first cinematographic apparatus. That same year, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays and learned to use them for medical purposes.
13. In 1897 the Curie couple discovered the chemical element radium.
14. The railway and steamship networks in the world were expanding at their maximum exponent by the beginning of the 19th century. The great trains that linked Europe with the Far East were inaugurated in the same period: the Trans-Siberian and the Orient Express.
15. In 1903 the Wright brothers made the first controlled flight, and in 1906 Alberto Santos Dumont imitated the feat.

The Third Industrial Revolution

The Third Industrial Revolution, also called the Information Revolution, took place in the middle of the 20th century and was led by the United States, Europe, and Japan. It represented a leap forward in the human capacity to handle information and technology, which differentiated it from the First and Second Industrial Revolutions.

Thus, this third stage of technological change was characterized by the so-called TIC: Information and Communication Technologies, as well as by automation at the hands of computers and computer systems. Among the great contemporary advances, the invention of Internet and the rise of satellite communications (a consequence of the incursion of human beings into space), which constitute the main achievements and examples of the Third Industrial Revolution.