The Industrial Revolution began in Manchester, U.K. around 1750. The making of cotton cloth (textiles) was the first industry to be revolutionized by machinery and new methods of mass production. Several British inventors created machines, such as the mechanized loom, for producing cotton thread. The power for the mechanized loom was supplied by the steam engine, invented by James Watt in 1765.

After the first 100 years of the Industrial Revolution these new methods of production were adopted by other nations including the United States, Germany and Japan. More than any other nation U.S. was richly endowed the three resources necessary for rapid industrial growth:

LAND (raw materials) WORKERS (human,energy and skill) CAPITAL (tools, machinery and money for investment).

The Industrial Revolution in the United States dramatically affected every aspect of life, particularly with regard to:

Capitalist system

entrepreneurs

patents

corporations

monopolies

trusts

new industries (steel, oil, etc.)

department stores

mail-order catalogues

Clashes between Business and Labor

Knights of Labor

American Federation of Labor (A.F.of L.)

Great Railway Strike (1877)

Homestead Steel Strike (1892)

Pullman Strike (1894)

mass immigration - 33,654, 803 from 1820 to 1925

reaction to immigration (opposed by unions, Chinese Exclusion Act)

scientific developments and inventions

transportation

public and private morals

political corruption (Boss Rule)

new rich (nouveau riche)

conspicuous consumption

the new poor

Religious developments (opposition to Darwin's "Origin of the Species")

Salvation Army

YMCA and YWCA

Christial Science

Education

high schools

"Normal schools"

Trade schools

graduate schools

elective courses (Harvard)

higher education for African-Americans (Booker T. Washington)

public libraries (Carnegie)

Economic reforms

Communism (Karl marx)

Utopian Socialists

Radical Socialists

Progressive Party

Populist Party

The Grange Movement

Anarchists

Federal Government regulations

Interstate Commerce Act (1887)

Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)

Womens' Rights

suffrage movement (Alice Paul, Ida Tarbell, Susan B. Anthony)

Wyoming (1869)

womens' colleges

Prohibition

WCTU

Carrie Nation

Race relations

Jim Crow Laws

"grandfather clauses"

Plessey v. Ferguson (1896)

lynching

Philosophical developments

laissez-faire

Social Darwinism

The "Gospel of Wealth" (Carnegie, Rockefeller, Horatio Alger)

Turner Thesis (the influence of the frontier)

Journalism

Yellow Journalism (Hearst, Pulitzer)

Muckraking (Upton Sinclair)

Cartoons (Thomas Nast)

mass circulation newspapers

Imperialism

the need for new markets and resources