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The advent of The Enlightenment provided an intellectual framework which welcomed the practical application of the growing body of scientific knowledge — a factor evidenced in the systematic development of the steam engine, guided by scientific analysis, and the development of the political and sociological analyses, culminating in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.
Rapid advancements in technology left many skilled workers unemployed, as one agricultural and manufacturing task after another was mechanized. The flight of millions of newly unemployed people from rural areas or small towns to the large cities, and thus the development of large urban population centers, led to unprecedented conditions of poverty in the slums that housed workers for the new factories. At the same time, the bourgeois class, at only a small fraction of the proletariat's size, became exceedingly wealthy.
Marx says that the industrial proletariat will eventually develop class consciousness and revolt against the bourgeois, leading to a more egalitarian socialist and eventually Communist state where the workers themselves own the means of industrial production. See Marxism.
Samuel Slater: An Englishman who sailed to the United States in 1789. Slater built the first successful water-powered textile mill in America.
Lowell Mills : textile mills in the village of Lowell which employed girls who lived in boardinghouses owned by the company. In 1835, Lowell had 22 mills. In 1855 it had 55 mills employing more than 13,000 workers and producing 2.2 million yards of cotton cloth a week.
Interchangeable parts: Parts that are exactly alike. Machines that produced exactly matching parts sped up production, made repairs easy, and allowed the use of lower paid, less skilled workers. However, the new system also required a new style of management, with inspectors to make sure everything was done right. Some workers disliked the close supervision.
Robert Fulton: Invented a steamboat that could move against the current or strong wind. He launched the Clermont on the Hudson River in 1807. The ship had two side paddle wheels which pulled the boat through the water with a steam engine.
Samuel F. B. Morse: Demonstrated the first telegraph in 1837. The machine sent long and short pulses of electricity through a wire. These pulses could be translated into letters to make a message. With the telegraph, it took only seconds to communicate with another city.
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