"The Industrial Revolution, also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was a period of global transition of human economy towards more efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution, starting from Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840."
The period of rapid growth in manufacturing and technological innovation that occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries, leading to the transformation of society from agrarian to industrial.
"This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanized factory system."
"The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested."
"On a structural level, the Industrial Revolution asked society the so-called social question, demanding new ideas for managing large groups of individuals."
"Visible poverty on one hand and growing population and materialistic wealth on the other caused tensions between the very rich and the poorest people within society."
"These tensions were sometimes violently released and led to philosophical ideas such as socialism, communism, and anarchism."
"The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological and architectural innovations were of British origin."
"The development of trade and the rise of business were among the major causes of the Industrial Revolution."
"The Industrial Revolution influenced in some way almost every aspect of daily life."
"Some economists have said the most important effect of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population in the Western world began to increase consistently for the first time in history."
"GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies."
"Economic historians agree that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in human history since the domestication of animals and plants."
"Eric Hobsbawm held that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s."
"Rapid industrialization first began in Britain, starting with mechanized textiles spinning in the 1780s, with high rates of growth in steam power and iron production occurring after 1800."
"An economic recession occurred from the late 1830s to the early 1840s when the adoption of the Industrial Revolution's early innovations, such as mechanized spinning and weaving, slowed as their markets matured."
"New technologies such as the electrical telegraph, widely introduced in the 1840s and 1850s, were not powerful enough to drive high rates of growth."
"Rapid economic growth began to occur after 1870, springing from a new group of innovations in what has been called the Second Industrial Revolution."
"These innovations included new steel-making processes, mass production, assembly lines, electrical grid systems, the large-scale manufacture of machine tools, and the use of increasingly advanced machinery in steam-powered factories."
"The development of trade and the rise of business were among the major causes of the Industrial Revolution."
"The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, with mechanized textile production spreading to Belgium, the United States, and later textiles in France."