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The Second Industrial Revolution: Steel, Chemicals & Electricity

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A different revolution, not more of the same

The first industrial revolution ran on coal, iron, steam and cotton, and its innovations came largely from skilled craftsmen tinkering with practical problems. The second, from roughly 1870, ran on steel, chemicals, electricity and petroleum, and its innovations came from trained scientists in laboratories. The Bessemer converter and open-hearth process made steel cheap enough for rails, ships, bridges and skyscrapers. German chemical firms turned coal tar into synthetic dyes, then fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. Electricity freed factories from the constraint of a central steam shaft and lit cities. Internal combustion arrived at the end of the century and reorganized the next one.

The corporation and the scale of capital

The new industries needed capital far beyond a family firm’s reach, so the joint-stock corporation with limited liability became standard, separating ownership from management and creating a class of professional managers. Firms combined into cartels and trusts — most systematically in Germany, where they were legal and encouraged — to control prices and output. Mass production, and later the assembly line, lowered unit costs and made possible the department store, the mail-order catalogue and advertising. This is where the modern consumer economy begins, and it belongs in essays about social as much as economic change.

Consequences that reach outside the factory

Three follow directly. Imperial competition intensified: industrial economies wanted rubber, oil, copper and captive markets, and steel-hulled steamships, telegraphy, quinine and machine guns made conquest cheaper — technology as a cause of the New Imperialism, not merely its result. Germany overtook Britain in steel and led the world in chemicals and electricals by 1914, which reshaped the balance of power and helped drive the naval race. And mass society emerged: white-collar employment grew, department stores and popular newspapers spread, and literacy and leisure created the audience that mass politics in Unit 7 would address.

Tip

A one-line contrast worth memorizing: the first industrial revolution was made by craftsmen solving practical problems, the second by scientists in corporate laboratories. Germany’s technical universities and research labs are the reason it led the second and had been a follower in the first.

Worked example

Briefly explain ONE way the second industrial revolution differed from the first, and explain ONE consequence for international relations before 1914.

  1. 1.Name the difference in the source of innovation rather than only in the list of products.
  2. 2.The first drew on craft experiment; the second on systematic science, with corporate and university laboratories producing synthetic chemicals and electrical engineering.
  3. 3.Identify the country the shift favored and give evidence.
  4. 4.Germany, with its technical universities and research-based firms, overtook Britain in steel output and led in chemicals and electricals by 1914 — a shift in relative industrial power that fed naval competition and alliance rivalry.
Answer: The second industrial revolution differed in where innovation came from: the first was driven largely by craftsmen improving practical machinery, while the second was driven by trained scientists in corporate and university laboratories, producing synthetic chemicals, electrical engineering and cheap steel. The consequence for international relations was a shift in relative power — Germany’s technical education and research-based firms let it overtake Britain in steel output and lead in chemicals and electricals by 1914, which underwrote both the naval race and the broader sense of insecurity behind the alliance system.
Checkpoint

Cheap steel produced by the Bessemer and open-hearth processes was most significant because it —

Checkpoint

The spread of limited-liability joint-stock corporations mattered chiefly because it —

Answer the 2 checkpoints as you read.

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