The Industrial Revolutions

In the mid-19th Century, two new industrial developments were underway. In the UK and US, new discoveries were made for the refining of crude petroleum into numerous useful oils. Meanwhile, in France and Germany, engineers were starting to produce the first commercially viable internal combustion engines. Together, these two breakthroughs would open up a world of possibilities and, in time, put an end to the Steam Age.If you’re in the Boston area, be sure to catch Dave’s upcoming Mill Talk at the Chares River Museum of Industry and Innovation on Tuesday, November 15th! Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mill-talk-from-textile-workers-to-rideshare-drivers-tickets-425845614697

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Electric power has become a staple of our daily lives. In this episode, we’ll discuss how it was made possible. Topics covered include: The rise of the modern engineer and the many technological breakthroughs made in the late 19th Century; The life of Thomas Edison; The development of the lightbulb; The spread of electrical distribution; and The War of the Currents.Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/INDREVPOD – Enter promo code INDREVPOD for 83% off and 3 extra months free!

It is simply impossible to imagine life today without the mass-production of steel and rubber, made possible during the Technological Revolution. In this episode, we’ll discuss the inventions of the Bessemer converter and the Siemens-Martin process for steel making, the expanding steel empire of Alfred Krupp in Germany, and the efforts of Alexander Holley and Andrew Carnegie to make the U.S. the global leader in steel production. We’ll also talk about how steel was adopted for bridges, skyscrapers, and more. Finally, we’ll turn to the expanding uses of rubber, how rubber companies cultivated the market, and how they exploited the Global South to get it.Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/INDREVPOD - Enter promo code INDREVPOD for 83% off and 3 extra months free!

More so than in the First Industrial Revolution, the Second Industrial Revolution saw big changes in consumer markets. Thanks to mail-order catalogs, dry goods palaces, and new department stores, consumers had more options than ever before. Whether it was clothing, furniture, grooming products, cameras, musical instruments, processed food, or bottled soft drinks, people from all backgrounds could buy stuff they didn’t used to have available to them. And with more disposable income, lower prices, and increasingly-creative advertisements targeting them, buy stuff they did.Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/INDREVPOD - Enter promo code INDREVPOD for 83% off and 3 extra months free!

In this episode, we talk about the many changes to American life brought about by the railroads in the late 19th Century. Topics include: New construction tools like dynamite; George Pullman’s sleeper cars; Railroad tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay Gould; The development of modern corporations; Innovations in time management; The growth of the American beef industry; and The spread of consumer catalogues.Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/INDREVPOD - Enter promo code INDREVPOD for 83% off and 3 extra months free!

A quick introduction to the Second Industrial Revolution. Become a patron of the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod

In the mid-19th Century, scientists would upend everything human beings understood about themselves and the world around them, and they would drive that world forward into a second industrial revolution. In this chapter we discuss the new fields of genetics and evolutionary biology, the philosophy of Positivism, the development of thermodynamics, the discovery of the electromagnetic field, and the births of new technologies for electrical engineering.

In an age of expanding railroads, steam-driven ocean liners, transnational telegraphs, and more, the world experienced its “First Wave of Modern Globalization.” In this episode, we discuss the ways it played out in the mid-19th Century, including massive waves of migrations, gold rushes, remittances, trade, foreign investment, international cooperation efforts, missionaries, the new tourism industry, world’s fairs, and more.To support the podcast on Patreon – and to get access to the ad-free stream and footnotes – go to https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod.

In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, human beings were becoming increasingly aware of the things that united them and the things that divided them, as they identified themselves more and more along the lines of nationhood. In this episode, we discuss that push-and-pull as it started in the 19th Century, with special attention paid to Italy, Germany, and India.