The Second Industrial Revolution was a rapid development period in the industrial segment in the last decades of the 19th century. This era began in 1820, although it slowed down up to the 1870s and picked up again up to 1900. During this period, there was tremendous transformation of the European society in most aspects of development. Technological Revolution, a term also used to refer to the Second Industrial Revolution, refers to increased productivity and higher quality of products. These improvements depend on the minute, collective, and anonymous changes called micro inventions. However, the major inventions in energy, chemicals, and materials such as steel increased the efficiency of research and growth of the micro inventions. The First Industrial Revolution had introduced a lot of changes to Europe that made the second revolution successful.
Steel, electricity, chemicals, and oil were the principle identifiers of this revolution as new ways of their production and use came to light. According to Merriman (756), the Second Industrial Revolution brought about the rise of new scientific inventions and their products, as well as new markets for the products and more developed industries to handle increased production. There is a significant difference among the inventions of the first and the second Industrial Revolution. The inventions of the Second Industrial Revolution provided more understanding of the dynamics among science and technology, as well as a wider scope of activities and products than the First Revolution. The effects of the Second Revolution included higher living standards in the society as individuals had more access to employment. The value of money also increased as more people gained access to advanced technologies.
The changing nature of the organization of production is also another feature that characterizes the trajectory of Europe during the Second Industrial Revolution. During this time, there was immense growth in some large scale industries throughout Europe. This resulted from the emergence of immeasurable concerns regarding significant economies related to manufacturing (Merriman 821). These concerns involved the relationship among production organizations in terms of fuel consumption, engine sizes, and production capacities. For instance, the sizes of containers used in the chemical and oil industries became a significant factor in the growth of these industries, thus a point to consider when setting up an organization. Some of the economic regulators were organizational in nature, others focused on marketing advantages, while others targeted monopolizing the industry. Large and growing industries had to come up with ways of coping with the changes arising from the Revolution and, therefore, had to organize their production (Merriman 901).
The growth of steel and iron industry during the Second Industrial revolution spearheaded the growth of other industries. New developments in the chemical industry also led to discoveries in productions of medicine, fertilizers for agricultural use, and artificial raw materials in industries. There was also the discovery of economic potential of electricity in power transmission, communication, transport, and its use as a form of industrial power (Merriman 747). Other developments noted in this era involved the transport sector, production engineering, food processing, agricultural techniques, textile industry, and household technology. The rise of technological systems resulted from the changes made in production technology. The whole technological system became a commonplace and not an exception as known earlier. There were many changes that required coordination of the different participating organizations thus the realization that the various components of technology required working together (Merriman 732).
Works Cited
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe: From the French Revolution to the Present. 3rd ed. 2007. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Print.