The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution created an enormous increase in the production of many kinds of goods. Some of this increase in production resulted from the introduction of power-driven machinery and the development of factory organization. Before the revolution, manufacturing was done by hand or simple machines, mostly in homes. Power-driven machines replaced handwork, and factories developed as the best way of bringing together the machines and the workers to operate them.
As the Industrial Revolution grew, private investors and financial institutions were needed to provide money for the further expansion of industrialization. Financiers and banks thus became as important as industrialists and factories in the growth of the revolution. For the first time in European history, wealthy business leaders called capitalists took over the control and organization of manufacturing.
Excerpt adapted from the "Industrial Revolution" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999