The Industrial Revolution was a period in England from about 1760 to 1840 during which manufacturing by machines in large factories replaced traditional production using simple hand tools in small shops and homes. The dominant industry of the early years of the Industrial Revolution was textiles, but it then spread to many other types of products, including iron, machinery, chemicals, cement, glass, paper, mining and agriculture.
The Industrial Revolution occurred as a result of a confluence of factors, including continuing advances in technology, a spirit of entrepreneurship, growing international trade opportunities, and government support. Among them was the invention of the steam engine, which allowed factories to power their machinery by burning coal to produce steam instead of using water wheels beginning in the late eighteenth century and thus eliminate the necessity of being located next to rivers.
The Industrial Revolution soon spread to the U.S., beginning with the start of production in 1793 by that country's first water-powered textile mill. It then began spreading into continental Europe in the early nineteenth century, first with the establishment of machine shops in Belgium. This spreading occurred despite British prohibitions on the export of the technology, machinery and skilled workers and because of the huge profit potential.
The Industrial Revolution had massive and pervasive economic, political, cultural, and environmental effects. Although human activity has long affected the natural environment, the Industrial Revolution led to an acceleration of such effects, including from the massive mining and burning of coal to power the steam engines. The environment was also affected by the population explosion that simultaneous resultant expansion of agriculture, which resulted in a rapid increase in deforestation.
The term industrial revolution (spelled without capital letters) is used more broadly to categorize several different eras of industrialization according to the dominant new technology. They include the mechanization industrial revolution of the eighteenth century, the electrification industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century and the digital industrial revolution of the mid-twentieth century.