Revolucion Industrial

First Industrial Revolution vs. Second Industrial Revolution
This analysis constitutes a synthesis of the changes that took place in France from the late end of the XVIII century until the beginning of the First World War, as a direct consequence of the First and Second Industrial Revolution.

By Industrial Revolution I mean the process by which the western countries, following England as apioneer in this major change, replaced an economy based on land hand labour by another raised by industry and the manufacture.

This Industrial Revolution has been historically divided in two stages. The first one characterised by the apparition of high productive machines that allowed the textile industry be highly productive and profitable, the use of Coal as a new energy source, and therailway made up of iron. The second staged was marked by the invention of electricity and the apparition of petroleum, the automobile and the birth of modern capitalism with a new concept of private enterprise.

A revolution means a radical and hasty change or transformation with respect to an immediate past. A revolution represents a changing idea that emerges from the circumstances at the moment,which can be economic, religious or political.

Before I go on with this topic, the first thing that I should make clear is that in France did not happened such thing as a revolution (at least in the fist period), but instead, a progressive and gradual change from an agricultural economy towards an industrial one. By the end of the XVIII century, France was still an agricultural economy.
FirstIndustrial Revolution
Social-demographic-political context

As I have already mentioned, it was not a revolution but a process, in which was a key point the progressive exodus of the population from the countryside to the centre of work in the cities, specially in the north of the county.

The main factors that influence the industrialization of this period was a low rate of birth incomparison to the rate of mortality, which at some point almost reached the same level. This situation stopped the growth of the French Society and lead to an aging of the population.
Also, another factor of the slowness of the industrialization was the sluggish agricultural development in France, caused by, among others, the lack of interest of the landowners on this evolution, the predominance of thesmall lands after the French Revolution and the lack of promotion of the famous “enclosures” on the properties.

In Paris, however, there were the proper conditions to promote an industrial revolution, however, this was not possible due to a rigid feudal monarchic regime.
Innovations

Nevertheless, after 1830, begun a pro-business period by the hand of Louis-Philippe and the SecondRestoration.

The businessman of the period, after travelling to England, came back to France full of new techniques and procedure to industrialize the familiar rural textile industries into big scale city industries. It was in 1747, when John Kay installed the first flying shuttle in Paris, whose success expanded to rest of the country, especially to Normandy and to Alsace.

This new machine,along with mechanic cottoners and spinners, were possible thanks to the steam engine. Not only this invention favoured the textile industries, but also transport, with the steam ship and the rail transport.

These new ways of transports were also possible due to the apparition of Coal, and the advances of the metal industry, which found a way to remove carbon from iron to create steel. Also,another major innovation was the substitution of the wooden railways by iron ones.

However, in France, there were few steam machines, although they suffered a fast grow during the XIX century. Also, as there was a predominance of the small and medium parcels, the new industries could not find enough demand.

Finally, with the apparition in the 40’s of the XIX century of the communism, the...