ABSTRACT
The complex of events that began the shift from artisan and agrarian societies to economies dominated by manufacturing and machine-made goods is traditionally called the Industrial Revolution. It began in Britain, although these revolutionary changes would cross the Atlantic to take a particular American character within a generation. Much ink has been spilled over the question of whether we should speak of an ‘Industrial Revolution’ of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The word ‘Industrial’ is too narrow, for the changes in this period affected not just the manufacturing sector but home and farm as well. Nevertheless, one of the key characteristics of the period was that half of the British population came to work outside agriculture. Britain’s industrial prowess would allow the importation of food from other countries in the late eighteenth century. Much later, in the late nineteenth century, mechanization and chemical fertilizers would emerge from the industrial sector to dramatically increase agricultural productivity. Although the agricultural sector had previously dominated the economy, from the time of the Industrial Revolution the industrial sector played that role.
