Innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution

The Second Industrial Revolution: An Era of Transformation

The Second Industrial Revolution marked a new phase of industrialization that developed during the last decades of the 19th century. During this period, new materials, fuels, engines, and forms of transportation began to replace those that had characterized the First Industrial Revolution.

Chronology: 1870-1900

Science and Technology in the Second Industrial Revolution

The persistence and acceleration of technological progress in the last third of the 19th century were increasingly due to the steady accumulation of useful knowledge. While some of this knowledge aligns with what we call "science" today, much was based on less formal forms of experience and information.

• The Second Industrial Revolution accelerated the mutual feedback between these two forms of knowledge: broadly defined science and technology.
• Inventors like Thomas Edison and Felix Hoffman relied on some findings from formal science, but a great deal more was involved.

As a result, the Second Industrial Revolution extended the rather limited and localized successes of the first to a much broader range of activities and products. Living standards and the purchasing power of money increased rapidly, as new technologies reached into the daily lives of the middle and working classes like never before.

Technological Systems and Their Expansion

The consequence of changing production technology was the rise of complex technological systems. Some rudimentary systems of this nature were already in operation before 1870, including:

• Railroad and telegraph networks
• Gas, water supply, and sewage systems in large cities

These systems expanded enormously after 1870, and a number of new ones were added, with electrical power and the telephone being the most important. The Second Industrial Revolution transformed large technological systems from exceptions into commonplaces.

Scientific Management and Mass Production

Taylorism and Workflow Optimization

Scientific management, also known as Taylorism, is a new theory of management developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor that analyzed workflows. This system breaks every action, job, or task into simple segments that can be easily analyzed and taught. Taylor also introduced time and motion studies for optimum job performance, significantly impacting the rise of mass-production manufacturing.

The Modern Corporation and Industrial Growth

The rise of the modern corporation was an integral part of the Second Industrial Revolution. This important economic and social transformation would not have occurred if business firms had been unwilling to make the large investments necessary to implement the new technologies that drove industrial growth and development.

Furthermore, business firms would have been reluctant to make these investments without the shield of limited liability and the opportunity to spread their risks across diversified portfolios of corporate stocks.

The Role of Firms in Industrialization and Globalization

While crucial for growth, the rise of the modern corporation also created new challenges and problems.