The Primary Cause of the Industrial Revolution
The causes of the industrial revolution are a matter of some dispute among historians, some of whom claim that it was due to the Atlantic economy with its slave trade that provided cheap labor, in contrast with others who insist that inventions, consumers, factories, or other factors were more operative (Stearns 33). Still other historians view the industrial revolution as ôan outgrowth of social and institutional changes wrought by the end of feudalism in Great Britain after the English Civil War in the 17th centuryö (ôIndustrial Revolutionö). In fact, the complexity of the environment leading up to the industrial revolution makes it difficult to identify a primary cause of the revolution. However, there are several emphases that deserve consideration. Adam Smith offered the theory that ôstressed the importance of vigorous economic competition free from government controls as a means of generating innovation and growing prosperityö (Stearns 33). Brinley Thomas argued that an energy crisis arising in Britain due to a population explosion forced the country into the industrial revolution to keep it from being dependent on foreign sources of organic energy (i). Historian James Burke, in his PBS series ôConnectionsö and book of the same name, suggested that Benjamin Huntsman, a clock-maker from Doncaster, northern England, helped to bring about the industrial revolution by improving the metal that watch springs were made ofùforging better steel, as a matter of fact (Burke 139). An assessment of the proposed causes lends the most credence to BurkeÆs assertion that the clock-maker was indeed the catalyst for the industrial revolution.
Although other contributing factors facilitated the revolution, it was the creation of steel that made it possible to build manufacturing machinery of the size, weight, and durability necessary to build industry, automate manual functions,...