Introduction

The Industrial Revolution is regarded as one of the major stepping stones for human advancement into modern day manufacturing. The Industrial Revolution’s span from the late 19th century to early 20th century proved to be a turning point in how products were made and distributed across the globe. Manufacturing itself evolved from small scale, handcraft-based production to large scale factory systems. What enabled this change were key factors such as power sources, factories, production methods, workers regulations, and income inequality. These factors helped increase efficiency and product output across the manufacturing industry. This chapter dives into how these advancements in manufacturing during the Industrial Revolution came to be, their impact on manufacturing, and how traces of these advancements are still seen across the manufacturing industry today.

Connection to STS

So how does the Industrial Revolution’s impact on manufacturing connect to STS (Science, Technology, Society)? The impact of the Industrial Revolution on manufacturing deeply connects to STS as discoveries such as steam power enabled manufacturers to use it to their advantage in machinery and transportation of goods leading to higher productivity. Similarly the rise in production, increased demand, and societal factors made changes in the way goods were manufactured allowing for factories to rise reorganizing labor and pathing the way for workers health and safety to be noted. Therefore from an STS perspective, the Industrial Revolution’s impacts on manufacturing indeed weren’t just scientific and technological but also influenced parts of society at the time.

Industrial Revolution’s impact on Manufacturing

Steam Power:

The introduction of steam power proved to be a major catalyst in impacting manufacturing in a multitude of ways during the Industrial Revolution. One effect of steam power was that manufacturers didn’t have to rely on water as a power source allowing factories to run continuously for greater productivity. As conducted in a study, comparing steam power to water power, “The differences in this regard are economically significant: among smaller establishments, steam enjoyed a 12 percent productivity advantage over water, whereas among factories, the gain was approximately 20 percent” (Atack, 2008). Outside of just being a power source, steam power also had an influence in the way equipment used for production was developed. Equipment examples such as spinning mules, power looms, steam hammers, and carding machines were all initially powered by water and changed in favor of steam power (or in the case of steam hammers, developed from steam power). Changes made to equipment meant these machines could perform repetitive tasks faster and more consistently laying the foundation for modern industrial production systems seen today. Steam power, specifically the steam engine, also had an influence in the development of countries. In an article examining the Industrial Revolution in the U.S., “In terms of industrial distribution, American use of steam diverged substantially from that in Britain. Whereas steam engines in Britain were used widely in coal mining and textile production, in the U.S., steam engines were used primarily in processing raw materials – in grist mills, flour mills, sugar mills, tanneries, distilleries, sawmills and iron work,” (Rosenbloom, 2025, p. 9). This difference in steam engine use by each country directly influenced their respective economies and how they grew, and in the U.S.’s case, help become an economic powerhouse.

Rise of factories and Lillian Gilbreth:

The Industrial Revolution also had an influence on the formation of the factory system with its lasting impact still seen today as factories across the globe are used by manufacturers for production. Prior to the formation of the factory system, manufacturers were typically decentralized and often split work across homes. Over time in an effort to maximize production, manufacturers in Great Britain began to adopt ‘Complementarity Relationships’ as the basis that influenced what would become the factory system. As expressed by Thomas Geraghty, “The complementarity relationships among investment in machinery, process supervision, and improved quality control flow from four factors: Technological change, New technology embodied in machinery, Capitalist ownership of the new technology, and monitoring costs,” (Geraghty, 2007). Under one centralized roof manufacturers could increase profits by buying new machinery that workers themselves couldn’t pay for, have workers specialize in one task with the machinery increasing efficiency and productivity, and finally track product quality before it was shipped, making factories ideal. Influences of this are still seen today with production line machinery being extremely complex and expensive for an average worker to maintain and factories creating departments dedicated to product quality.

Sticking with factories, a key figure in the development of efficient factory organization was Lillian Gilbreth. Gilbreth was an industrial engineer and psychologist whose work in the early 20th century focused on time-and-motion studies, specifically on improving efficiency. “Based on these studies the Gilbreth’s came up with three points that can increase the efficiency of workers…1. Minimize motion when performing a particular task, 2. Motion and time should be studied incrementally, 3. Increasing efficiency increases the bottom line and job satisfaction,”(Ionescu, 2021). Based on the first point, Gilbreth’s studies would eventually lead to a term known as ‘therbligs’ referring to motions done when a task is made (i.e., search, find, select, grasp, hold, etc.). Unfortunately due to discrimination during her time Gilbreth did not see her work get implemented into factories and instead switched her studies towards home economics and domestic management. Despite this, her work with time-and-motion studies would eventually lead to principles used across the manufacturing industry decades later, today known as Lean Six Sigma, introduced in the early 2000s.

Societal Factors:

With all the changes and growth within manufacturing previously discussed during the Industrial Revolution, some of these changes were also influenced by controversial factors such as income inequality. Income inequality played a role in manufacturing by highlighting how shifts in wealth distribution affected demand and growth in industrial production. As concluded by Jakob Madsen and Holger Strulik in their analysis of the subject, “increasing inequality was a major contributor to the expansion of the manufacturing sector,” (Madsen & Strulik, 2024). How this worked was that  income inequality was driven by agricultural advances that increased land rents relative to workers’ wages allowing for wealth to concentrate with elites. These elites would in turn spend more on manufactured goods, increasing demand, which expanded manufacturing. Despite the controversy around the topic, income inequality’s impact on manufacturing is significant as its impact allowed for innovations in productivity growth to emerge.

Despite income inequality being a factor in manufacturing growth there were also proactive measures taken in favor of workers. One of the most notable was regarding workers’ health and safety. For context, as manufacturing grew, incidents involving numerous hazards such as unguarded machinery, poor ventilation, frequent accidents, etc., showed that these occurrences often led to the expense of workers’ well-being. As Judson MacLaury explains, industrialization led to “dangerous and unhealthy working conditions and frequent serious accidents with resulting economic and social losses prompted calls for government to take action,” (MacLaury, 2004). Investigations by labor bureaus helped fuel a push for government remedies, with early actions such as the Massachusetts Factory Act of 1877 among the first to be implemented. Other actions that took place by highlighting incidents were improvements to factory inspections, workers’ compensation, voluntary safety programs, etc. These actions not only improved workers conditions but brought awareness of the effects of industrialization growth on workers.

Conclusion

Many of the aspects around manufacturing are a result of the lasting impact of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution’s impact on how products were manufactured and distributed was a turning point from how society during the 19th and early 20th centuries handled products. Despite how controversial, key factors such as power sources, factories, production methods, workers regulations and income inequality helped manufacturing scale to larger, more efficient factory systems similar to what’s seen today. Without these advancements and their lasting impacts during the Industrial Revolution, it’s hard to suggest the manufacturing industry would’ve evolved to the level of importance it is today.

References

Atack, J., Bateman, F., & Margo, R. A. (2008). Steam power, establishment size, and labor productivity growth in nineteenth century American manufacturing. Explorations in Economic History, 45(2), 185–198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2007.08.002

Geraghty, T. M. (2007). The factory system in the British industrial revolution: A complementarity thesis. European Economic Review, 51(6), 1329-1350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2006.10.004

Ionescu, S. (2021, March 21). Lillian Gilbreth – how she contributed to the development of modern Lean Six Sigma. SixSigma.us. https://www.6sigma.us/six-sigma-articles/lillian-gilbreth-how-she-contributed-to-the-development-of-modern-lean-six-sigma/

MacLaury, J. (2004). Government regulation of workers’ safety and health, 1877-1917. US Department of Labor, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy. https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/mono-regsafeintrotoc

Madsen, J., & Strulik, H. (2024). Inequality and the Industrial Revolution. European Economic Review., 164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2024.104724

Rosenbloom, J. L. (2025). The Industrial Revolution in the United States: 1790-1870 (No. w34225). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34225/w34225.pdf

AI Use Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the use of ChatGPT-5.2, December 2025 version (https://chatgpt.com/) with access via Clemson University to generate a list of 6 sources related to the Industrial Revolution’s impact on manufacturing on February 22, 2026. It gave me sources from Google and other databases which I used to gather information and apply them to the content within the chapter.