NUTR 214 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Henry Bessemer, Michael Faraday, Thomas Edison
8 Aug 2018
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02-12-2018: Cultural and Economic Revolutions (mid 19th century to WW1)
• In Barcelona the old walls were demolished in the mid 19th century and a man named
Ildefons Cerda designed the large expansion district, a grid of 550 blocks to maximize
space for tram traffic and light
• In Paris Georges-Eugene Haussmann was commissioned by Napoleon III to tear down
Paris’ old streets and to replace them with broad boulevards to make the city more
beautiful and to prevent narrow spaces for barricades
• In Vienna the Emperor Franz Joseph ordered the old fortifications surrounding Vienna’s
city centre to be demolished because they obstructed communication and movement
between the centre and the suburbs, and the space became known as the Ringstrasse
wide boulevards
• These trends show the effect of urbanization simulated by economic growth in Europe
during the 19th century
• The second Industrial revolution occurred in the later 19th century throughout western
Europe and the US, with less effect throughout South and Eastern Europe and Japan
• Based on steel, electricity, chemicals, and petroleum
• Steel is harder and more malleable than Iron, but couldn’t have been produced in large
quantities, until English inventor Henry Bessemer invented the Bessemer Convertor
which removed impurities from steel but was still brittle steel. This machine was
superseded by another machine
• Electricity was built upon by men like Michael Faraday and Thomas Edison which
allowed Electricity to be widely used in many applications such as tram ways, lighting,
powering elevators (making high rise buildings possible) and trains and telephones
• Chemicals were used in many purposes like dyes, led by German companies (controlled
90% of the market) while British companies led the way in Soap and cleaning solutions
• Petroleum: the invention of the internal combustion engine which was more efficient
and didn’t need to be stoked unlike steam engines, so it was adopted by navies and etc.
The Automobile also relied on petroleum (invented in Germany in 1886) but was
expensive until the Model T was mass produced in 1908. The Airplane also relied on
petroleum
• All of these inventions were powered by urbanization, which increased the population
of cities, a hallmark of industrialization
• Another hallmark of industrialization was the increase of consumption as more people
had money to spend
• Another hallmark was the deflation of prices due to the opening of the American
prairies (due to ports and railways) which meant cheaper and more American products
into European markets. European Governments responded to this by abandoning free
trade and putting up tariffs (except Britain, this ended the liberal economic ideals of the
19th century). This deflation also led to increased working-class agitation and formation
of unions. In addition, since profit margins were squeezed, only the largest businesses
