The
Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the
Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid industrialization in the final third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The First
Industrial Revolution, which ended in the early-mid 1800s, was punctuated by a slowdown in macroinventions before the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870. Though a number of its characteristic events can be traced to earlier innovations in manufacturing, such as the invention of the
Bessemer Process in 1856, the Second Industrial Revolution is generally dated between 1870 and 1914 up to the start of World War I. Advancements in manufacturing and production technology enabled the widespread adoption of preexisting technological systems such as telegraph and railroad networks, gas and water supply, and sewage systems, which had earlier been concentrated to a few select cities. The enormous expansion of rail and telegraph lines after 1870 allowed unprecedented movement of people and ideas, which culminated in a new wave of
globalization. In the same period new systems were introduced, most significantly electrical power and telephones. The Second Industrial Revolution continued into the 20th century with early factory
electrification and the
production line, and ended at the start of the
First World War.