The Contributions of The Agricultural Revolution, The Scientific Revolution, and The Enlightenment to The Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution was a result of many different things coming together- It was a complete reformation of everyday living of the time. Three things that funneled together to help fuel this were the agricultural revolution, the scientific revolution, and the enlightenment. The agricultural revolution provided the manpower to innovate and the manpower for the labor required, the scientific revolution provided the technology, and the enlightenment provided the then radical ideas that fueled the industrial revolution.

The agricultural revolution was an important contributor to the industrial revolution in that it provided innovations for farming like the seed drill and crop rotation. This allowed the fields to yield more crop, and to regenerate nutrients. Another vital idea that stimulated the agricultural revolution was the enclosure movement. The practice of enclosure was far more efficient than the shared land system that was used before. The overall effect of all of these things created a surplus in food, which caused (by many steps) a surplus of workers.This forced those who could not find a job in the farmlands to move to seek work in the cities such as working in a factory, thus providing the workforce for the industrial revolution. This is exemplified by Britain, as they adopted all of the new technologies and practices in farming which provided a very large workforce, vital to factories.

The enlightenment was very important- it provided the ideals and the motivation for the growth of the industry. The enlightenment caused the movement towards secularism and that religion was not such a large factor in their everyday lives. This led to the rise of skepticism and caused people to go out do experiments with new things which led to the innovation of new technologies. Another fundamental of the enlightenment that was a vital part of the industrial revolution was the idea of capitalism. The idea of capitalism is, simply put, maximizing profits. Many companies embraced this idea and began creating factories in order to start mass production of their goods to gain a large profit. These factories were the building blocks of the industrial revolution, helping fuel mass production, and consumerism.

The scientific revolution was the third pillar of the industrial revolution in that it provided all of the technological innovation to support the growth of the world. The compass was arguably the most important invention of all time- it allowed exploration and colonization, which in turn provided the raw material and the funds to fuel such revolution. Additionally, the invention of the lateen sail and the sternpost rudder made transportation of goods far more efficient and cheaper so that drove shipping prices down and provided factories with cheaper raw materials to work with. For example, countries that didn’t have lower shipping costs tended not to industrialize as quickly as ones that did. This was why Britain was able to industrialize so much earlier than the rest of Europe.

These three things channeled together caused the industrial revolution- the raw material from the agricultural revolution, the ideology and motivation from the enlightenment, and the inventions and innovations from the scientific revolution, and allowed for the revolution that some experts say is still going on today.