page_title: Western culture
section_title: Industrial Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: Western culture / History / Industrial Revolution
caption_attribution_description: English: A beam engine of the Watt type, built by D. Napier and Son (London) in 1859. It was one of the first beam engines installed in Spain. It drove the coining presses of the Royal Spanish Mint until the end of the 19th century. In 1910 it was donated to the Higher Technical School of Industrial Engineering of Madrid (part of the UPM) and installed in its lobby. Español: Una máquina de vapor de tipo Watt, construida por la compañía David Napier &amp; Son Limited (Londres) en 1859. Fue de las primeras máquinas de vapor que se instalaron en España. Hasta finales del siglo XIX, accionó las prensas de acuñación de la Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre. En 1910 fue donada a la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales de Madrid (parte de la UPM) e instalada en su vestíbulo.
context_page_description: Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization, Occidental culture, the Western world, Western society, and European civilization, is the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with Europe. The term also applies beyond Europe to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western culture includes countries in the Americas such as Canada or the United States and Oceania as Australia or New Zealand whose language and demographic ethnicity majorities are of European descent without indigenous influence. Western culture is most strongly influenced by the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures.
  Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of many elements of Western culture, including the development of a democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science and mathematics.
context_section_description: The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools. These transitions began in Great Britain, and spread to Western Europe and North America within a few decades.
  The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. In particular, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth. Some economists say that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was that the standard of living for the general population began to increase consistently for the first time in history, although others have said that it did not begin to meaningfully improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries. The precise start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still debated among historians, as is the pace of economic and social changes. GDP per capita was broadly stable before the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began an era of per-capita economic growth in capitalist economies. Economic historians are in agreement that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in the history of humanity since the domestication of animals, plants and fire.
  The First Industrial Revolution evolved into the Second Industrial Revolution in the transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic progress continued with the increasing adoption of steam transport (steam-powered railways, boats, and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of machinery in steam-powered factories.
caption: A Watt steam engine. The steam engine, made of iron and fueled primarily by coal, propelled the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain and the world.[79]
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