The Industrial Revolution transformed economies that had been based on agriculture and handicrafts into economies based on large-scale industry, mechanized manufacturing, and the factory system. New machines, new power sources, and new ways of organizing work made existing industries more productive and efficient.
The main causes of the second industrial revolution were due to: natural resources, abundant labor supply, strong government policy, new sources of power, railroads and American inventors and inventions.
A synergy between iron and steel, railroads and coal developed at the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution. Railroads allowed cheap transportation of materials and products, which in turn led to cheap rails to build more roads. Railroads also benefited from cheap coal for their steam locomotives.
Rapid advances in the creation of steel, chemicals and electricity helped fuel production, including mass-produced consumer goods and weapons. It became far easier to get around on trains, automobiles and bicycles. At the same time, ideas and news spread via newspapers, the radio and telegraph.
Historians have identified several causes for the Industrial Revolution, including: the emergence of capitalism, European imperialism, efforts to mine coal, and the effects of the Agricultural Revolution. Capitalism was a central component necessary for the rise of industrialization.
For a small minority of workers, the Second Industrial Revolution introduced white-collar jobs and growth in the middle class. Though it took very little skill to operate a machine, it took a lot of skill to design or fabricate a machine, and many foremen and managers were also needed to oversee production.
The second Industrial Revolution is usually dated between 1870 and 1914, although a number of its char- acteristic events can be dated to the 1850s. It is, however, clear that the rapid rate of pathbreaking inventions (macroinventions) slowed down after 1825, and picked up steam again in the last third of the century.
Secondary Industrial Revolution was a period between 1870-1900 that was developed by the Trans-Mississippi Expansion and available railroads that opened up the country further west which allowed markets to expand and monopolies to form.