---
title: "History of technology"
chunk: 8/10
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_technology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:00:28.072474+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The steam engine helped drain the mines, allowing access to more coal reserves and increasing coal output. The development of the high-pressure steam engine made locomotives possible; a transport revolution followed. The steam engine which had existed since the early 18th century, was practically applied to both steamboat and railway transportation. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first purpose-built railway line, opened in 1830, with the Rocket locomotive of Robert Stephenson among its first working locomotives.
Manufacture of ships' pulley blocks by all-metal machines at the Portsmouth Block Mills in 1803 instigated the age of sustained mass production. Machine tools used by engineers to manufacture parts began in the first decade of the century, notably by Richard Roberts and Joseph Whitworth. The development of interchangeable parts through what is now called the American system of manufacturing began in the firearms industry at the U.S. Federal arsenals in the early 19th century; it became widely used by the end of the century.
Until the Enlightenment era, little progress was made in water supply and sanitation, and the engineering skills of the Romans were largely neglected throughout Europe. The first documented use of sand filters to purify the water supply dates to 1804, when the owner of a bleachery in Paisley, Scotland, John Gibb, installed an experimental filter and sold his unwanted surplus to the public. The first treated public water supply in the world was installed by engineer James Simpson for the Chelsea Waterworks Company in London in 1829. The first screw-down water tap was patented in 1845 by Guest and Chrimes, a brass foundry in Rotherham. The practice of water treatment soon became mainstream, and the virtues of the system were made starkly apparent after the investigations of the physician John Snow during the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak demonstrated the role of the water supply in spreading the cholera epidemic.

=== Second Industrial Revolution (1860s–1914) ===

The 19th century saw astonishing developments in transportation, construction, manufacturing, and communication technologies originating in Europe. After a recession at the end of the 1830s and a general slowdown in major inventions, the Second Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid innovation and industrialization that began in the 1860s, around 1870, and lasted until World War I. It included the rapid development of chemical, electrical, petroleum, and steel technologies, connected to highly structured technological research.
Telegraphy developed into a practical technology in the 19th century to help run the railways safely. Along with the development of telegraphy was the patenting of the first telephone. March 1876 marks the date that Alexander Graham Bell officially patented his version of an "electric telegraph". Although Bell is noted with the creation of the telephone, it is still debated about who actually developed the first working model.
Building on improvements in vacuum pumps and materials research, incandescent light bulbs became practical for general use in the late 1870s. Edison Electric Illuminating Company, founded by Thomas Edison with financial backing from Spencer Trask, built and managed the first electric power network. Electrification was rated the most important technical development of the 20th century as the foundational infrastructure for modern civilization. This invention had a profound effect on the workplace because factories could now have second and third shift workers.
Shoe production was mechanized during the mid 19th century. Mass production of sewing machines and agricultural machinery such as reapers occurred in the mid to late 19th century. Bicycles were mass-produced beginning in the 1880s.

Steam-powered factories became widespread, although the conversion from water power to steam occurred in England earlier than in the U.S. Ironclad warships were found in battle starting in the 1860s, and played a role in the opening of Japan and China to trade with the West.
Between 1825 and 1840, photography was introduced. For much of the rest of the century, many engineers and inventors tried to combine it and the much older technique of projection to create a complete illusion or a complete documentation of reality. Color photography was usually included in these ambitions, and the introduction of the phonograph in 1877 seemed to promise the addition of synchronized sound recordings. Between 1887 and 1894, the first successful short cinematographic presentations were established.

=== 20th century ===