AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain how the **Second Industrial Revolution** expanded European industry from about **1870 to 1914**
- Identify how the **Bessemer process**, **Siemens-Martin open-hearth process**, and **Gilchrist-Thomas process** changed steel production
- Distinguish the First Industrial Revolution from the second wave of industrialization
- Understand why **steel** became central to railways, shipbuilding, construction, machinery, and armaments
- Analyse why **Germany** rose so quickly in late nineteenth-century industry after **1871**
- Connect industrial expansion to wider effects such as economic rivalry, urban change, and military strength

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how the second wave of industrialization expanded industry, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that the **Second Industrial Revolution** took place roughly from **1870 to 1914**
- Identify the importance of new industries such as **steel**, **chemicals**, and **electricity**
- Explain how the **Bessemer process** made steel cheaper and more abundant
- Understand how later steelmaking methods improved quality and widened usable ore supplies
- Distinguish **heavy industry** from earlier textile-centred industrialization
- Explain why **Germany**, especially after **unification in 1871**, challenged Britain in newer industries
- Understand how industrial growth strengthened transport, construction, communications, and armaments
- Analyse how industrial expansion increased competition among European states

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. Why was steel more significant to the late nineteenth century than iron had been earlier?
2. What did the **Bessemer process** change about the cost and scale of steel production?
3. How was the **Second Industrial Revolution** different from the first?
4. Why did Germany become especially strong in heavy industry after **1871**?
5. How did new industrial methods contribute to rivalry between European powers?

## Introduction

The subtopic “Second industrial revolution expanded industry” is really about scale. Earlier industrialization had already introduced factories, coal, steam power, and railways. The later phase, usually dated from about **1870 to 1914**, pushed Europe into a new age of mass production, heavy industry, and science-based manufacturing. On AP European History, this matters because it links the themes of **technological change**, **poverty and prosperity**, and **state power**.

The clearest example is steel. Cheap, abundant steel changed what Europeans could build, how fast they could move goods, and how states measured power. But this was not only a story of invention. It was also a story of finance, education, large firms, and the shift in industrial leadership from a Britain that had pioneered early industrialization to a Germany that excelled in newer sectors.

> **Key Term: Second Industrial Revolution**
> The later phase of industrialization, roughly **1870–1914**, marked by major growth in steel, chemicals, electricity, petroleum, and large-scale heavy industry.

### Why the second wave mattered more than just “more factories”

Students often treat the Second Industrial Revolution as just a later repeat of the first. That misses the main point. The first phase of industrialization was strongly associated with **textiles, coal, iron, steam power, and early factories**. The second phase still depended on those earlier gains, but it shifted industry toward sectors that required bigger investment, more scientific knowledge, and stronger links between banks, engineers, and manufacturers.

> **Key Term: heavy industry**
> Large-scale industry focused on coal, iron, steel, machinery, railways, shipbuilding, and similar capital-intensive production rather than consumer goods.

Heavy industry expanded industry in two ways.

First, it increased the output of the industrial system itself. If a country can cheaply produce steel, it can build more rail track, more locomotives, more ships, more machines, and more factories. Those new tools then raise production elsewhere. This is a chain reaction: cheaper steel leads to more machinery; more machinery leads to more output; more output leads to more investment and trade.

Second, it changed which countries could advance fastest. Early industrialization had favoured Britain because of coal, political stability, capital, and transport. But newer industries rewarded countries that were good at **applied science**, technical education, and coordinated finance. Germany was especially strong here.

A useful comparison is this:

- **First Industrial Revolution:** centred on cotton, steam, iron, and early mechanization
- **Second Industrial Revolution:** centred on steel, chemicals, electricity, petroleum, and mass production

That distinction is a common AP test point. If a question mentions **Bessemer**, **Siemens**, **Krupp**, or industrial rivalry after **1870**, you are in second-wave territory, not early textile industrialization.

> **Key Term: mass production**
> The large-scale manufacture of standardized goods using modern machinery, organization, and high-output industrial methods.
>
> **Test Tip:** In SAQs and LEQs, do not just list inventions. Explain the chain of causation: new process → lower costs → greater output → wider industrial uses → stronger national economy or military.

### Steel and the expansion of heavy industry

Steel became the signature material of the late nineteenth century because it improved on iron in the ways industry cared about most: **strength**, **durability**, and flexibility of use. Iron had already mattered in the first industrial era, but steel could do more and last longer. Once it became cheap enough, it spread quickly into almost every major industrial sector.

The breakthrough came with **Henry Bessemer** in the **1850s**.

> **Key Term: Bessemer process**
> A steelmaking method developed by **Henry Bessemer** in the 1850s that blew air through molten pig iron to remove impurities and make steel much more cheaply.

Before Bessemer, steel existed, but producing it in large amounts was expensive. That meant it could not yet serve as the normal material for huge systems like nationwide railways or modern shipbuilding. The Bessemer process changed that by reducing time and cost. This mattered not because steel was “invented” then, but because steel became available in quantities large enough to remake industry.

Once steel output rose, whole sectors changed:

- **Railways** could use stronger rails and equipment
- **Shipbuilding** shifted toward tougher, longer-lasting vessels
- **Construction** gained a better material for bridges and large buildings
- **Machinery** became more reliable and powerful
- **Armaments** improved, linking industry to military competition

That is why some historians describe the later nineteenth century as an **Age of Steel**.

But Bessemer was not the end of the story. Students often stop there and lose precision. The original Bessemer process was fast and cheap, but it had limitations, especially with certain ores. Later methods improved control and expanded where steel production could grow.

> **Key Term: Siemens-Martin open-hearth process**
> A later steelmaking method associated with **William Siemens** and **Pierre-Émile Martin** that allowed better control over steel quality and could use a wider range of materials, including scrap steel.

The open-hearth process was slower than Bessemer, but that was also its strength. Slower production allowed more control over the final metal. On an exam, this is a good distinction to make:

- **Bessemer** = speed and low cost
- **Open-hearth** = better quality control and flexibility

A third improvement solved another major problem.

> **Key Term: Gilchrist-Thomas process**
> A late nineteenth-century improvement to steelmaking that removed phosphorus from iron, allowing the use of phosphorus-rich ores that earlier methods handled badly.

Why did this matter? Because industrial growth depends not only on machines but also on access to raw materials. If steelmakers can only use certain ores, production stays limited. If a new process allows previously unsuitable ore to be used, industrial capacity expands geographically. That helped parts of continental Europe, especially areas where phosphorus-rich ores were common, participate more fully in steel growth.

So the expansion of industry through steel happened in three connected stages:

1. Cheap steel became possible
2. Better methods improved quality and range of use
3. More ore supplies became usable

That is much stronger analysis than simply saying “Bessemer improved steel.”

> **Test Tip:** A frequent exam error is treating all steel processes as interchangeable. If a question asks how industry expanded, explain the different advantages: Bessemer lowered cost, open-hearth improved control, and Gilchrist-Thomas widened usable ore supplies.

### Germany, Britain, and the shift in industrial leadership

Britain remained wealthy and powerful in the late nineteenth century, so avoid the mistake of writing as if it suddenly collapsed. The better argument is that Britain experienced **relative decline in newer sectors**, while Germany surged ahead in the industries most associated with the second wave.

Germany’s rise after **1871** is one of the most examinable developments in this topic.

> **Key Term: industrial rivalry**
> Competition between industrial powers for output, markets, resources, technology, and national prestige.

German unification mattered because it created a larger, more integrated national market and gave industry a stronger state framework. But unification alone does not explain the change. Germany grew quickly because it was well suited to the needs of late nineteenth-century industry.

Several factors worked together:

- strong coal and iron resources
- excellent technical education
- close links between universities, laboratories, and industry
- large firms in steel, chemicals, and electrical engineering
- financial institutions willing to fund heavy industry

A major example was **Krupp**, a German firm linked to steel, machinery, and armaments. Its importance was not just size but integration. A giant company could coordinate production, invest heavily, and serve both civilian and military demand.

German finance also differed in useful ways from the British model.

> **Key Term: universal banks**
> Banks, especially important in Germany, that combined deposit banking, lending, and investment, helping channel large amounts of capital into industry.

Heavy industry requires enormous fixed investment. Railways, steel plants, and machinery works are not small workshops. Universal banks helped solve that problem by mobilising capital on a large scale and tying finance directly to industrial development.

Germany also became associated with **cartels**.

> **Key Term: cartels**
> Agreements among firms to coordinate prices, output, or markets, especially common in late nineteenth-century Germany.

Cartels could reduce destructive competition and make planning easier, which suited large industrial systems. Their weakness was that they could also restrict competition too much. For AP purposes, the main point is that Germany’s industrial structure often looked more coordinated than Britain’s.

This matters in comparison questions. Britain had early advantages: first industrial lead, global trade networks, coal, iron, and finance. Germany had later advantages in sectors where science and organization mattered more. So if you are asked why Germany challenged Britain, a strong answer would not blame one single factor. It would show the interaction of:

- **new industries**
- **scientific research**
- **bank-industry links**
- **large firms**
- **national integration after 1871**

Steel was only one part of that wider pattern. Germany also excelled in chemicals and electricity, which reinforced the same trend.

### The wider effects of industrial expansion

The second wave did not only expand production. It changed European life and politics.

Economically, larger industrial output supported wider transport and communication systems. Steel, electricity, and chemicals were all linked to growth in railways, tramways, shipbuilding, lighting, and urban construction. Cities became more connected and more active. Nightlife expanded in places such as **London** and **Paris** once electric lighting spread. That is a social effect built directly on industrial change.

Politically, industrial power became tied to national strength. A state that produced more steel, machinery, or electrical equipment could build more infrastructure, armaments, and shipping. That helped turn industrial success into military and imperial competition. By the years before **1914**, industrial rivalry fed broader tension among European powers.

This does not mean steel alone caused imperialism or war. Avoid overly simple claims. But it did make larger navies, stronger rail systems, and more advanced armaments possible. In AP causation terms, industrial expansion was an enabling condition for later power politics.

A final point students often miss is continuity. The second wave changed industry, but it built on the first. Railways, factories, and coal did not disappear. Instead, they were strengthened and extended by steel, chemicals, and electricity. That is the kind of continuity-and-change phrasing AP examiners like.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- The **Second Industrial Revolution** took place roughly from **1870 to 1914**
- It differed from the first industrial phase by focusing more on **steel**, **chemicals**, **electricity**, and large-scale heavy industry
- **Heavy industry** involved sectors such as coal, steel, machinery, railways, and shipbuilding
- The **Bessemer process** made steel much cheaper and more abundant
- The **Siemens-Martin open-hearth process** improved quality control in steel production
- The **Gilchrist-Thomas process** allowed the use of phosphorus-rich ores
- Steel became vital for railways, ships, construction, machinery, and armaments
- The later nineteenth century is often described as an **Age of Steel**
- **Germany** rose quickly after **1871** because of resources, technical education, science-industry links, large firms, and finance
- **Universal banks** and **cartels** helped organise and fund German industrial growth
- Britain remained powerful, but Germany gained ground especially in newer industries
- Industrial expansion increased economic output, strengthened state power, and contributed to rivalry before **1914**

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Second Industrial Revolution
- heavy industry
- mass production
- Bessemer process
- Siemens-Martin open-hearth process
- Gilchrist-Thomas process
- industrial rivalry
- universal banks
- cartels


Second Wave Industrialization and Its Effects - Second industrial revolution expanded industry