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Second Industrial Revolution

Historical And Literary Periods
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The late 19th-century period of accelerated industrial development featuring new technologies like electricity, steel production, and petroleum. Extended industrialization and intensified its social impacts.

Detailed Definition
The Second Industrial Revolution inspired poetry grappling with intensified technological change and social transformation. Poets documented accelerated modernization. This period appears in poetry through depictions of advanced technologies and industrial processes, explorations of rapid social change, documentation of working-class experience intensified, environmental concerns, and engagement with modernity's accelerated pace, establishing second industrial revolution poetry as crucial to understanding contemporary technological anxiety.
Example
Example in poetry:
The Second Industrial Revolution (late 19th-early 20th century) saw poetry grapple with new technologies—electricity, steel, mass production—and the resultant social issues like urbanization and the alienation of the worker; Rudyard Kipling’s poems often celebrated the might of the British Empire and the efficiency of industrial and engineering feats, a positive view of the Second Industrial Revolution; A poem could use imagery of assembly lines, electric lights, and skyscrapers to symbolize the speed and scale of the modern world created by the Second Industrial Revolution; T.S. Eliot's early work reflects the social fragmentation and spiritual decay in the mechanized, over-populated city, a critical response to the conditions of the Second Industrial Revolution; Poets could employ a harsh, metallic vocabulary and irregular rhythms to capture the noise and dehumanizing aspects of factory labor; The poem might contrast the efficiency of the new machines with the decreasing value of individual craftsmanship, a critique stemming from the Second Industrial Revolution.
Additional Notes
The Second Industrial Revolution (c. 1870–1914) brought rapid technological progress and urban expansion, which profoundly affected poetic themes. Writers like Thomas Hardy and Gerard Manley Hopkins reflected on industrial alienation, spiritual crisis, and environmental change. Poetry from this period often contrasted mechanical modernity with the loss of rural innocence, anticipating later modernist concerns about dehumanisation.
Also Known As
Second Industrial Revolution Period Technological Revolution
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