A major acceleration wave occurred around 1900, inspiring independent laws of acceleration

Evidence

Although it is rather pointless to argue about when exactly the strongest phase of acceleration occurred since, on the one hand, technological and organizational innovations are always appearing and the cultural debate about the dynamization of life never quiets down and, on the other, the phases of innovation in the various fields of transportation, production, and communication do not always occur simultaneously, there is nevertheless a broad consensus in the scholarly literature about two significant waves of acceleration. First, it is undisputed that a revolution in speed occurred in the decades before and after 1900 as a result of the industrial revolution and the wide impact its technological innovations had on almost all spheres of life. It is certainly not a coincidence that right about this time (1886 and 1904, respectively) Werner Siemens and Henry Adams each independently postulate a “law of acceleration” in the development of culture. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 175