Industrial Revolution – A step to new era
The Industrial Revolution, which took place from the 18th to 19th centuries, was a period during which predominantly agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America became industrial and urban. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the late 1700s, manufacturing was often done in people’s homes, using hand tools or basic machines. Industrialization marked a shift to powered, special-purpose machinery, factories and mass production. The iron and textile industries, along with the development of the steam engine, played central roles in the Industrial Revolution, which also saw improved systems of transportation, communication and banking. While industrialization brought about an increased volume and variety of manufactured goods and an improved standard of living for some, it also resulted in often grim employment and living conditions for the poor and working classes.
The Industrial Revolution began over 200 years ago. It changed the way in which many products, including cloth and textiles, were manufactured. It is called a "revolution" beacuse the changes it caused were great and sudden. It greatly affected the way people lived and worked. This revolution helped to bring about the modern world we know today in many ways.
The Industrial Revolution was a major change in the nature of production in which machines replaced tools and steam and other energy sources replaced human or animal power. The Industrial Revolution began in England in the middle 1700s. During the Industrial Revolution, workers became more productive, items were manufactured, prices dropped, making hard to make items available to the working and middle class and not only the wealthy. Life generally improved, but the Industrial Revolution was also harmful. Pollution increased, working conditions were harmful, and capitalists employed women and young children, making them work long hours for low wages.
The Industrial Revolution began in England for many reasons. In 1700s, Britain's economy was mainly an agricultural economy. Wealthy landowners bought up all the land and enclosed their land with fences allowing them to cultivate larger fields called enclosures. This caused the enclosure movement, which put most small farmers out of work causing them to move to cities. This movement to cities is known as urbanization, which gave Britain a large population of workers. Britain also had many natural resources and an expanding economy to support industrialzation, or the process of developing machine production of goods. The resources needed to provide these goods and services were called factors of production, which included land, labor, and capital (wealth).
New inventions and technology helped to spark the Industrial Revolution by advancing different industries. The textile industry was the first industry to be reformed. Before, cloth was woven at home taking long hours a day. But with these new inventions, cloth was made faster which boosted merchants' profits. In 1733, a machinist named John Kay invented the flying shuttle which was a boat-shaped piece of wood that was attached to yarn and sped back and forth on wheels. In 1764, James Hargreaves invented a spinning wheel that allowed eight spindles to be spun at once. In 1769, Richard Arkwright invented the water frame which used waterpower to spin wheels. Samuel Crompton's spinning mule (1779) made thread stronger and finer, and Edmund Cartwright's power loom (1787) sped up weaving. All of these inventions transformed the textile industry. Transportation was also reformed with inventions of the steam engine by James Watt (1765),the building of the 1st railroad track (1821-1825), and a locomotive called the Rocket built by George Stephenson and his son (1829).
Besides the postive effects, the Industrial Revolution also had negative effects. Because of urbanization, many cities, whose infrastructure system could not keep up with the rapid population growth, were overcrowded with people looking for jobs. England's cities lacked decent housing, sanitary codes, education, and police protection. Many workers of the working class lived in small, dirty shelters where sickness was widespread. With the introduction of steam, factory conditons became worse. Machines injured workers. Many factory owners wanted to get the cheapest labor possible. To do this, factory owners hired workers, mostly women and children because the were the cheapest labor, so they could work long hours for low wages. As the working class saw little improvements in living and working conditions, the middle class, made up of skilled workers, professionals, factory owners, and other well do to people, saw improvements in their lives. The middle class was now able to afford things that the wealthy only had acess to, such as servants.
In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution created a major gap between the rich and the poor. Many reformers felt that the government needed to play an active role to improve the standard of living for the poor. Many ideas and philosophies were created as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. An economic system, called socialism, grew during the 1800s as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. It called for more state influence, equal rights, and an end to inhumanity, which stood strongly opposite to individualism and laissez-faire politics. Laissez-faire philosophy (capitalism), which was first started by Adam Smith, suggested that owners of industry and business set working conditons without the government intervening. Other social movements, including communism, a form of complete socialism where all means of production would be owned by the people leaving a small number of manufacturers to control wealth, which was proposed by Karl Marx, and utilitarianism, which judged ideas, institutions, and actions based on their utility and beleived government actions should promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people, was introduced by Jeremy Bentham but led by John Stuart Mill.
The Industrial Revolution, like the French Revolution, left a permanent mark on society. Life in the 18th century changed dramatically causing classes to shift, wealth to increase, and nations to begin assuming national identities. The Industrial Revolution caused the world to face many social consequences and economic changes that still effect us today. The Industrial Revolution is known as one of the important events in history today.