Since the advent of man, the human race has gone through many changes throughout history. One of the greatest and most crucial changes was the Industrial Revolution of Great Britain. Although the Industrial Revolution did have a few drawbacks, the positive outcomes of the Revolution far outweighed the negative effects. It pushed Great Britain fifty years ahead of other European countries and morphed the country into one of the strongest nations of its time. The Revolution improved the overall state of Great Britain mainly through the innovation and invention of new technologies, improvement in communication and transportation, and enhancing the lifestyles of the British commoner.
During the time period of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain saw rapid change. Many new inventions and innovations drastically improved both the economic state of Britain and the lives of the people. The introduction of better farming practices and inventions of new farming tools such as the wheat drill, which was a “sowing device that positioned and covered seeds in the soil” , made farming a lot more efficient and required less human labor. As a result people moved to cities in search of jobs, thus providing a large workforce for factories. During the industrial revolution “many people left their rural communities to work in towns and cities...working in a factory” . These factories became the powerhouses of the industrial revolution. “Never before had people been put to work in such a well-organized way” as they had been in factories. This new method of manufacturing goods exponentially increased the economy of Britain as new machines were introduced. These new machineries enabled cheaper labor and mass production of goods at lower costs, a...
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... Heath, 1983. Print.
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In Britain, industrialization changed the lives of workers in many ways. One way workers lives changed is being able to earn higher wages. They could make more money in factories than on farms. Wi...
Introduction The industrial revolution took place between 1750 and 1850 all round the world. In this essay it describes the changes made in Middlesbrough in this period and how the managed to cope with the surge of people coming into Middlesbrough. Everything changed in Middlesbrough in the Industrial Revolution like mining, transport, agriculture and even technology. Population grew at great rate as there was plenty of work and cheap labour was readily available.
A growing population resulted in a greater demand for Great Britain. They were the first to start the Industrial revolution. With their invention of the steam engine transportation of goods and people boomed, railroad, canals, etc. which resulted in a new class system. Before people lived in small communities and their lives revolved around farming, but with the start of the revolution more people and laborers moved to the city which had become urban and industrialized. New banking techniques such as corporations, partnerships, credit, and stocks were invented. Everything used to be made in people’s homes using handmade tools, yet now everything is done in factories using mass production. The three major materials cotton, coal, and iron were the up and coming new products used during the industrial revolution. Cotton was used for the textile industry, coal for steam power, and iron for the new types of transportation. There was also an improvement in living standards for some, but the poor and working people had to deal with bad employment and living conditions. When the laborers moved to the cities clocks and
The Industrial Revolution was a fundamental change in the production of goods that altered the life of the working class. Similar to most other historical turning points, it had skeptics, or people that doubted the change, and fanatics, people who saw the value in the change being made. The Industrial Revolution and the period that followed shortly after highlight these varying opinions, as people were more conflicted than ever about the costs of industrialization. While industrialization started in England as an attempt to capitalize on the good fortune they had struck, it quickly developed into a widespread phenomenon that made the production of goods more exact and controlled by higher level people. Many industries, such as the cotton and textile businesses, were previously run through organizations called “cottage industries”.
The industrial revolution was the most important, which started around the eighteenth century towards the nineteenth century in Europe. This great event was the fastest spreading event in human history. The capacity of economy and population growth was unexpected especially at the areas in which it flourished. The industrial revolution benefited almost everyone around the world and brought about new social classes, large cities and many new innovations including medical discoveries especially in Britain as it based it is scientific innovations on experiments and practical work rather than theories and logic.
... The Industrial Revloution had both positive and negative effects during this period of time. Some of the positive effects included: new invention , migrations , increased trade and transportation of goods , and greater productivity. A few of the negative effects were harsh labor conditions , high death rates, and poverty. The Industrial Revolution transformed England from an ordinary country to being the Mother of the Industrial Revolution during the 1780's.
The Industrial Revolution in Britain’s history is marked as the period of great development that led to the modern era of growth, improved living standards and technology. Moreover, this revolution was not just limited to Britain; it affected the rest of Europe and America in the same positive manner. Due to the Industrial Revolution’s success in many countries, it is now commonly cited as the surest way for a country to develop. In economics, goals of a developed country are high production of goods, high Gross Domestic Product (GDP), low unemployment and sustained growth; during an Industrial Revolution all these are achieved. However, despite the main goal of IR to improve living standards for the population, the actual success when weighed against the social cost is debatable. It is accepted that IR improved the living standards of many; it created a new class, which Marx called the “bourgeoisie”, who had control over wealth, decisions and helped improve the lives of many others. However, many historians view this new class as “rapacious landlords and conscienceless capitalist[s]” [9] who exploited the working class for their own benefit. For a majority of “the working class… ‘Industrial Revolution’ … must have appeared… as a gigantic and cruel experiment, which, insofar as it was affecting their house, their health, their subsistence and their pleasure, was proving a calamitous failure” [9]. Therefore, this group will be examined to determine more general effects of IR on the society.
And it is here, with 289 steam engines pumping and steaming around England that we'll leave the story of the Industrial Revolution-half-completed, you might say. The nineteenth century saw the exporting of the Industrial Revolution to Europe in the decades after 1830, and the explosion of factory-based, technology driven manufacture. The Age of Absolutism and the waning years of the Enlightenment saw Europe just beginning a new phase in its history, one that would irreperably severe it from the traditions and certainties of the past.
The Industrial Revolution was a time of immense changes that occurred in the manufacturing process, transportation means, and economy of the agriculture, textile, and metal industries in England, turning it into “the workshop of the world”
A major cause for the Industrial Revolution was the enormous spurt of population growth in England. The increase in population meant that there were more people in surplus from agricultural jobs, and they had to find work in industrial factories. Enclosure brought forth a great increase in farming production and profits. Farming was improved through the use of crop rotation, enclosures, and the division on farms across England. Crops that were grown consisted of turnips, barley, clover, wheat. This improvement in farming caused a population explosion, which soon led to a higher demand for goods. The new means of production demanded new kinds of skills, new regulation in work, and a large labor force. The goods produced met immediate consumer demand and also created new demands. In the long run, industrialization raised the standard of living and overcame the poverty that most Europeans, who lived d...
“Revolutions are the locomotives of history” (Karl Marx). The concept of how far we’ve progressed in the past couple of centuries is hard to grasp. A revolution is defined as an instance of revolving and I think this quote from Karl Marx sums up the significance of revolutions in relevance to us as the human race; they pull us forward and allow us to progress. It’s whether or not these progressions are beneficial or not that makes or breaks the usefulness of a revolution. Although the industrial revolution in Britain had its ups and downs, it ultimately paved the road for Britain to become the world power it is today. There is much discussion about how, or why, the Industrial revolution started in Britain. I contribute this to three main attributes of Britain; the scientific and agricultural revolution, the cheap energy economy, and their social structure.
Major bias exists in discussion of the Industrial Revolution even among its contemporaries. Thus, it is quite impossible to determine empirically whether industrialisation is best described as detrimental or beneficial. Indeed, industrialisation radically changed the way of life in Britain and all of Europe, but the varying changes are intertwined and not able to be separated and compared fairly. Complex change such as this cannot be dissected and scrutinised for good versus bad; the industrial revolution is both and it is neither. It cannot be
...not on governments, but on men of initiative, determination, ambition, vision, resourcefulness, single-mindedness, and (not infrequently) good, honest greed” (117). The Industrial Revolution, led by Great Britain, greatly changed the existing attitude of powerlessness towards nature to one of power because now people were able to produce enough goods and food to support the expanding population. The ability to produce a surplus that arose from the ongoing industrialization meant that people no longer had to worry over nature and its effects on the economy. The Industrial Revolution led by Great Britain radically changed Europe's social and economic ways of life and provided the impetus for the tremendous progress of the 19th century.
Horn, Jeff, Leonard N. Rosenband, and Merritt Roe Smith. Reconceptualizing the Industrial Revolution. Dibner Institute Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010.
Great Britain was the first country to experience industrialization due to its abundant natural resources such as coal and iron, immense expansion throughout the world and subsequent economic growth from trade, and its governmental and financial strength. The industrial revolution was fast and maintained strength in Great Britain, whereas other Western countries experienced industrialization much more gradually and with more difficulty, due to political, social, and economic instability.