The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to the rapid industrialization of many cities in England and the rest of the United Kingdom. This rapid industrialization led to many new machines that increased efficiency and created a lesser need for workers. The workers of Leeds, England feared the repercussions of such a lesser need for workers, so they petitioned to their factory owners and managers, pleading them to lessen the use of machines. The factory owners replied claiming that everyone would benefit from their machines. Even though both of the two groups backed up their position with good reasoning and facts, the factory workers’ arguments were more solid in their defense, both presenting numbers and very real truths in their evidence …show more content…
They presented the numbers of people immediately unemployed due to machines, which already are extremely high, let alone the idea the children that will grow up without jobs. They estimated that each of the workers left without a job had a son who would have been placed into an apprenticeship for the same type of work as their father. With the lack of jobs, there would also be a lack of apprenticeships, drastically increasing the number of lost jobs. With their children locked out of prospective jobs, the factory worker fear that their children will not be able to learn a decent way to work, and, when left idle, resort to criminal activity. They also state that they cannot train for another skill set because they need to care for their families. In this effort, factory workers are pleading their former employers to limit the use of machines so that they can provide for their families and secure the future of their children. However, the business responded only with personal gain in mind. The claim that everyone would benefit from the use of machines was not true for the workers for a long time. The business owner's personal interest clouded their judgements with views of vast wealth, but they missed the idea that there was likely starving children paying for their greed. The factory workers argument was based mainly in fact, whereas the business owners argument was based on mere speculation on the success of their industry. The workers represented the greatest number of people, and if the greater of the two did not benefit from machinery, repercussions would have been greater if they began to suffer. Therefore, their argument is more important and supported than that of their former
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Show MoreThe Industrial Revolution began in England during the late 1700s, and by the end of its era, had created an enormous amount of both positive and negative effects on the world in social, economic, and even political ways. The revolution began to spread across the world, raising the standard of life for the populations in both Europe and North America throughout the 1800s. However, even with all of its obvious benefits, its downsides are nonnegotiable, forcing workers into horrendous living and working conditions, all inside of unkempt cities. While some might argue that Industrialization had primarily positive consequences for society because of the railroad system, it was actually a negative thing for society. Industrialization’s
Working conditions in the Industrial Revolution were very harsh. It was a time when people wanted mass amounts of production and were not concerned about how things got done as long as they got done. Chadwick and Sadler both took initiative to try to change and protect workers’ rights. As worker’s health became more public, people began to realize how bad they were suffering, the Parliament knew they had to make changes. The Parliament put in many acts and laws that would limit work hours and give workers more rights and better health.
The introduction of new technologies was a double-edged sword in forming society. On one note, inventions like the phonograph, or the electric dynamo brought entertainment and commonplace items to the middle class, as well as household appliance to today's society. Another benefit, included the shift from steam engines to that of internal combustion, seen in automobiles (500). On another side, factories became more efficient by means such as the open-hearth process used in steel mills, leading to lower wages, and longer hours for workers (500). Although the first example has provided today’s society with modern appliances, the latter was more significant during the early 19th century. Now that production lines were more prominent, workers no longer needed to be skilled in multiple jobs, and in turn they were easily replaced by those willing to work for the lowest price.
The Industrial Era enabled wealth, prosperity, and advancement in American society. But behind the wealth of a few, the new skyscrapers lining big cities, and the influx of new people, the Industrial Era possessed many dark underbellies, such as labor. Factory owners and industry giants treated their employees poorly, and subjected them to long hours, crowded workspace, and dangerous conditions. This is best exemplified in the New York City’s Triangle factory fire. Often times the middle class reformers, the Progressives, are remembered for their work to ameliorate the working class. These supporters worked hard to cause change, but often the efforts of the factory workers themselves are forgotten. Political and economic change occurred because the poor gave the wealthy and educated people a cause and purpose to fight for. Without the original efforts of the rebellious
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...
“I regard my workpeople just as I regard my machinery...When my machines get old and useless, I reject them and get new, and these people are part of my machinery” (Sands 12). A foreman at a textile mill in Fall River, Massachusetts spoke these words in possibly the worst time during American labor history, the Industrial Revolution. During the Industrial Revolution, large numbers of people in the United States flocked to work in factories where they faced long hours, unsanitary and unsafe conditions and poor wages. Labor unions, or groups of organized workers, formed in the United States to ensure workers the right to a safe workplace and a fair wage in the face of capitalistic factory owners seeking wealth. In exchange, union members owe the responsibility to work diligently and to the best of their abilities or face the failure of their company and the loss of their jobs.
The Industrial Revolution was a time of great inventiveness and insight which would change the world, forever. Machines were being developed that did not require manpower or horsepower, and did work at a far greater output than its human counterparts could ever hope match. Likewise, thanks to the inventions of mass transit resources, products, and people were being transported across the country in greater numbers, at far greater rates. Of course, this in turn had great impact, not only on the American’s whose world was built through these new machines and factories, forged in the Industrial Revolution, and who, themselves, came to enjoy the products of such inventions; It also had tremendous effect on how American society came to view
The Industrial Revolution in nineteenth-century England brought about many changes in British society. It was the advent of faster means of production, growing wealth for the Nation and a surplus of new jobs for thousands of people living in poverty. Cities were growing too fast to adequately house the numerous people pouring in, thus leading to squalid living conditions, increased filth and disease, and the families reliance upon their children to survive. The exploitation of children hit an all time peak in Britain when generations of its youth were sacrificed to child labor and the “Coffers” of England.
In the nineteenth century, various inventions like the steam engine stimulated demand for products, thus introducing factories and workshops to manufacture those commodities. The popularization of Manchester initiated assorted reactions towards the industrialization of the cities surrounding Great Britain. While the industrial revolution ensued, numerous concerns occurred which all contemplated the affects of factories and industries engaged by the working division of society. As industry began to evolve for the operational lower classes, the positive, negative, and mutual reactions are denoted by various speakers whom were among the diverse social classes of society.
Unions were looked down upon and often scoffed at by factory owners. England even went through a period where unions were outlawed because of how liberal they were. People during the time of the Industrial Revolution were taken advantage of and were not paid as much as they should have been. One protester was set up at a train station protested “against the triumph of machinery and the gain and glory which the wealthy… men were likely to derive from it,” (Document 2). This man was dirty and poor, his circumstances likely induced by mechanization. The wealthy had virtual control over the poor. They reduced the salaries of the poor because there was no higher authority to tell them they could not. As well as this, the poor could not do much due to the fact that they needed to work in order to make at least some money to support their families. The Industrial Revolution mainly benefitted the wealthy. Document 2 focuses on the grand opening of the railway between Liverpool and Manchester, which would seemingly be an exciting event. However, the writer reports that the faces were grim and the spectators were grimy, implying that the Industrial Revolution and its technological advances had caused
However, before we can make a conclusion of our own, we need to acknowledge the other side of the spectrum. This section will reveal the weaknesses of David Noble’s argument on the notion that workers were being replaced by new technological equipment and they were no longer considered a valuable part of the making of goods and services since, unskilled workers were able to do the same job at a cheaper cost. Lucy Powell, a English politician stated once that “in the industrial revolution Britain led the world in advances that enabled mass production: trade exchanges transportation factory technology and new skills needed for the new industrialized world” (2008, p.1). Basically, mass production allowed for textiles and consumer goods to be sent out to consumers in order for them to be able live a better life. Things that were once not possible for the lower class as well as the middle class were now obtainable all due to the industrial revolution. This opinion goes against what David Noble claimed because, regardless of the new technology that was being presented within various factories and businesses, it allowed for those of a lower class to be able to better their lives. The industrial revolution also allowed for more jobs and skills to be created, which goes against luddism and what Noble stood by. The reason for this
With many craftsmen out of jobs and more hungry laborers coming from Europe, the society was changing and growing and innovations had to keep up with that. “Pressure for change came from several directions. Immigrants from Europe, especially the Middle Atlantic region, increased the supply of urban labor” (332). Men came from Europe in the hopes that they could create big industries, especially because they knew that there was enough space and people to make it happen successfully. One of the biggest industries to arise during the industrial revolution was the addition of textile mills. These textile mills could quadruple the amount of work one woman could do at home. These factories provided many people with employment but many of the employees complained that they were working long hours without enough money earned to compensate for it. “But increasing competition in the textile industry cut profits, and by the 1830s, operatives found wages cut, boardinghouse rents raised, or workloads increased. Twice, in 1834 and again in 1836, women took strike action to resist these changes” (351). Most women that could not find jobs before the industrial revolution gained them after but they felt the injustice that was being put on them. Consequently, it was very popular for the employees to build labor unions to fight against what republicanism was turning out to
Industrial Revolution, which took place over much of the nineteenth century, had many advantages. It provided people with tools for a better life; people were no longer dependent on the land for all of their goods. The Industrial Revolution made it possible for people to control nature more than they ever had before. However, now people were dependent on the new machines of the Industrial Age (1). The Revolution brought with it radical changes in the textile and engine worlds; it was a time of reason and innovations. Although it was a time of progress, there were drawbacks to the headway made in the Industrial Revolution. Granted, it provided solutions to the problems of a world without industry. However, it also created problems with its mechanized inventions that provided new ways of killing. Ironically, there was much public faith in these innovations; however, these were the same inventions that killed so many and contributed to a massive loss of faith. These new inventions made their debut in the first world war (2) ).
The revolution of the 18th and 19th century saw an immense transformation in science, technology and our economy, hence, the transformation from a Neolithic economy to an industrial economy. The revolution impacted on the social-economic in terms of the industrial research and development. Before the revolution labour was manly manual force however, the first revolution saw the materlisation of machines. For examples, the introduction of steam engines provided powered energy used in replacement of manual labour, therefore ...
The Industrial Revolution was a period from 1750 to 1850 where agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and technology went through a period of significant change. These changes had a profound impact on the social and cultural conditions of the time, beginning in the Untied Kingdom and spreading throughout Western Europe, North America, and the rest of the world. The Industrial Revolution, considered a major turning point in history, effected almost every aspect of daily life; through new discoveries in technology came new jobs; through new jobs came new working conditions; through new working conditions came new laws and new politics, the repercussions of which extend to today. As Crump emphasizes: ‘The world as we have come to know it in the twenty-first century is impossible to understand without looking at the foundations laid – mainly in the English-speaking world of the eighteenth century – in the course of what is now known, but not then, as the ‘Industrial Revolution’ .