Industrial Revolution Urbanization Essay

Urbanization during the Industrial Revolution brought many changes to the economic and social lives of the wealthy, the working class, the poor and the homeless. The Industrial Revolution was the period from the first half of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. Many major changes occurred in this period, including job loss on a large scale, a rise in unemployment, the shift from agricultural work to machinery work, transport, and trade. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the manufacturing of most goods was done at home using hand tools or basic machinery. During the Industrial Revolution there was a major shift into factories where they built special-purpose machinery in order to mass produce items.

The Industrial Revolution

The wealthy people, who owned factories, had vast amounts of money because they could mass produce goods more cheaply than before, and sell them at higher prices. Everyone in the middle class and upper class had more money and were buying more, for they could easily get well paid jobs. The lower class, who worked long hours for little pay, had to sleep in crowded tenements, and struggled to keep up with the rising prices of their everyday needs such as food and clothing. As a result, the percentage of the population that were homeless increased

Their main occupation was farming and the main thing they farmed was potatoes. From 1751 to 1901 Britain’s population expanded from 7.5 million to just under 40 million. Approximately 40 years since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution there were too many people moving into the cities for work, and there were not enough jobs for them so the rate of unemployment went up again.

It also encouraged gender discrimination as women were expected to stay at home and look after the house-hold and the children, while the men worked. If the women did get jobs they were paid half of what the men were paid. In some of the lower-class families the children had to work as well to support the families. The factory owners took advantage of this as they could pay the children next to nothing and get them to do dangerous jobs which the men we too big to