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Industrial Revolution Urbanization Essay

explanatory Essay
790 words
790 words
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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 …show more content…

In this essay, the author

  • Explains that urbanization during the industrial revolution brought many changes to the economic and social lives of the wealthy, working class, poor and the homeless.
  • Explains that the industrial revolution began with the invention of the steam engine by thomas sacery, which led to the construction of many new factories which housed machines able to work at more than one hundred times the speed of one person.
  • Explains that urbanization had effects on the size of the population, but also on wealthy and poor people. the middle class and upper class had more money and were buying more.
  • Explains that the sudden increase in population during the industrial revolution was caused by workers moving to find work, and by approximately one million irish labourers, who fled the potato famine in the 1840’s to england and north-america for food and work.
  • Explains that it encouraged gender discrimination as women were expected to stay at home and look after the house-hold and the children while the men worked.
  • Explains that before the industrial revolution, urbanization was strongest near large bodies of water, so that the growing population would have enough water and food to supply its people. water was also used to run factories and machines.
  • Explains that schools, hospitals, libraries and other government funded places were being built with the growing population and there was a higher demand from the middle and upper-class for their children to be educated.
  • Explains that the industrial revolution caused urbanization in many different ways, such as people's economic and social lives, employment and un-employment, and major changes in machinery used to make cloth and engery.

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 …show more content…

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

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