Primary Sources and Social Change of the Industrial Revolution

Primary Sources and Social Change of the Industrial Revolution

The impact of the Industrial Revolution on the standard of living of

working class people is, and has been frequently debated. There is a

mass of primary and secondary sources of evidence from the time of the

Industrial Revolution available to support differing views of the

debate, and there are also many novels available that were written at

the time which criticise industrial society, but the difficulty of

assessing the total impact of industrialisation upon a population, is

how to measure the changes in standard of living. We can look at

changes in wages, the changing cost of food, rent and clothing, the

impact of the factory systems, or the demographic changes to the

society, but it is extremely difficult to weigh up one change against

another. If we look at wage data to assess the standard of living, the

problem is that payment in kind is not recorded. Agricultural workers

for example, would be compensated for their low wages with farm

produce, free fuel or subsidised rents, and wages only reflect the

living standards of the employed. A wider variety of sources need to

be employed in looking at the standard of living debate, for example

whilst working class in urban districts seem to have enjoyed higher

wages, they also suffered higher rates of disease and mortality.

The roles of women and children drastically changed from working in

cottage industries and agriculture to being employed in the factory

system. This problem was also added to by the age structure of the

population with high birth rates, Peter Mathias, a secondary source

writes, "The conclusion (when loo...

... middle of paper ...

...living debate and the

extensive resources that are available when looking at such a complex

debate.

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CLASS NOTES 07/10/04 Andrew Ure, The Blessings of the Factory System

CLASS NOTES 30/09/04 Conditions in England 1832 - 1853

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