The Industrial Revolution was a time in history which took place from the 18th to 19th century (Revolution, 2015). It was a period of time when many new inventions were introduced into the world. The revolutionary new technologies that started off being created in Britain, began to spread to other European countries causing the Industrial Revolution to have a significant impact in a variety of places. Some of the main events that triggered the Industrial Revolution include the invention of the Spinning Jenny and the steam engine.
These inventions had a very significant effect on society as they led to the beginning of big industries such as the cotton industry and also by producing power to drive transport and machinery. The creation of these inventions started mass production, helped with advancements in manufacturing and began urbanisation (Van, Tol, Ottery and Keith, 2012). One of the most significant effects of the Industrial Revolution was the advancements in manufacturing, which in turn raised productivity.
This advancement in manufacturing meant that a high volume of goods could be made at faster speed. This was the case because mass production was possible with new manufacturing machines. Before the industrial revolution, consumer goods were made at home, on farms or small workshops and were usually constructed by hand using very basic tools. For instance, cotton was spun to make thread or yarn on a spinning wheel. This kind of production was very slow and goods could only be produced in small quantities at a time (English-online. t, 2015).
The introduction of machines such as the Spinning Jenny and later the use of steam engines meant that production processes could be made simpler for workers and more standardized. The end result of this advancement was that more could be produced faster. Therefore productivity in the manufacturing industry was significantly increased (Thomasnet. com, 2015). Mass production, a key feature of the Industrial Revolution, led to two other significant effects, these being the changes in working conditions and the use of child ur.
With the introduction of machines and standardization of production processes, manufacturing was made simpler with more repetitive tasks. Because it was simple and repetitive, children of a young age could perform the tasks needed to manufacture the products. One of the results of such logic is that profit-motivated factory owners would employ children to work in their factories, simply because they could be paid lower wages and were more nimble in their work. Some children as young as five were made to work for many hours a day, a kind of practice that would be universally condemned as inhumane and barbarous today (HISTORY. om, 2015).
Furthermore, another negative associate of mass production was that of bad working conditions. Again, profit driven industries would build factories big but simple enough to place the workers to work on dangerous machines. Often, comfort and good working conditions would be ignored in place of polluted air, dust and bad smells which despite having poor health effects, were considered normal (Schoolshistory. org. uk, 2015). Urbanisation was another of the main effects of the Industrial Revolution.
As more and more factories were set up in urban centres, more and more people moved from rural communities to find work and to earn a living. Cities like London, Manchester and Liverpool grew bigger and bigger. According to one estimate, the Industrial revolution led to 50% of the entire population of Great Britain living in either a town or city, instead of in a rural community by 1850. This was a massive migration from the rural to the urban areas.
The growing population in cities, or what is called urbanization, led to terrible living conditions (Webs. cp. org, 2015). Because so many people were pulled together in the urban areas, living conditions got worse. The streets were filthy and some places were full of human waste. The poor working class, let alone the homeless, squeezed together as they could afford space for themselves. The wealthier class of the society, of course, coped better as they were able to afford the price of living in suburbs on the outskirts of the cities. Some of the property class even built beautiful houses with gardens of exotic plants from all over the world.
For many of the factory workers, the cities were filthy and crowded places, with epidemics frequently breaking out (Study. com, 2015). The Industrial Revolution was a time of many great human developments that significantly transformed the society of today. This time had both positive and negative effects, as even though the Industrial Revolution greatly increased productivity and made many advancement in technology, with more and more people could enjoy cheaper and more varieties of consumer goods, the negative effects were equally as enormous.
Specifically, child labour, horrible living conditions and bad working conditions on the factory floor. It is debatable whether or not these were beneficial effects of the Revolution, as though it was terrible, it did bring light onto workers right and eventually brought in laws that meant that workers had better rights. In today’s world such bad working conditions and child labour is morally abhorrent. In fact it was the terrible working conditions and unacceptability of child labour which pushed for the change that eventually abolished child labour and improved working conditions in factories.
