Idustrial Revolution Causes Hard Times For Many

Before the Industrial Revolution women worked on farms and at home. Where are the women now? How about the children? What about the men? The Industrial Revolution from 1750 to 1830 did not have many postive things to it. In my opinion the overall effects of the Industrial Revolution on the individuals and society are mostly negative. In the 1700s, more than half of Britain lived and worked on farms. In 1750, eight out of every ten English people in the country. Architecture became mondernized due to the industrial era. Developers built row houses and muli-story tenements (appartments). Urban middle-class arose and lived in homes reflective of new found wealth and security. Here in London, we have five to six story townhouses that are spacious. The upper-class separated itself from the sums. They built their homes west of factories so that the smokestacks would blow away from them. Cotton was Britains greatest industry, and merchants all over the world purchased Britain cotton cloth. Inventions like the steam engine pushed ahead coal industry. Innovations in iron smelting and a new demand for iron tools in factories fueled the growth of the British iron industry. Railways were develpoing alongside indusrty. In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered that by injecting someone with a small does of a disease it could prevent the person to be contracting the full-blown disease on the future. This became know as the injection. From 1750 to 1800, the population increased by 1 million people. Their was a great demand for unemployment, and many people had to move cities to find work. Their was over crowded populations in industrial towns. In the early 1800s, one pound of tea costs six shilings, and rent costs five shilings a month. Children make one shiling per week, women make five shilings per week, and men make ten to fifteen shilings per week. A common working day in a factory was twelve to fourteen hours long with short breaks for meals. Laborers worked six days a week in eighty degrees. The shift to work in the factories meant women spent long hours away from their children and could only do housework after twelve to fourteen hours of hazardous labor outside the home. Women and children had to crawl through underground passages sixteen to eightteen inches in height pulling carts ten to twenty miles per day half-naked. Betty Harris, a drawer who pulled a coal cart through the mine passages, described her experiences as: I have a belt around my waist and a chain between leg. I go on my hands and feet. The raid is very steep and we have to hold by a rope; and when there is no rope, by anything we can catch a hold of. There are six women and about six boys and girls in a pit I work in; it is very hard work for a woman. Elizabeth Belntly started working in a factory at age six. Her hours are six a.m. to seven p.m. She only has fourty minutes at noon for lunch. She claims she

has no time for anything and shes always on her feet. Few children ages nine to thirteen recived any formal information because charity schools were poor. To improve society we should make a law that states children must go to school. This later will guarentee that all children get a good education and have good jobs in the furture. We will have smarter children and 1they can make the society better for us. New inventions will be made, and we will have better technology. New inventions

means easier ways of doing things. This way we will work less hard. If children are requuired to go to school, me and women will get jobs and their will be less unemployed people. Based on the information given do you think the overall efftects of the Industrial Revolution on individuals and society are mostly positive, mostly negative, or mixed? I think you will agree with me that based on all of the horrible things that went on it is mostly negative.