Industrial Revolution
Josh Arumets 9 Kisai
What was the Industrial Revolution?
Leading up to the Industrial Revolution there was the Agricultural Revolution. This set off a snowball of developing new ways to make life easier and it grew to form the Industrial Revolution. This lead up to the revolution involved using better methods to farm crops and breed animals. This included selective breeding, specific paddock uses and animal dung used as fertiliser. Without these leaps in our civilization we wouldn't be where we are today.
Statistics
Population
Population
In 1801 the population of England and Wales was 8.8 million and by 1881 the population had tripled to 25.9 million.
Workforce
Work
People worked for about 12 hours a day.
Children were often forced to work to support their family.
Children often worked 15 hours a day doing the dangerous work that requires a small figure. This could be pulling mine carts full of coal through narrow tunnels.
Children often outnumbered adults in the workplace.
Women at Work-Quote
Industry
Industrial Development
The first working steam engine was invented in 1712 by a man named Thomas Newcomen.
The first working train or locomotive was called Puffing Billy. It was built in 1813 and used to move coal from mines to a port in Northumberland.
By 1852 there were more than 10,000 kilometres of train track in Britain.
In 1892 Alexander Graham Bell was the first to patent a usable telephone and made the first call from New York to Chicago.
Steam Engines
1800: Steam engines generating 10,000 horsepower
1850: 500,000 horsepower factory engines and 790,000 horsepower in mobile engines (cars and locomotives)
Cotton Industry
1760: Britain Imports 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton; mostly processed by hand in cottage system
1787: Britain Imports 22 million pounds of raw cotton; mostly processed by machines and water power
1840: Britain Imports 366 million tonnes; mostly processed in factories by steam power
Living Conditions
Above Image
A Rubbish was thrown into the street and left to rot, as there was no organised rubbish collection.
B Houses had small windows or no windows at all.
C Sewage was collected in cesspools, which were emptied by ‘nightmen’, although not always as regularly or often as necessary.
D Crime, such as pickpocketing, flourished in these squalid conditions.
E Houses were of poor quality, built using the cheapest possible materials.
F Families were often crowded into a single room.
G There was no piped water supply, so water was collected from communal wells or nearby rivers.
H Streets were no more than narrow lanes, with open drains running down the middle.
Agriculture
Crop Rotation Method
Selective Breeding
New Ploughs
Industrial Revolution-Good or Bad?
My Opinion
Without steam engines there would be no factories mass producing the food and clothes we need on a daily basis. Also we would not be able to continue to develop the engines to the ones we have today. We would have to ride our penny farthing whenever we wanted to go somewhere, or if you were rich you would have a horse drawn carriage.
The workforce would still consist of poorly treated slaves and there would still be child labour. The workers wage would barely be enough to support the family.
People would live in squalid areas with a few other families. There would bo no sewage disposal, it would just lie in the street. Disease would run wild and peoples life expectancy would be very low compared to today. The only work would probably be manual labour. A child's education would be very poor and only the rich people could afford their children to go to school. The rich would continue to become richer and the poor, poorer and no middle class would develop. There would be no further development in the areas of science or maths unless some sort of industrial revolution occurred. Most people would live in small houses consisting of about one room and the would eat, sleep and work in that room.
Overall the good side of the industrial revolution outweighs the bad by a lot. We would probably have a very uncivilized society today if the industrial revolution hadn't have occurred I believe that the industrial revolution was a great leap in society and it was just apart of the world moving forward.
Bibliography
The Industrial Revolution- The Emergence of Capitalism- HST 103 The West and the World. Rep. no. HST 103. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <www.coedu.usf.edu/main/.../seced/.../Powerpointpresentation.ppt>.