Industrial revolution essay
The industrial revolution occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a period in England where they started to industrialise their society. The industrial revolution started the shift into powered machinery and mass production. The textile and iron industries, with the invention of the steam engine, were core players in the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution improved the standard of living for most and the variety and amount of products, but it also resulted in the poor and working classes to have some terrible living and working conditions.
The industrial revolution completely transformed the textile industry. Before the use of factories and machines to make textiles, they were predominantly made in people’s homes, where they would be given the materials and tools to use by a tradesman and then the tradesman would pick up the final product to sell. The way the workers were working meant they could set their own hours which led to difficult regulation and a lot of inefficiencies. In 1764, an English man called James Hargreaves (1722-1778) invented the spinning engine, which required less human energy to use and could spin multiple threads at once. James Hargreaves invention would get improved upon to make it easier for human work and it would eventually lead to another key innovation called the ‘power loom’, which machined the process of weaving the cloth made by the thread spinners, it was developed by Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823) in the 1780s.
The small but important revolutions in the iron industries, changed the inefficiencies off blast furnaces and reduced the price of iron and steel. In the early 18th century Abraham Darby
(1678-1717) an English inventor, found a cheaper and easier method to produce iron and steel, using a coke-fueled blast furnace (instead of a less efficient and more expensive to run charcoal-fueled furnace). In the year 1850 another English engineer, Henry Bessemer (1813-1898), invented the first efficient and inexpensive process of creating large amounts of steel. Steel and iron became very important materials as they were used to make everything, from machines and tools, to buildings and ships.
The steam engine was a extremely important invention for the industrial revolution. In the year 1712, Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) invented the first functional steam engine it was used by the material mining industry to pump water out of coal mines. In the 1770s, a Scottish inventor James Watt (1736-1819) had revisited Newcomen’s work and completely revised it, so that the steam engine would go on to power ships, locomotives and machinery during the Industrial Revolution.
The industrial revolution raised the standard of living for many people by mass producing a variety of factory goods, it was specifically better standards for the middle and upper class. But the conditions of the poor and working classes got even worse. Workers were given little money for appalling working conditions that could be dangerous at times. Workers that weren’t skilled or had a job that was incredibly needed had very little job security and could be easily replaced by someone better. Child labor was also a thing and nearly one fifth of the work force were under the age of 15, children would work long hours and have some of the most dangerous jobs, like getting under a thread machine to untangle threads. The way machines came also replaced jobs, like craftspeople, as they were no longer needed and machines could produce it more efficiently. With the flow of workers coming into England resulted in overcrowded housing and unsanitary, polluted living conditions. Diseases were everywhere because of these causes.
Capitalism allowed inventors and scientists of the new generation an income and investments required to develop their ideas and inventions into technological advancements. The inventions like, the steam engine, ect, were all developed because of the funds by private investors and national banks. Through loans and funds if capitalism those inventions were able to be developed. If capitalism had never been introduced into England and its inventors and scientists, the technology would never of had been created all because they would not have the funds to make it past the prototype list. Capitalism is what made Great Britain to speed up its industrial revolution faster than any other European country.
The industrial revolution improved the standard of living for most and the variety and amount of products, but it also resulted in the poor and working classes to have some terrible living and working conditions. The industrial revolution started the shift into powered machinery and mass production. The textile and iron industries, with the invention of the steam engine, were core players in the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries and it was a period in England where they started to industrialise their society. Without the revolution, today would be a very different place. We wouldn’t have factories, cars, easy access to iron and steel, life would be completely changed.
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