Before the industrial Revolution: There was a lot of agricultural work in the pre-industrial times at around 1300 to 1750 according to BCP. At around this time people lived in farm lands, villages, and small town. People dedicated themselves to growing crops, along with this came children’s work. Children learned to milk cows, churn butter, and tend to farm animals. Generation after generation, rural families relied on tools that had changed little by little over the centuries, such as wooden plows dependent on beasts of burden to pull them. For centuries, the English diet consisted mostly of dark rye bread and porridge, and a small amount meat. It was a rule, that Europeans were allowed to eat only a few fruits or vegetables, because they believed this could cause disease, depression, and flatulence. Flatulence is the accumulation of gas in the alimentary canal. The human population wouldn’t grow much after generations because of poverty, war, plague, and poor hygiene. Cities began to grow as early as the 13th century in Northern Italy, and later in Holland, Belgium, and England. Modern inventions began at home this included cloth weaving, masonry, and furniture making, candle making, soap making, etc. (BCP). How it Began: Industrial Revolution Research explains how the first signs of revolution began in Great Britain and made its way to the United States by the19th century. When the steam engine was developed it sparked the start of a revolution. This lead to companies factories, and machines. This resulted into many changes these including: the production of goods, where and how productions are made, it's cost, and efficiency. This eventually lead to many complications such as bad working environments, child labor, immigration, bad working conditions, affects on the environment, etc. Result of Industrial Revolution: In the first phases of the Industrial Revolution there was a high unemployment rate for workers. According to the BCP from the 1790s to the 1840s, working conditions were very tough resulting to many deaths. According to History, thousands of workers were killed because of machines, gas, explosions, or due to tunnels caving in. Most laborers worked 10 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, with no paid vacation or holidays. The jobs were very dangerous, tiring, strict, and on top of that workers were paid very little. “The dangers continued into the 20th century. In 1913 at Senghenydd Colliery in Wales, 439 miners were killed in the worst mining disaster in British history (History, Industrial Deaths). People especially immigrants couldn’t demand higher wages, fairer work hours, or better working conditions because workers could not use the democratic political system to fight for rights and reforms unless they were wealthy therefore allowing them to vote. The website BCP states that in 1799 and 1800, the British Parliament passed the Combination Acts, this made it illegal for workers as a group to ask for better working conditions. There was many poor families so the parents sent their children to work. Children were taken advantage of since they were young and was the cheapest labor. BCP states, children were paid 1/10 of what men were paid. According to Doctor Turner Thackrah, the children leaving the Manchester cotton mills as “almost universally ill-looking, small, sickly, barefoot and ill-clad. Many appeared to be no older than seven. The men, generally from sixteen to twenty-four, and none aged, were almost as pallid and thin as the children” (Thompson 329) . The Industrial Revolution has caused negative and harmful effects on the environment, many of these are damages done to our earth that can not be changed. Eco Issues interprets how these changes have been caused because of factories leading to deforestation. Deforestation is a huge problem because not only is it affecting animals and the wildlife, however it’s also eliminating the source of oxygen. Another problem is pollution and carbon emissions causing temperature risings which is where global warming comes in, melting glaciers and ocean levels rising. This puts many species including us in danger. http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/industrialrevolution/preindus.html http://www.industrialrevolutionresearch.com/how_industrial_revolution_started.php http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-death/trends-in-death http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/industrialrevolution/ireffects.html#workingconditions http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/industrialrevolution/ireffects.html http://history-world.org/Industrial%20Intro.htm http://eco-issues.com/TheIndustrialRevolutionandItsImpactonOurEnvironment.htmlhttp://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41681.The_Jungle http://mhoffner.weebly.com/industrial-life.html#/ https://www.thinglink.com/scene/487260246817898499 http://child-labor-industrial.weebly.com/pictures.html https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/big-history-project/acceleration/bhp-acceleration/a/the-industrial-revolution https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Redgrave_-_The_Emigrants%27_Last_Sight_of_Home.JPG http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2011/climate-action/Uniform-Green/EN/index.htm https://news.mongabay.com/2014/04/malaysian-palm-oil-giant-tied-to-social-conflict-deforestation-says-report/ |