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Changes Caused by the Industrial Revolution
Economic Changes
- Machines replaced people in methods of production.
- The factory replaced the home as the center of production.
- The standard of living grew higher as more goods were produced.
- Factory jobs tended to bore workers. Workers did the same thing every day and often lost or never developed a sense of pride in their work.
- Workers grew dependent on owners. Owners could hire and fire workers for any reason.
- Working conditions and wages were horrible.
- Workers formed labor unions , an association of workers that pushed for benefits and reform. This was not an easy thing to do because labor unions were usually outlawed by the government. Many riots took place between striking union workers and the police.
- Workers carried out strikes against owners. Workers refused to work until the owners met their demands. Strikes often turned into bloody battles.
- Trade between countries increased.
Social Changes
- The standard of living in the industrial countries grew higher and higher. Examples include Great Britain, the United States, and Germany.
- Many farmers moved to cities to get jobs in factories. Consequently, cities grew at a fast pace. In the United States, for example, many rural people (those who lived in the countryside) from the South moved to cities in the North. In addition, millions of immigrants came to the United States in search of jobs.
- As cities grew, problems increased. Some problems included over-crowding, lack of housing, poor sanitary conditions, disease, and poverty slums.
- Women and children entered the work force.
Political Changes
- The land-owning class ( aristocrats ) was replaced by the industrial class ( capitalists ) as the leaders of governments.
- A laissez-faire policy took the place of mercantilism. Laissez-faire meant free trade without interference from the government. Mercantilism, or the government policy of controlling overseas markets, meant that nations were strengthened by government control of its economic interests.
- The right to vote for both men and women was expanded.
- The industrialized or developed countries quickly became the strongest powers of the world. Countries were either thought of as developed or underdeveloped. By the end of the 19 th century, the United States replaced Great Britain as the leading industrial nation in the world. In the 20th century, the Industrial Revolution would spread to almost every part of the world.
- New types of economic systems developed. For example, capitalism expanded in the United States; socialism in Great Britain and France; and communism in the Soviet Union.
- As the Industrial Revolution expanded, industrial nations sought new markets for their goods in other parts of the world. Capitalist nations became imperialist nations, extending their rule over other countries or territories, causing problems which led directly to World War I.
SOCIAL CHANGES BROUGHT BY INDUSTRIALIZATION
As the workplace moved from homes to factories, families were split apart. Among working- class families, fathers were more likely to work and mothers to stay home. If added income was needed, the children would work, but they would not generally be working for family members
anymore. This split families apart, and created gender divisions — the women's realm came to
be seen as the home.
The factory system provided a supply of jobs, but generally at a lower skill level, which disrupted medieval and early modern guild systems and apprentice systems. The labor force at
the bottom was often stuck there; they couldn't rise up to skilled worker positions.
"Means of Production" : The tools and equipment necessary to produce goods were also no longer in the hands of common workers. With the rise of factories, the means of production —
machinery and tools — were owned by factory owners; all the workers had control over was their labor. Factory owners had a much greater deal of control over their workers. They could
insist on hours of work, behavior, even personal codes of conduct. During the early period of Industrial Revolution, factory owners were largely unsupervised, and could work their labor
force, which had a great many children in it, half to death. Workers had no control over their environment; in some cases, they even lived in dorms or tenements provided by factory owner.
Changes in social conduct — The rise of the factory system resulted in a loosening of
traditional family control. Sons and daughters now usually went to nearby towns to find work, and parents had less control over them. It was a more mobile society. Illegitimacy rates were
rising. There had always been high instances of premarital sex (lots of pregnant brides in the early modern world), but now fewer social forces existed to force young men to marry the girls
they impregnated.
At the same time, the women on the margins of society were in some ways doing better — there were a greater variety of jobs, although they were generally low-paying. Women in factories
were generally single or widowed; married women usually could afford to stay at home, and society was coming to prefer this.
There was a basic trade-off in the Industrial Revolution for common people. Material standards
of living were in some ways improving — more material goods were produced, so they were available at lower costs, and factories provided a variety of employment opportunities not
previously available. At the same time, working conditions were often horrible and the pay was
bad, and it was often difficult for unskilled workers to move to higher skill levels and escape the working class. The traditional protections of the medieval and early modern eras, such as guilds
and mandated wage-and-price standards, were disappearing.
