Industrial Revolution Dbq Essay

We live in a society that can sometimes be so reliant on products that we sometimes can’t imagine what life was like before machines. The first machines were created during a time called the Industrial Revolution which was a turning point in history. People were finally able to mass produce different products. Before this time, people had businesses that could be run at your home since you were making products by hand and you didn’t need much space. The Industrial Revolution introduced new machines that were sometimes massive in size and allowed production to move much faster and more efficiently. Since these machines were so big, people began to rent out large buildings to store these machines and run their businesses. These buildings are

The new factory system allowed products to be more widely available to the public. The price dropped due to the increase of production and now even the lower classes in society could afford these mass produced products. “You are surrounded… with an infinite number of comforts and conveniences which had no existence two or three centuries ago and those comforts are not used only by a few, but are within the reach of almost all men.” (Document 4) Document 4 demonstrates the idea of how things products that didi’t exist previously was able to be in the hands of whoever wanted it. Another positive affect of the Industrial Revolution was how there were many more jobs available within society. From 1740-1900, the production of iron in Britain increased exponentially from only 17,350 tons in 1740 to over 9 million tons in 1900. (Document 8) The job of mining this iron out of the earth opened up to many more people because of the high demand of this natural resource. This increasing amount of iron was used to build machines. Now there were jobs that opened up to build these machines. There were also new jobs for people to sell these machines to factories and then more jobs opened up in these factories. The Industrial Revolution set a chain reaction which opened up more jobs and allowed the economy to

Child labor was a big issue involved with the Industrial Revolution. Families in the lower classes had jobs working the machines in factories. Usually, each worker got payed about $4-5 a week. Document 1 is a conversation that took place and it was kind of like a job interview and William Cooper, the worker, described how harsh life was in the factories. He began to work in factories when he was about ten years old and he worked from 5 am to 9pm. As a child, Cooper’s life was so consumed of working that he barely had time for school and a proper education. Factories were a very dangerous environment for children as well as adults due ti the black of regulation by the government. Document 2 discusses the physical effects of working in factories. The character in the document, Hebergam, has damaged lungs and his muscles are so weak that they can barely support the weight of his bones. This was due to the dangerous fumes given off by the machines and materials and Hebergam could barely afford enough food to survive and that left him to be frail and have weak muscles. His brother had died not long before due to an infected wound caused by a machine in the factory he worked in. Adults ween’t the only ones harmed by machines in factories. Children were more prone to injuries because children were sometimes sent to fix small parts inside the machines