Industrial Revolution Research Paper

The industrial revolution marks a time where our history, depending on your preference went either to a place of bliss and huge advancements in technology, or went to a place where the human race is killing itself and the planet. There are truths to both sides of the argument and possibly might never reach an end. The industrial revolution was both a place of amazing technological improvements, while also being a time of grief and pollution for the lower classes. For example the Industrial Revolution was mostly started by a monstrous boom in population and the textile industry, both of which started due to healthier food and women. Due to these huge rises factories were made to create clothes for the new people being born and other people

In the case of Elizabeth Bentley a woman was interviewed in order to try and prevent child labor and was forced at the age of six, to work over twelve hours a day, earn less money than the adults, and became deformed due to how dangerous her work was. Certain factories ran on child labor and while certain charter factories may treat their workers well that doesn’t excuse the actions of other factories. Also none of these children were getting any sort of education and could lose their job if injured by their own job! The children were not the only ones who had bad working conditions; many adults had horrible jobs as well. Many of them had long hours and could not spend time with their families because of this. The families could not raise their children and give them any sort of opportunity such as an education so these families were going to end up having to work another bad job later in life and the cycle continues. Children were often sent to boarding areas and were sometimes treated well like in the case of the factory Lowell where the girls who worked there were treated adequately compared to other factories. These factories were still removing these

Also say a worker is injured then that person could potentially lose their position in the workplace due to the work place injuring them. The factories were getting ample amount of workers and could abuse the employees because of the ability to simply replace them if they failed or didn’t meet their expectations. Women were still treated poorly in the work place and in a similar case as child workers were often sought out due to the factory having to pay less for their work. Many factories would have their workers live there and under horrible and unhealthy living conditions. This led to mothers not being able to see their children or men unable to their wives. Again in the case of Elizabeth Bentley, she worked when she was six years of age and was deformed due to her work and then went to live in a poorhouse after she was injured. Often factories would only allow for one break and workers had to find ways to get other breaks for drinks and such. In the case of Elizabeth again she was allowed one forty minute break for food then nothing else for the rest of her twelve hour work period. All these factories were still paying extremely low wages even though there was bias between gender and age so men were still receiving minimal amounts of money for their incredibly difficult