Industrial Revolution DBQ Essay
Uploaded by gabbyjones122 on Dec 04, 2014
Gabby Jones
Period: 7
10/13/14
Industrial Revolution DBQ Essay
The Industrial Revolution marks a major transition in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was eventually influenced in some way. The Industrial Revolution sprouted the use of manufactured machines and greatly increased the output of machine made goods. It began in Great Britain in the mid-1700s, transitioning Britain’s manual labor based society to a machine-based manufacturing such as working in textile mills. Britain’s advantage to taking initiative to industrialize was their abundant natural resources of coal fuel, iron and steel, streams to generate power and canals for transport. Due to the high wages already in Britain people were able to fund building mills and the decline of farming due to wealthy people buying farmland were needed to work. The invention of the steam engine was a major turning point since it allowed these mills to work at rapid rates. Since they had an abundant amount of coal they could power these steam engines. Another contributor was the use of railroads from the use of iron and steel. Britain initiating all these new advancements in their society ignited the first Industrial Revolution, causing very positive effects and ones that hindered their society. The Industrial Revolution advanced European society through new political and economic opportunities and new ideology.
The Industrial Revolution created new political ideas and changes. New political policies and laws were caused through the unfair work conditions within mills. Child Labor Laws was a major influence on the working community. Children as young as 4 or 5 years old were forced to work in factories that were accident prone and disease causing with working hours that were over 12 hours. Since, children were getting into accidents by getting limbs chopped off, dying from diseases, and unfair treatment by overseers there were laws and policies against child labor. One example demonstrating the detrimental effects of child labor is the Sadler Commission, when describing how the children were beaten, he states, “I have been struck very severely with it myself…and I have seen other children have their heads broken with it…” (Document 2). The way the children were treated was extreme and should be recognized and prohibited. These terrible conditions were a negative effect of the Industrial Revolution and the huge increase of working in mills especially the hiring of children there needed to be new policies and regulations. Another way child demonstrated the...