Essays about industrial revolution (4)

Topic: Rural vs. Urban life

Industrialization occurred first in Great Britain. The effect of industrialization was to transform agricultural societies into industrial societies. Technology had made it possible the development of machines which raised worker productivity and promoted the growth of large scale industrial enterprises. Manufactured products could be turned out more quickly and cheaply than before. In the long run, standards of living were improved in much of the world. It also generated substantial social change, which at time became unsettling, even violent. It encouraged urbanization and migration to cities; although at times city dwellers who worked in factories lived in squalid conditions. The problems of early industrial workers led to a number of calls for reform by social critics.

On the one hand, with new shopping districts, houses, transportation, theatres, taverns, hospitals, prisons and marriage markets, the eighteenth-century town was both an exciting and dangerous place to live. In the 1700s, England became the most urbanized of all European countries and boasted the largest capital city in the world.

Most towns possessed remarkably young populations. Young people were drawn to urban areas by the offer of regular and full-time employment, and by the entertainments that were on offer there: the theatres, inns and pleasure gardens, for example. London in particular was flooded with thousands of young people every year, many of whom worked as apprentices to the capital’s thousands of tradesmen. Other new arrivals gained employment as domestic servants to aristocratic families that began spending much of their time in elegantly built town houses. Many towns were grimy, over-crowded and generally insanitary places to be. London in particular suffered badly from dirt and pollution.

On the other hand, the crisis of the rural cottage industry, the independent farmer buying local supplies and selling in the local market, led the shift to an urban way of life and the village youth quit their clean healthy fields for a region of dirt, stink, and noise. Meanwhile this century had brought developments of agriculture and the spread of these encouraged experiments in new methods of planting. The enclosing of land by hedges was prevalent among the farmers of England. It was frequently legalized by the passing of Enclosure Acts by Parliament. The land was then re-divided; each tenant had his own fields in one locality and cut them off from those of his neighbors by neat hedges. The disadvantages were that the poor landless laborers, who were used to pasture his beast on the open common, found it closed against him and the yeoman could be ousted by the man able to afford the rent of a large enclosed farm.

         Despite this fact, the number of small farmers increased rather than diminished during this enclosure period, and the new agricultural methods must have provided plenty of employment.

To sum up, England's commercial boom affected the rural regions and small villages, and it did so in two significant ways. First, the government imposed Enclosure Acts encouraged emigration from the villages to the cities. This was done to meet the increased food demands of the growing population. As a result, capitalist farmers, often tenants of wealthy landlords came to dominate a world where all below them were reduced to landless labourers. Second, the higher wages offered by the urban centers attracted the rural poor. The quantity and variety of commercial goods coming into and displayed in the cities drew the attention of those in pursuit of material possessions. 

Topic: Transport

Before the Industrial Revolution, transportation in Britain was rudimentary, very basic. Roads were poorly built and maintained. Good were transported on river barges but this way was a slow and costly exercise. The railway network was nonexistent, limited to wooden tracks and carriages pulled by horses. It took several days to travel between towns. The growth of the Industrial Revolution depended on the ability to transport raw materials and finished goods over long distances. Technological innovations made in the textile and iron industries made production of goods faster and cheaper. Advances in team engine technology led to a number of industries adopting mechanization. As demand for goods increased, a revolution in the transportation industry took place. The three main types of transportation that increased in this time were waterways, roads and railroads.

Firstly, transport was greatly improved during the 18th century. Groups of rich men formed turnpike trusts. Acts of Parliament gave them the right to improve and maintain certain roads. Travelers had to pay tolls to use them so as to help to pay the money borrowed to repair the roads. Turnpikes trusts set up gates on either end of their roads where tolls could be collected. The first turnpikes were created as early as 1663 but they became far more common in the 18th century.

The earliest railways were wagonways linking coal mines to nearby navigable rivers. These had wooden rails on which flanged wheels ran. In the 1760s, cast iron plates were laid on the top of the wooden rails and in 1780s a new system was developed, the plateway where the wagons had unflanged wheels and the flange was cast ton to the track. This system proved unsatisfactory in long term because the cast iron plates were liable to break and also because the track was liable to collect stones or other debris.

  Secondly, some rivers, such as the Thames, Severn and Trent were naturally navigable, at least in their lower reaches. Other rivers were improved during the 17th and early 18th centuries, improving the transport links of towns such as Manchester, Wigan, Hereford, and Newbury in England. However, these only provided links towards the coast, not across the heart of England. It was the canals which were to provide the vital links in the transport network. As Industrial Revolution canal mania swept the country, Sankey Brook Navigation, authorized by Acts of Parliament in 1755, 1762 and 1830, opened in 1757 and was probably the first true English canal. It was in 1759 that Duke of Bridgewater decided to build a canal to bring coal from his estate at Worsley to Manchester. He employed an engineer called James Brindley. When it was completed the Bridgewater canal halved the price of coal in Manchester. Many more canals were dug in the late 18th. They played a major role in the industrial revolution by making it cheaper to transport goods.

Finally, early railways consisted of wooden tracks linking coal mines to rivers and canals. Carriages were pulled by horses. The railway industry developed rapidly once James Watt´s steam engine technology was applied to the railway. The first steam engine locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick in 1804. This train ran on smooth metal rails. The next successful steam locomotives were the Salamanca built by Matthew Murray in 1812. Railways became a popular and effective mode of transportation. The main benefit of railways was the speed at which goods could be transported. Other type of transport was the sailing vessels which had been used for moving goods around the British coast. The trade transporting coal to London from Newcastle has begun in medieval times. The major international seaports, such as London, Bristol and Liverpool were the means by which raw materials might be imported and finished goods exported.

Summing up, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, inland transport was by navigable rivers and roads, with coastal vessels employed to move heavy goods by sea. Railways or wagon ways were used for conveying coal to rivers for further shipment, but canals had not yet been constructed. Animals supplied all of the motive power on land, with sails providing the motive power on the sea. The industrial revolution improved Britain's transport infrastructure with a turnpike road network, a canal and waterway network, and a railway network. What is more, raw materials and finished products could be moved more quickly and cheaply than before. 

Topic: bridge between the rich and the poor

In the late 18th century, the industrial revolution began to transform life in Britain. England was undergoing the painful transition from a rural agricultural society to becoming a highly urbanized industrial state. This century had started the process of creating a more solid social and geographical boundary between classes. Until then, most people lived in the countryside and made their living from farming. Industrialization led to dramatic, sometimes unsettling social change. Masses of people moved to cities, and new social classes developed. Probably half the population lived as subsistence or bare survival level and a tiny minority of the population lived in luxury.

First of all, the concept of social class was an idea of a status hierarchy instead of class society which was a distinguishing key feature in the 18th Century. This hierarchy determined everything about a person. Among the differences in these classes were the attitudes that each one exhibited. Owning land was the main form of wealth in the 18th century. Political power and influence was in the hands of rich landowners. Social class structure was composed by the wealthy landowners, the most powerful group and the smallest amount of the population; gentry, it included gentlemen, merchants, wealthy tradesmen, and well-off manufacturers; yeoman, those who owned and worked their own land; middle class, the upper middle class included professionals and merchants and the lower middle artisans, shopkeepers, and tradesmen and the laboring poor which included all who worked in rural areas, did minimal jobs, and the urban laboring poor. 

In addition, family income determined the degree of comfort and security one enjoyed. The wealthy typically moved to elegant homes in the suburbs whereas the working poor lived in crowded areas in the center of cities in shoddy housing. Many lived in overcrowded tenements where family members were often forced to share the same bed, which increased the likelihood of incestuous relationships and disease transmission. The few open spaces contained pigs which lived in their own dung or depositories for human waste. Despite the improvements in farming food, for ordinary people remained plain and monotonous and for them meat was a luxury. In England a poor person's food was mainly bread and potatoes. The rich built great country houses with immensely comfort and owned beautiful furniture. However, the poor had none of these things. Craftsmen and laborers lived in 2 or 3 rooms. The poorest people lived in just one room. Their furniture was very simple and plain.

During the first 60 years of the Industrial Revolution, living conditions were, by far, worst for the poorest of the poor. In the eyes of the rich, the poor appeared a different race, linked by a few miles but separated by a massive cultural chasm.

The gradations between the rich and poor became ever more numerous, with a growing of respectable poor, labour aristocrats, and middle classes. Moreover, in the early 18th century England suffered from gin drinking. Many people ruined their health by drinking gin. Yet for many poor people drinking gin was their only comfort. Because of this, the very poor were often regarded as indistinguishable from a criminal or dangerous class had been carefully squirreled out of sight. This identification of a distinct criminal class amongst the poor reached its peak in the middle of the century. The situation improved after 1751 when a tax was imposed on gin and the middling and artisanal classes had redefined themselves.

Topic: reason and religion

The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, is the name given to the period in Europe during the 1700s when mankind was emerging from centuries of ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and respect for humanity. People of the Enlightenment were convinced that human reason could discover the natural laws of the universe and determine the natural rights of mankind; thereby unending progress in knowledge, technical achievement, and moral values would be realized. There

On the one hand, previously to the Enlightenment, before the discovery of natural laws, people had believed that every event that occurred, no matter how major or minor was a direct result of God’s intervention. Once scientists discovered that natural laws caused these occurrences, mankind feared God less, and as a result, religious obligations were no longer the primary concern of many people. Rather than focusing on God and the church, people of the Enlightenment focused on man. The proper study of mankind is man. People of the Enlightenment believed that a well defined code of manners and behavior was necessary to allow men to live in harmonious groups. Manners or decorum consisted on agreeing upon appropriate behaviour for specific situations; those practices were referred to as social etiquette. In the 1700s, people believed commitment to decorum helped preserve society’s important moral standards.

On the other hand, this new way of thinking led to the development of a new religious thought known as Deism. Deists believed in God as a great inventor or architect who had created the universe then allowed it to function like a machine or clock without divine intervention. Although Deists believed in a hereafter, they believed human achievement and happiness should be the focus of this life rather than the life to come. The early 18th century was noted for its lack of religious enthusiasm and the churches in England lacked vigor. However, in the mid-18th century, the situation began to change. In 1739 the great evangelist George Whitefield (1714-1770) began preaching. Also in 1739 John Wesley (1703-1791) began preaching. He eventually created a new religious movement called the Methodists. His brother Charles Wesley (1707-1788) was a famous hymn writer. The Methodists did eventually break away and after 1760 Methodism spread to Scotland.

In conclusion, the eighteenth century recognized the interdependence of men on each other. The 1700s saw the development of cosmopolitan society. People lived in clusters and depended upon each other rather than living alone and being independent of one another. The importance of cooperation and mutual respect became obvious. Rather than focusing on God and the church, people of the Enlightenment focused on man and benevolence toward less fortunate people, humanitarianism, resulted of that.

It was a new concept during the Enlightenment. Previously, religious beliefs perceived assistance to the unfortunate as interference with God because people thought if someone was unfortunate; it was God's will and was punishment for wrongdoing.