effects of Industrial Revolution

• Industrial Revolutions


  • 1st revolution: 1750-1820
  • 2nd revolution: 1870-1915
• 1st Industrial Revolution


  • Textile industry
  • Steam engine
  • Coal mining
  • Factory system
  • Manual labor still common, and animals (plough)
  • Urbanization
  • England leader
• 2nd Industrial Revolution


  • Railway expansion
  • Invention of telegraph and telephone (cross Atlantic)
  • Invention of automobile, tractors
  • Invention of electricity
  • Use of steel and iron
  • Urbanization
  • Europe/America, leaders Germany and the US
• Production for mass-markets


  At home and beyond
• Growth of a new, rich class

  The bourgeoisie
• Urbanization


  • Mass migration of people from rural areas to cities
  • Due to demand of industrial workers and a lack of jobs in the countryside
• Expansion of infrastructure & means of communication


  • Roads, rails, canals, telegraphs
• Standards of Living


  • Increased over time for most people
  • But new ways of living brought new problems: poor housing, overcrowded, no space
  • Poor diet (because of low wages)
  • Poor hygiene (no infrastructure, no regulations)
  • Poor health (cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, influenza)
  • Poor air (garbage, sewage, but also because no air circulation)
  • Poor water quality (sewage, garbage, etc)
  • Poor Medicine
  • Lower life expectancy than in countryside
• Life expectancy


  • In rural England, 45 years in 1841
  • In London, 37 years in 1841
• Infant mortality


  • Between 25 and 33% in early 1800s (not reaching age of 5)
• Conditions of Urban Living were poor
• Not everyone was equally affected by the Industrial Revolution
• Stratification of Society


  • Emergence of new classes: working-class (proletariat) and the middle-class (bourgeoisie)
• Stratification had effects on urbanization
• Work Conditions and Changes

  • Child Labor
  • Miners
• Result of poor work conditions

  Low wages, poor health, accidents, early death
• Alienation of Labor (Karl Marx)


  Alienation from the process of production

  Alienation from the product

  Alienation from fellow workers

  Alienation from oneself and one's potential
• The Industrial Revolution was a time of rapid change