The Industrial Revolution Word Splash

The Industrial Revolution from 1750 to around 1900 was a huge global movement and mass production of consumer goods which would be produced by no longer men but machines and factories. Before, most people lived in miniature villages and cottages, producing their own agriculture and goods. Lots of handcrafting for clothes, tools, plates, and more took lots of time and effort with many skilled artistomen needed. The process of collecting cotton and growing it into these marketed products was part of the cottage industry.

Moving along to the times of the industrial revolution, industrialization turned up in some parts of the world, primarily England. Many coal and iron mining strips were formed around the area which increased the abundance of resources and potential to create machines and factory systems. Once Britain had industrialized to some extent, slowly other countries followed. There were many factors which sparked the initial rise to industrialization including economic, political, and geographic factors. As populations skyrocketed in the 1700s, the need and demand for clothing increased. Hand-crafting became a slow and tedious process with a high demand and low production rate. As a result of this rise of population and request for textiles, the textile industry was the first and super successful industry to industrialize. Factory systems were established as well in response to optimize factory fuel to decrease the demand for natural resources. Factories needed power, so most were located near rivers. Steam engines were also invented, by James Watt in 1765, to optimize the factory system process and save energy resources. Railroads were also a resource invented to further the speed in which natural resources could be delivered to factories. Railroads were fast and increased profits in nearly every way. A new process made by Henry Bessemer called the Bessemer Process was also used commonly in the industrial revolution. Bessemer invented a cheaper process for creating steel which is a stronger metal than iron; this influenced the growth of infrastructure in factories and nearby rail roads to further the industrialization process. With these new processes, industrialization spread rapidly and so did the desire to get into this business. Entrepreneurs, or people looking to get rich fast in industrialization tried to adapt and make money off of this new way of living.

With new jobs and kinds of jobs, therefore comes new worker's policies and treatment of factory workers. Many factories in divisions of labor needed unskilled and lowly paid workers. Since workers were unskilled, most workers were expendable. This meant that quality of life in factories was atrocious. Labor unions were created to exploit this and form a workers rights idea to prevent employers from abusing the normal every-day factory worker. The way of life was getting worse and worse for the average person as urbanization occurred and forced many people to live in smaller and dense areas such as cities. Many people and families were forced to live in tenements which were small compact rooms; a very poor condition for the majority of the population. As industrialization continued, the lines between the rich and the poor only drew more obvious.