The Social Effects on Industrialization

The Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-1700s and lasted into the mid-1800s, increased material wealth, extended life, and was an important force for social change. It was a movement in which machines changed manufacturing and people’s way of life. The Revolution began in Great Britain and moved to Western Europe and the United States within a few decades. It became a turning point in history. Almost every feature of daily life saw benefits in some way or another. It was the start of the transition to new manufacturing like going from hand producing methods to machines. These innovations were possible as a result of various inventions. One was the flying shuttle invented by John Kay in 1733. Another was the spinning jenny invented by James Hargreaves in 1764. Still another was the spinning mule invented by Samuel Crompton in 1779. The Industrial Revolution along with these initial inventions had social effects as well. It changed the way people worked, how they conducted business and even how they lived at home.

Before the Revolution, poverty was very common for these people and in order for the family to survive, the entire family worked. The father worked his trade and also trained the oldest son to eventually take over the business. The mother ran the shop and sold his products and the rest of the children had chores of some sort to do. If you were a farm family, the spinning and weaving was done in the home in the evenings with a simple spinning wheel. The spinning wheels were slow and it would take anywhere from 4 to 8 spinners to supply one hand loom weaver. The merchant sellers would provide the raw materials, pay the families for the finished product and then take the product to the market for sale. Merchants preferred the work from the rural families because it was cheaper than the skilled craftsmen in the cities and the rural families welcomed the extra money it brought in for their families, so it was a win-win for both. When new innovations became too large and expensive to use in people’s homes, these people became less useful to merchants. The average family could not compete with the factories in the cities. For example, one worker in a spinning factory, with the help of a steam-powered spinning machine, could produce 100 times the spun thread of a rural family at home.

When the Revolution started, families were forced into the cities to find jobs at the factories where the large machines could be put in one location. Skill determined a person’s quality of life. Skills needed to be successful were very different than the skills they used before the Revolution. Factory owners could set their own terms for work because there were a lot more unskilled workers who would take any job than there were jobs for them. Those who had good manual skills found it easier to change to the new machinery than those who came from agricultural backgrounds. The pace of the work changed significantly. The workers had no