Interpreting The Industrial Revolution

A second change within the lives of the people by the Industrial revolution was that they had to become used to working on the clock. Working on the clock means that they were required to record hours and work with precise clock times. This is a dramatic change to people, especially if they used to work on farms where the only clock that they had was the sun. Stearns, the author of Interpreting the Industrial Revolution, says “Studies on the new discipline imposed by time-management and other on-the-job techniques, as well as the subtler workings of the worker management relationship, have produced a redefinition of industrialization’s most unsettling effects.” This is to say that studies show that the changes in time-management were difficult …show more content…
Stearns says, “Bad conditions certainly existed, and there are signs of deterioration for some other lower class segments, including rural populations displaced by industrial production.” The Revolution displaced many families because factories needed to be built. Along with factories being built, there was also an influx of more people moving into the cities and surrounding areas, making there be an increase in the population density which means that more people need jobs. Not only did the people live amongst many other people, they also received a low amount of pay. Britain had low cost labor because that is how the factories made their money and people were looking for work and did not really focus on how much they were getting paid, but rather that they were getting paid. People of this time period were not particularly focused on receiving a high amount of pay, but that they were able to have an income at all. It was not only the men that worked during this time, but also the women. Women were sometimes factory workers or were recruited as servants to work for middle-class families. It was not always the women’s job to stay at home and take care of the children. This was not necessary because children were also workers in the factories where they worked under very strenuous …show more content…
The technologies allowed the revolution to grow and make the lives of the working people easier. This was not the only addition that the revolution added to the people, but also the need to continually find new ways of improvement. The change from an agricultural economy to an industrial one benefitted the people also. People who were not able to have a stable income before were now able to work in the factories and have a reliable income. It was not only part of the revolution, but for economists, it is its own topic within itself because of its importance. Not only did it bring positive changes like those two examples, but it also brought negative changes for the lives of the European workers. The negative changes that it brought to the working-class people were the changes in their lives at home, working under a time restriction, and working in unacceptable conditions within the factories. The lives of the workers at home changed when cities started to urbanize, with the factories at the centers of the communities. The people then had a decline in food, poor sanitation which led to health risks, and also a rise in the death rate. People did not easily adjust to the lifestyle of working on the clock because of terms of having set times to complete tasks, working long shifts ever day, and then no longer had the energy to enjoy their