POD00002

The Industrial Revolution was a period of major change in history, transforming society from manual labor to machinery. It started in Great Britain in 1760 and spread worldwide. Inventions like the spinning jenny, flying shuttle, and steam engine played a crucial role. However, the steam engine caused pollution and poor living conditions for workers. Other inventions, like electricity and the telephone, further shaped the world. The Industrial Revolution also led to child labor and discrimination against women, eventually leading to the development of workers' rights. Despite its negative effects, the Industrial Revolution laid the foundation for our modern society. Can you imagine a world without machines? For the Industrial Revolution, you did not have to. Today we'll be talking about the Industrial Revolution and how it changed the course of history and made a world of an old and slow show to a modern and fast cartoon. We'll also be talking about some of the major events in history it caused and how it has impacted humans today. The Industrial Revolution in modern history is the process of change from simple handcrafted tools like a pickaxe or hammer to an industry of machinery and mechanical technology like cars or drills or a phone. These changes led to ways of living in a new and transformed, more powerful society. The Industrial Revolution first took place in Great Britain in 1760. Later, it spread to other countries all over the world and ended in 1840, although there are people who would argue that it ended either earlier or later. One of the first inventions in the Industrial Revolution was the spinning jenny. The spinning jenny was a multi-spindle spinning frame that spun wool or cotton that people then used to make clothes and other things like blankets. Spinning jenny was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves and was patented in 1770. Later, the flying shuttle was invented. It is a type of weaving shovel. It was a pivotal advancement in weaving during the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution and facilitated the weaving of considerably broader fabrics, making the production of wider textiles. Another invention in the Industrial Revolution was the steam engine. The steam engine was very important because it was used on trains, steamboats, machines, factories, equipment in mines, and in automobiles before other inventions were invented. A steam engine is an engine that uses steam and other liquids as fuel to help it function. Steam engine usually uses coal to heat water, which will generate steam, which builds up the pressure to move the pistons that turn the wheels that make the machine function. Steam engine was a great invention and it led to many great innovations like the electric engine and the gas engine. These innovations gave us the vehicles and cars we have today, like a Tesla or a Ford. The steam engine is not really used much today, but there are still some steam-powered boats and trains and steam turbines used in some coal power plants. A lot thought that the steam engine had a negative effect on the environment instead of positive since it used to cause lots of pollution. It created polluted rivers and smoked filled air in the cities, which created harder and poorer living conditions, sadly. It lowered working conditions and capacity, which gave rise to socialism. Yet still, it will be and will always be a pivotal invention in human history, which led to many other great innovations. There were many other inventions that helped and changed the course of history during the Industrial Revolution and the history of the world, like electricity. Electricity was invented in the 1800s. It allowed factories to run for longer hours and price more goods. It also increased communication with the invention of the electrical telegraph in 1844. Later, the telephone was invented. A telephone is a communication device that lets two or more people have a conversation when they are way too far from each other to talk easily, to talk together easily directly. This great invention helps improve workflows, people's relationships, families' communication, and many, much more. And this invention was the start to many great innovations, such as the iPhone, Samsung, iPad, Nokia, and much more. The world would not be the same without the invention of the telephone. Fun fact, the term Industrial Revolution was popularized by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee, 1852-83, to describe Britain's economic development from 1760 to 1840. But the term has been more broadly applied as a process of economic transformation than as a period of time in a certain time and place. This would explain why places like India or China, which is out of the US and UK, don't really have an Industrial Revolution as at the same time that it occurred in the United States or UK. The Industrial Revolution wasn't just changing the course of history with better technology, which did help many people, but it also had horrible events and effects with consequences. Many people who worked during the Industrial Revolution had horrible living conditions, poor nutrition, and experienced stressful, unhinged lives. Many workers were not paid very well and were housed in cramped, gross, and inadequate quarters as the cities were growing rapidly in America and the UK during the Industrial Revolution. There weren't really many homes for all the new immigrants and inhabitants. So most designs were having to be rushed, and the result were just tiny squared things known as homes in neighborhoods. With cramped up houses that were very small with little to no room, and even worse, the workers and the people did not have any good nutrition, the people and workers only had a little cup of tea and a little bit of loaf of bread for breakfast. Then for lunch, they simply ate boiled potatoes with some butter, and sometimes, if they are lucky, with some bacon. This diet did not give them the right nutrition, proteins, and fibers they needed to properly develop, function, or recover from injuries. The working conditions were horrible because they were exposed to multiple dangers and risks, including the poor ventilation, which could be toxic and life-threatening because they could get so many sicknesses and also some trauma from the machinery. And there were many toxic exposures from heavy metals, dust, and solvents. And at the time, with the new machinery and factories, they were using a lot more coal and were producing pollution rapidly, which made it a lot harder to breathe for some people in the city. It caused lots of illnesses, like lung cancer and many others. So sadly, there were also more effects, like child labor. Though there was child labor before the Industrial Revolution, the Industrial Revolution only made child labor more common and popularized, sadly, the Industrial Revolution grew child labor, in fact, increased hours working and demand for products. So what led to the need for more young children to work? Some children were even pulled from orphanages and were forced to work long hours with no pay, and sadly, they usually suffered horrifying consequences and fates. Another negative effect that came from the Industrial Revolution was discrimination against women. The Industrial Revolution established some patterns of gender inequality in the workplaces and in the eras that followed. Some factories even paid women half as much as what they usually paid the men because of the greater strength of men that the men had, which gave them a productivity advantage over women in the manual labor. So this would be equal since men were able to work more than women at the time. It has still resulted in men getting paid higher wages and payments than women for no apparent reason in the future time. All of these effects helped lead to the establishment of unions and development of workers' rights and other ideas that are still developing in the present day. These are all the things that have happened in the first American Industrial Revolution. While some effects of the Industrial Revolution might have been negative and horrible, the world would not have been the way it is right now if it was not for the first one. The main reason for our technology today, our transportation, our communications, our workers' rights, hell, even most of our society mainly came from these events. We hope you enjoyed our presentation and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.