Industrial Revolution: Harms And Advantages

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  The results of the drastic shift in the major industrialization in Britain had caused a lot more harm than good. Namely, the great toll it had on the heath of many, from and constant exposure of pollution that introduced diseases. The harsh working conditions were one of the main encouragements for these life-threatening dangers, as safety and wellbeing weren’t really supported. Even with lives being put at stake, jobs still had to be done for money, therefore this mindset sacrificed the quality of relationships and interactions of families.

These were the major consequences of the Industrial Revolution that showed the negative price for mass productions.

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The Industrial Revolution was a dreadful time where people had limited knowledge of sanitary care and maintaining good health, which leads to plenty of epidemics that spread through filthy cities with ease. As a result, public health issues were slow to be dealt with, and scientific ignorance also played a role. An example of this was the lack of understanding of the causes that afflicted diseases like cholera. This started off when ‘factories used water for power were usually located along a river(Unknown, 2019).’ But due to the lack of knowledge in hygiene, factories ended up dumping waste into streams and rivers that were for supplying homes with water for washing and cooking. Shortly, contamination took hold and killed thousands, spanning through the decades. Since the ordinary man had no political say and no money or education to assist a claim for better conditions. Added to this was the belief that cholera was an airborne disease. In addition, town administration at this time was weak, poor, and too impotent to deal with the new urban standards of living. There were also many arrangements for control and but all of them were too out-of-date with the speed of urbanization. Most people were engaged in the idea of profit over quality. The industrialization of Britain had expanded and changed so much at high rates before people could fix the consequences and sought better conditions. Therefore, for a long time, living in an awful environment with constant pollution was the norm, highlighting that the Industrialisation of Britain did more harm than good.

During this time, it was common for accidents to occur in the workplace. Incidents included losing limbs, crushed bones, and serious bleeding were a direct result of non-existent safety hazards. Even with no safety covers or proper equipment for handling machines and chemicals, factory owners only cared for money, but this usually resulted in suffering gruesome injuries for adults and even children. In 1842, a German visitor noted that he had seen plenty of people on the streets with no arms as well as legs, and described it as, “living in the midst of the army just returned from a campaign” (Simkin, 2015). Although this was common, injuries like these weren’t even the worst of it, since workers sometimes ended up dead, like the wool-worker who John Allett reported of when witnessing a strap catch a boy and pull him into a machine; and found his body cut into bits. These accidents show the risks people took a high unemployment rate, these jobs seemed favorable. Even with the industrial revolution proving to create more efficient production and enhancing quality living, making goods had soon become about factories quickly becoming all about profit. Thus, the reality of employers having the power of not needing to compensate and fairly treat their workers fueled the toxic idea of workers being easily replaced, in order to encourage them to put up with long hours or little pay and frequent dangers. This power allowed managers to take advantage over people, which lead to the most crucial ingredient that allowed Britain’s Industrial Revolution to succeed; child labour. Children under 14 made up 50% of the workforce in some factories. That is why so many people already have injuries and physical deformities at such a young age. The point of using people no matter their age or gender was inside factories was having to earn more by giving less money, which in this case was children, even if it cost an arm or leg.

With the increased suicide, depression, and divorce rate, the Industrial Revolution had a negative impact on family life. In the past, during the agricultural revolution, families would be together as a unit for the production of goods, but the beginning of the Industrial Revolution created a drastic shift. “It is very much the case with some sort of men to go idle part of the week and to work extra hours the rest. In such cases, I have known men to work from three o’clock in the morning till ten o’clock at night,” stated a factory worker in 1833 (Unknown, 2016). Since poverty rates were high, this kind of situation was quite common as families struggled with affording basic essentials. However, before the Industrial Revolution, families were able to work at their own pace to work in gardening, weaving, and raising farm animals. For a long time, people would be comfortable and content with this lifestyle, since they had the choice on their own workdays. After industrialization, there was a drastic loss in rural employment, meaning that people were forced to move to cities for jobs due to landowners maximizing their profit by using enhanced technology. So during industrialisation, home life and work-life became separated, alongside not being to work more freely. This formed inevitable social and psychological problems because the stress and exhaustion of working long hours caused less interaction with family. This reality was tied to the greatly increased rate of alcohol consumption, as men often began to spend more and more time drunk after work inside pubs or bars, instead of being home as a way to cope with depression. This, of course, usually served as the reason for divorce, which became progressively common. The main reason why many, especially the poor, had to live like this, is because education being a privilege and not a right.Therefore the poor families had to settle with factory work that doesn’t require much skill as opposed to learning something professional, as society looked down on them and disregarded their worth.

Due to the many people that had a difficult time coping with the major changes of industrialisation, the harmfulness of it outweighed the positives. Part of this was the absence of cleanliness since it was common for many to fall into the hand’s sickness and disease. The working conditions of this time were no help whatsoever in health conditions and wellbeing since the hazards of the workplace were just horrific. Although plenty pushed these dangers aside for maintaining a place for their job to earn money, this had significantly affected the emotional and physical side of people that negatively affected the relationship of families. With all the mass production that took place, the people began to realise that their suffering wasn’t worth the consequences, and this soon leads to the end of the industrial revolution to make way for the start of the technological revolution.

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