The end of the eighteenth century was an era wrought with revolution . However, this time the revolution did include violence, coups, or weapons. Instead, it was actually quite the opposite. The industrial revolution was a time where great strides were made in the fields of technology, agriculture, and industry.
Even though this revolution was a great gateway for modern technology and new inventions it wasn't the first of its kind. The industrial revolution was only the second largest revolution in terms of the events that were happening. This revolution was named the neolithic revolution and it took place around 10,000 B.C.3 Some of the major differences from before and after the Neolithic Revolution and after it was the change from the majority of society being rooted in gathering and hunting to one being based around agriculture.
Many centuries later (the eighteenth century to be precise) we find another similar revolution is happening. It was a time when common land was the norm. Common land is the system of agriculture that lets anyone farm anywhere. This meaning that people could start to farm whatever piece of land they could find that was open. The was possible due to the fact that you did not have to pay rent to stay on this common land nor did you have to pay rent to farm the common land either.1 Common land may sound like a pretty sweet deal but in all actuality most people in this time were very poor and underpriviledged. This is all the effect of people not being able to farm their land properly and be able to make their crops actually grow. Another disadvantadge of common land was that since people did not know how to farm properly a lot of good land was used up by people who had avsolutley no clue what they were doing. This ,of course, was done away with once the industrial revolution took place.
Another thing that was done away with during the Industrial Revolution was the way products were made by manufactured. One product that was manufactured gratly was wool and woolen products. Wool was Britain's main export before the revolution. However, their skill at how these products were made was very much unrefined and sloppy. A cause of this was people manufacturing everything by hand. Another cause of the poor workmanship was the fact that mostly everything was made at home by the family of the manufacturer. This poor workmanship drove families into wanting outside assistance
The outside assistance they were looking for took the form of two groups of people. One of the new groups of people that were hired in order to help with production of new goods was the hand workers that did the tasks that were originally he responsibility of the manufactures family another thing that was produced in great quantities other than wool before the industrial revolution was iron. Iron was only one of the many things that hand workers produced. The second group of people that helped the manufactures were the middlemen that went to market and sold the goods that the manufactured created. This cut down on the manufactures sales but also made it a lot easier for the manufacturer to make more more products which in the end makes the manufacturer more money. Another reason for middlemen for this period of time was the terrible condition of the roads. Many times when manufactures would try to go into to town to sell something their cart would lose a wheel or break a wheel which in the end would drive up their expenses even more. This was an even better reason for manufactures to hire middlemen since they didn't have to worry about the price of their carts they made even MORE money which made hiring middle men the obvious choice.
Before the industrial revolution took place competition in the field of business was alm,ost non-exsistent. This due to the fact that no one had really conceptuallized the idea before the eighteenth century. Also, everything in business was done in a very methodical way. There was no outside dealings in business which made the realization of competitive business even more difficult. The reason no one did trade out of town trading was due to the fact that no one liked it the viewed it more as a hassle more than anything else. They also viewed it as a challenge to their way of live. The reason no one attempted to do out of trading other than the un-political correctness of it all was because out of town traders were taxed ridiculously which in the end caused them to have less profit. Therefore every village would just mind it's own business with out any business related contact of any kind. This is kind of related to the lack of personal liberties in the time before the industrial revolution religious freedoms were greatly suppressed by the British Monarchy.
The main change of the industrial revolution was the replacement of human labor by machines. This resulted in a change from a largely agriculturally based society to a even larger economic one. Also, manufacturing goods from you home was no longer feasable so lots of people were forced to leave their homes in the country to go to the city in order to provide for their families. Not only was there a change in economy there was also a large change where everyone was located. Because of the new decision for everyone to move into cities the oppression of personal liberties came to a halt when the monarchy of the House of Stuart came to power. However, after the revolution the House of Hanover was instated and they had their mind set on war. Because a lot of people were leaving the country side and moving to the city. The prices of crops went through the roofs. With the new changes in prices common land was completely replaced and larger farms started taking over smaller ones. With the more money the farmers made the more methods of farming they could expirement with. This made owning land a very prestigious thing. Which in turn made farming nearly impossible for the poor. So the poor people had two options. They could either stay where they've been living and be treated unfairly on the farms or move into the cities and be treated unfairly at the factories. So, as you can imagine, this wasn't a very nice way to live. And for poor people starting your own farms was just completely out of the question.
The people that really had the largest impact on the revolution was Great Britain. They came up with the majority of new methods of doing work in more efficient ways. They also created the new inventions which made doing the work a heck of a lot easier. Mainly they improved upon the boat and how it ran. During the industrial revolution production of goods increased gratly. Not only did goods increase but so did the amount of services available to the public. In rhis time the upper and middle class thrived more than they normally would. And the lower class was even more poor and more downtrodden.
In 1769 cotton manufacturing began to become more popular than woolen products. This was mainly due to the invention of the Spinning Jenny. This machine made it easier to aquire yarn which drove the price of clothes way down.
The two leaders in the revolution were James Watt and Adams Smith. Adams smith wrote a book that greatly influenced the rest of the world's view on economics. Even though this may sound like a small accomplishment compared to the other stuff that was going on during this time period it was still a huge advancement in economics. The second man, James Watt, was the inventor of the steam engine. However, the process of Watt's idea coming to life wasn't easy and he faced a lot of challenges on the road to greatness. First, he was banned from the guild that he had been doing his studies at. He was forced to work just off the university grounds that the guild he was a part of was based off of. But that didn't stop him from becoming the great man of history that he is today. I could keep going on and on about the other accomplishments that Adam Smith had achieved but that would take quite a while.
Not all of the revolution was positive though. This was a time where Darwinism had got its start in the modern world. This made modern “scholars” to start questioning the Bible and the sad thing about us humans is that if we someone who seems smarter than us we will listen to whatever they say without questioning whether or not what their saying is fact or not. Another negative impact that the industrial revolution had was the beginning of pollution being pumped into the air by factories yet another thing that was wrong with the industrial revolution was the land being used up and demolished for the sake of factories. This is terrible because it drove a huge amount of animals from their homes or it just killed them all together.
Despite some of the negative effects that the industrial revolution had on the environment it was still a great time of advancement for the human race and technologically wise. If this revolution hadn't taken place the world we would live in would be nothing like the world we live in now.