Topic 5.9
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📍Topic 5.9 Society and the Industrial Age
📖 AMSCO p.343 - p.350
Main Idea
⭐ Industrialization led to an emerging middle class that enjoyed economic prosperity, while also creating a working class where poor urban workers faced harsh conditions. Urban women’s roles increased, as they took up jobs in textiles and domestic service, reducing time spent at home. Leisure activities like attending sports games, concerts, and theaters also increased, transforming the middle-class lifestyle.
Key Timeline
Timeline of events following Society and the Industrial Age
Image Courtesy of Riya
Things to Know
Effects on Urban Areas
- Tenements
- Working families had to live in crowded conditions
- Diseases spread quickly
- These buildings were owned by factory owners
- Located in low-income areas called slums
- Crime rates increased
- Working families had to live in crowded conditions
- Conditions Led To:
- Development of sewage and drainage systems
- Improved sanitation
- More clean water
Effects on Class Structure
- Classes of Society in Britain
- Bottom: Working Class
- Worked in factories and coal mines
- Received low wages
- Middle Class
- Factory and office managers (white-collar workers)
- Literate and educated
- Top: Industrialists
- Owners of big companies
- “Captains of Industry” - overshadowed others
- Bottom: Working Class
Farm Work vs. Factory Work
- Farm Work
- Before industrialization, women could work from home
- People used to work near each other
- Relaxed work schedules
- Factory Work
- Industrialized machines made everyone go into factories
- Long-hour shifts - 14 hours a day, 6 days a week
- Injuries and deaths increased
Effects on Children
- Children as young as 5 worked in textile mills and coal mines
- Exposed to dangerous conditions:
- Heated conditions
- Carried heavy materials
- Breathed in coal/factory dust
- Collapsing mines and flooding
Effects on Women’s Lives
- Working-class women worked in coal mines
- Primary laborers in textile factories
- Paid women 1/2 of what they paid men
- Becoming a housewife = status symbol
- This meant that the husband was capable of being the only provider
- “Cult of domesticity” - idealized female homemaker
- Feminism also rose
- 1848 - Seneca Falls, New York
- Equality for women
- 1848 - Seneca Falls, New York
Effects on the Environment
- Pollution
- Air
- Fossil fuels - coal, petroleum, and natural gas
- Burning wood
- Smog led to respiratory problems
- Water
- Industries dumped waste into bodies of water nearby
- Led to cholera, typhoid, and other diseases
- Air
Legacy of the Industrial Revolution
- Mass production made goods cheaper, available, and easily produced
- Factory growth inspired movement from rural areas to the city
- Urban shift for work
- Led to pollution of air and water
- Relationship between workers and owners
- Pay and inequality
- Bad living conditions led to diseases and deaths
- Pay and inequality
Terms to Remember
| Term | Definition + Significance |
|---|---|
| Tenements | Poorly maintained apartment buildings in urban areas, which symbolized unsanitary and inadequate living conditions for the working class. |
| Slums | Impoverished urban neighborhoods, which were often overcrowded and highlighted socio-economic disparities during industrialization |
| White-Collar Workers | The middle-class population who worked in office-based jobs. This highlighted the diversity of jobs amongst the middle class during industrialization. |
| Working Class | People who worked in manual and industrial labor industries. They faced various challenges like unsafe working and living conditions. |
| Industrialization | Shift from farming-based economy to factories. More mechanized technologies brought about various economic and societal changes. |
| Hierarchy | Social structure during the Industrial Age. Middle-class and factory owners rose in status, while the urban poor faced hardship. |