Was the Industrial Revolution Good or Bad?
Even though the Industrial Revolution meant less labour and more money going to the factories, it has some down sides. Those who were rich in the beginning would end up being more rich, considering they had the money to get the new technology and make the factories, but those who were struggling since the start, probably ended up being less fortunate then they were before. When landowners of farmland found new equipment, like ploughs, all of those people who would dig up the soil for them would have to go find other work, because they weren't needed when the new and improved comes in. Most of them ended up in factories or mines. Those in factories had to live in masses of about 10-12 people per house, and there was no place to put waste, so soon the streets were full with pollution, germs and wastes, meaning that there would be some extreme illnesses coming from that. It wasn't very healthy at all with all of the people crammed in one small area near the factory. Workers were paid a maximum of about 22 shillings a week, and in today's Australian dollar that is equal to about $4.37! Not much to live off for a week. No one today would be able to survive on money like that, so its a great question to know how they did it. The less fortunate ended up spending most of their time working (about 12-16 hours), in very dangerous and squalid conditions, with maybe 1-2 hours a day break, and then a small amount of sleep. Plus the amount of Carbon Dioxide that went into the air sky-rocketed after coal was burning on a daily basis. The good things about the Industrial Revolution is that those pieces of technology and creations that made work less hard for labourers can still be found in use today (probably not the same ones, but still), and maybe you wouldn't be even looking/reading this now, you could be busy at work on a farm instead of sitting reading this now on a computer/laptop/smart phone.