Middle Class And Middle-Class Individuals During The Industrial Revolution

The introduction of many new crops like corn, tomatoes and potatoes to Europe from the Americas previously had all but eliminated wide-spread famine in the region. These new food sources had also made Europeans healthier resulting in generally increased lifespans and more offspring generating a significant population increase in the region, thus creating more demand for the products and goods consumed by every growing society. The increased population also provided for an abundant labor pool of workers to man the factories which were to become the engines of the emerging industrial society of the west. Favorable environmental factors were important too. The availability of an abundance of ports and waterways and large coal and iron deposits fueled the early surge of the industrial revolution in the west.

During the time frame of the Industrial Revolution there were 3 main social classes: The upper class, the middle class, and the lower class or the working class.

Before the Industrial Revolution some industry existed in Europe, but on a much smaller scale. As industrialization spread throughout Europe so did other things that made for better living conditions. Before industrialization many families worked at home and barely made enough to get by. But after industrialization there were more opportunities for outside work and money. Also, the monarch no longer ruled them and they had a stronger voice in the government.

England's previous success from the Agricultural Revolution gave leeway to the Industrial Revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth hundreds. Previous landowners and investors of the Agricultural Revolution were able to start or participate Corporations and Businesses to seek great profit. New machinery and technological innovations were frequent due to the demand for faster, more efficient technology. Working class families, who were arguably the sole reason for the grand success of the Industrial Revolution, moved from their farms into crowded and dirty urban towns to work long hours in harsh factories for little pay in hopes of one day living a decent life, while the middle class gained many luxuries and lived lavish lifestyles

The Jacksonian Period, or the era of the “common man,” greatly satisfied its name. Even though President Jackson was not a common man himself, he was a great supporter of the middle class. He dramatically altered the country’s banking system, by replacing wealthy elites with middle class white men. Even after his presidency, a new political party, the Whigs, continued to enact his ideas and political reforms to benefit the middle class.

Every facet in the way of life was affected by the Market Revolution, stopped the

The Industrial revolution started in Britain around 1750 and by 1850 it will make Great Britain the wealthiest country in the world. The revolution also spread to other European countries and the New World. Both Germany and United States will surpass Britain in the next fifty years. What was the effect of The Industrial Revolution on the working class?

Working hard to surive is something we all have to do. In America today, we are very privledged compared to our written history. During the Industrial Revolution, women and children were employed in factories with terrible and unsafe working condtions. These fragile, hardworking people worked around 12 hours per day, 6 days per week. Once these individuals hours were cut down to eight hours a day and their pay was increased, they became more productive and excited about their work.

In “Class and Community the Industrial Revolution in Lynn”, Alan Dawley discusses the changes the town goes through and how the Industrial Revolution changed the life of the town from pre-industry to factory systems. During the novel, the community becomes very materialized and Dawley explains how this creates tension between the elites and working class. Dawley pointed out that because of the corrupt factories and workers, there were hardships and extremes that the community had to overcome to achieve better working conditions.

The industrial revolution, contrary to many beliefs, was a negative for the world. Although there were many positives, the environmental damage and the division of middle class from the lower class created many short and long term negatives. The amount of pollution and new emergence of new disease was partly caused by the invention of the Steam train. The steam train, invented in 1803 by Richard Trevithick, was viewed as an overall positive but came with many hidden negatives. The environment trembled under the steam and the population explosion created commercial train lines which people used to get into the city.

Post-World War II United States was a significant period of time when the lifestyle of American people changed dramatically. Long period of economic booms brought mass suburbanization and people purchased their own home appliances, houses, and automobiles. As a matter of fact, in the background of the change of American lifestyle, there were repeated technological innovations. Successful mass productions of goods accelerated buying activities, which promoted the economic development in the United States. This was the beginning of expansion of the middle class; some people get enough money to succeed in having a happy life in the United States with family. However, when the status of family in a community was considered, proper management of money was necessary to keep their lives. Handful choices of buying goods or products with satisfaction made American Dream possible, but buying activities changed the social status of people for better or worse at the same time.

The US economy is slowly expanding, with unemployment and GDP growth slowly returning to its pre-recession levels. However, improvements in the economy has not been evenly felt across social classes. The middle class – second, third, and fourth quintile – are struggling to recover from the recession. Therefore, because JA Homes specializes in constructing houses for the middle class, I recommend the firm to contract in the next three years.

Trueman, C N. “The Domestic System.” The History Learning Site. Moocow, 2016. www.historylearningsite.co.uk/britain-1700-to-1900/industrial-revolution/the-domestic-system/. Accessed 17 February 2017.

Life for the middle class during the Middle Ages was noticeably easier than the peasants, but still not as glorious as the nobles. As the increase of cottage and textile industries became more apparent and important, there was an increase for jobs as merchants. These merchants eventually became capitalist and continued to increase investments along with profits. The common peasants would become more urban, moving in towards the cities and towns, instead of to the rural areas, and became wage workers. As middle class merchants became more prominent, there was an increase in competition for jobs that left many people unemployed and companies underemployed. The middle class was becoming a more diverse group of people, from wage workers to entrepreneurs, all experimenting with new opportunities to increase socially and economically in status.

Before the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain’s economy relied heavily on agriculture, which at that point of time was based a flawed system dating back to the Middle Ages. This system, known as the open field system, showed agricultural inefficiencies, and was disallowing of innovation. These inefficiencies eventually led to the privatization of land for agriculture, in an effort to solve what is now commonly referred to as “the tragedy of the commons”. Great Britain was now moving forward, and as the country (and continent) began enclosing their land, Britain began a period of modernization, with new technologies that would increase productivity in industry to a level never before seen. This is the period commonly referred to as the Industrial Revolution, and was an era of unprecedented growth in industry from the middle of the 18th century until around the middle of the 19th century. In 1760, 53% of the British population worked in agriculture. By 1840, that had dropped to 29%. The evolution from water and wind power to steam engines, as well as the creation of many pieces of machinery for the textile industry (such as the Spinning Jenny, which reduced the production time on yarn) vastly improved British manufacturing of goods, and the reliance on agriculture continued to drop. The development from an agricultural focus