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The Industrial Revolution and the Life in Urban Society Essay

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The Industrial Revolution and the Life in Urban Society

The Industrial Revolution began in the late eighteen and nineteenth centuries due to a rapid emergence of modern industrial production that changed society significantly. Goods that were produced in homes and small family businesses began to be produced in large industrial factories. As a result of this, productivity and efficiency increased dramatically, which caused a significant shift in the present economy. The Industrial Revolution led to the growth of cities as people moved from rural areas to the city in order to find work. Karl Marx believed that the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution overturned not only the traditional economies, …show more content…

With Abraham Darby’s discovery of an efficient way to smelt iron with coal to form a new burning product called coke, it allowed factories to keep running without destroying England’s forests. The invention of the steam engine by Thomas Newcomen and James Watt allowed more technological advancements for the revolution. The canal and railroad system also lead the way to the booming industrial revolution. With all these new advances in technology it created a demand for workers in the factories and not in agriculture.

As the Industrial Revolution began to rise so did a class called the bourgeoisie. Because of the demand for more efficient, larger scale production, the old traditional ways of society gave way to the new methods of manufacturing, defined by the widespread use of division of labor and with the birth of industrialization. Karl Marx describes this new system as, “modern Capitalists, owners of the means of social production and the employers of wage labor.”[iii] Marx believed that the development of bourgeois industries caused a proportional deterioration in the condition of the proletariat other known as the working class. The new economic powers of the bourgeoisie led to their political empowerment. While the bourgeoisie had originally served

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