Unit 9: Life and Labor in the Industrial World
The First Industrial Revolution had tremendous consequences for Britain and its position in the world, but the Second Industrial Revolution was globally transformative. It changed the way that people lived, as many people were forced by need or circumstance to move to cities to take up factory work. Cities grew at a tremendous rate, in no small part, because industrial capital had a tremendous need for workers that never let up.
But while many inventions and modern conveniences arose because of this, it also came with tremendous costs. Workers rarely benefited from this system; more often than not, they received little money in exchange for their hard work. The end of chattel slavery gave rise to new forms of coerced labor, such as debt labor. The movement of people across the globe displaced indigenous communities while also leading to greater social and political tension. This created a climate where people sought reform to moderate these demands or revolution to build a better system.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 3 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- describe the importance of certain inventions that came about during the Second Industrial Revolution;
- explain what life was like in industrial cities and how the growth of industrialization affected cities;
- discuss the movement of people globally and what effect this had on the places that they went; and
- analyze different reform and revolutionary movements to better understand how people criticized the industrial era.
9.1: Inventions, Innovations, and Mechanization
The late 19th century featured several inventions that may seem familiar to us or at least closer to what we use today. The first commercial typewriter was invented in 1873; Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in 1876. All this was possible to deliver to people through increased mechanization and industrialization. But it also meant dramatic shifts in how people lived. Cities grew to enormous sizes, and by the early 20th century, rural lifestyles were increasingly no longer the norm for people in the United States and Europe.
Read this text, which discusses the effects of the significant innovations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and how working-class families changed because of industrialization.
In this 1835 article, Andrew Ure describes the benefits of the new industrial system England developed during the previous century. He argues that the factory system relieved workers of the tedium of manufacturing goods by hand. The system saves factory owners money because they no longer need to hire skilled workers – unskilled women and children can operate the machines for low wages. He argued that any opposition to this prosperity was due to ignorance and fear-mongering. Do you agree with this viewpoint?
Steel was one of the most important industries for the United States; it drove the country's Second Industrial Revolution and saw it advance ahead of Britain in manufacturing. Andrew Carnegie and his company, U.S. Steel, were key representatives of this transformation. Read this article to learn more about Carnegie.
9.2: Life in the Industrial City
Cities grew astronomically in the 19th century and changed in dramatic ways. Modern innovations like streetlights came into vogue, first with gas and then with electricity, and public transit arose as people needed to be able to move across increasingly large spaces. But the growth of cities also revealed glaring problems that became impossible to hide. Pollution became alarmingly and disgustingly normalized, and the poor often could not access basic medical or social services. Endemic diseases such as cholera raged through overcrowded cities and took thousands of lives.
Read this text on the benefits of living in a city during the Second Industrial Revolution. The growing middle class and wealthy elites enjoyed restaurants, theaters, music, dance halls, libraries, and other entertainment venues. However, the lower classes and urban poor suffered from overcrowding, pollution, poor sanitation, disease, and limited housing.
The growth of cities in the United States offers a useful lesson. Cities went from being relatively small homes to a small slice of the population to much larger urban centers with new types of work environments. This text explains how this explosive growth required new solutions to meet new urban challenges.
Read this primary source document written by Jane Addams, a famous reformer in 19th and early 20th century America. She became the face of the "Settlement House" movement, which provided educational, recreational, and medical needs to immigrants and the impoverished. Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, which worked for over a century. What do you think she is arguing for here, and why did she think it was necessary?
9.3: Immigrants and Settlers
The 19th century saw tremendous movement of people around the globe. In the 1840s, Ireland's population catastrophically declined due to the potato famine, when millions emigrated in search of opportunity. Businesses and governments sought cheap labor and hired Chinese and Indian laborers to work under exploitative conditions. Many people moved to meet new economic opportunities.
Read this text on the immigrant experience. Europeans emigrated to Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States, and Uruguay to flee poverty and religious persecution and pursue better work opportunities. Many Chinese people sought work in the United States, South America, and the Caribbean.
A rise in "settler colonialism", accompanied the Age of Imperialism as settlers displaced indigenous peoples to claim land for themselves. This process had been underway in North and South America but continued during the 19th century as new settler colonies sprang up in Africa.
9.4: Regulation, Reform, and Revolutionary Ideologies
During this era, the extremes of poverty, exploitation of labor and the working class in search of profit, and authoritarian rule worried many observers. Some reformers recognized the system was becoming unstable due to its contradictions. Some were concerned from a moral perspective about how the poor were treated; others feared inaction would lead to more drastic consequences. Meanwhile, revolutionaries pointed to these abuses as proof of the failure of these systems.
Read this text on how abolishing slavery and serfdom led to various forms of coerced and semi-coerced labor, such as contract labor, debt bondage, and penal labor.
Read this text on attempts to regulate the industrial workplace, alleviate inequities, and improve the dismal living conditions in the newly industrialized urban centers. Marxism and other socialist ideologies protested the injustices the working class (proletariat) suffered while members of the wealthy class (bourgeoisie) prospered.
Read this article to understand the distinctions between socialism, socialist economics, market socialism, and related terms. It also covers key figures in socialist regimes and their policies.
Unit 9 Assessment
- Receive a grade
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
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- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.