Oh yes. I was going to come back to this one to challenge your usual 'woe is me and the world is terrible' take on life.The industrial Revolution only benefited the people after a huge struggle to stop the persecution of those that had to work the machines
Amazing event if for instance you were not a Child worker
hildren were preferred workers in textile mills because they worked for lower wages. Child laborers tended to be orphans, children of widows, or from the poorest families. Children were needed for low pay and nimble fingers. Child labor was not an invention of the industrial revolution, they were first exploited by their parents on the farm. Now for the first time in history children were an important factor of an economic system but at a terrible price.
Here you are have a History lesson about the wonderful benefits of the Industrial Revolution
Like Brexit, the Rich gain and the poor lose, is the case of the Industrial Revolution, with shorter and miserable lives.
Children were required to work under machines and were constantly cleaning and oiling tight areas. Young children were worked to near exhaustion, to such an extent that they would fall asleep over machines. If they were caught sleeping or showed up to work late, they were beaten and tortured by their supervisors. Cruelty and torture were enacted on children by master-manufacturers to maintain high output or to keep them awake. The children’s bodies become crooked and deformed from the work in the mills and factories. Their bodies and bones became so weak that they couldn't hold themselves up, and their backs permanently hunched.[2] Children in the mines did not have it any better. They would start working at the age of 4 or 5, both boys and girls. A large proportion of children working in the mines were under 13 and a larger proportion from ages of 13-18. Mines were not built for stability, rather, they were small and low and children were needed to crawl through them. The conditions in the mines were not remotely safe, children would often have limbs crippled, and bodies distorted or be killed. Children could get lost within the mines for days at a time. The air in the mines was injuring to breathe and could cause painful and fatal diseases...
And there is a lot more on the link below
https://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/industrialrevolution/IREffects.html
Rule Britannia? not at that price.
The notion that child labour in either theory or practice was a result of the Industrial Revolution is diametrically opposed to reality.
Under mercantilism it was ideal to employ children almost from the age when they could walk, and, for example Colbert [Louis XIV’s Minister of Finance from 1665 to 1683] introduced fines for parents who did not put their six-year-old children to work in one of his particularly cherished industries.
The Industrial Revolution did not cause hunger, poverty or child labour. Those were always with us.
The Industrial Revolution actually helped to eliminate them - it started the process whereby we now have the lowest form of child-labour anytime in history.
Now you may do your usual ignoring this other point of view - but once in a while OG it's good to have your cherished opinions challenged.
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