If the Industrial Revolution Hadn't Occurred...

Photo: This spinning jenny was one of the inventions made during the Industrial Revolution, and was a crucial instrument used in textile factories.
https://eee.uci.edu/clients/bjbecker/SpinningWeb/spinningjenny2a.jpg


The Industrial Revolution was a pivotal point in world history, because it effected more than one country, it changed the outlook in society, and it opened a whole new future of possibilities. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain, as it had all the right conditions that acted as a catalyst for this movement. For example, Britain's easy access to different waterways meant that it had easy transportation and access to raw materials, such as coal, wood, iron, water, and cotton. Even more importantly, at that time Britain had a stable government and even a good banking system, both of which many countries did not have then. Lastly, before the Industrial Revolution occurred, a good majority of the population helped to produce agriculture on farms. Over a short period of time, farming families could no longer support themselves off of farming alone. So, these people moved to the cities where there was major population growth, and between the two groups of desperate people looking for jobs, Britain's workforce increased sizably. The farms that had once morphed into factories with entire families working in them. Instead of laboring in the fields, people began working with new types of technology, in urbanized and growing cities, mass producing goods to better accommodate the demands that Britain had in its worldwide role as a vital country of trade.

If the Industrial Revolution hadn't occurred, the course of history would be majorly effected. State-of-the-art inventions became abundant during this time, starting with Eli Whitney's cotton gin and Robert Fulton's steam engine. These inventions lead to the buildings of factories, in which there were strict schedules that set a brand new precedent of timeliness and structure in a work environment. Many workers were not used to this, as they had previously worked for themselves or their families, thus schedule was more lenient. Versions of these occupation regulations are still in place today to keep up professional standards. Next, the Industrial Revolution created a new social class- the working class. This group became powerful as they made up the masses in the factories, allowing ideas, news, and opinions to travel faster in one place. As a result, even today, industries are at standstills when unions of workers band together to go on strike. Additionally, numerous opinions and theories emerged during the Industrial Revolution regarding how things should be run in the future. These theorists, named The Classical Economists, included David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, and Adam Smith. They conceived pioneering hypotheses about the economy, labor, and society. In conclusion, a lot of the changes that occurred during the Industrial Revolution set the tone for the modern day workforce, and the new inventions inspired subsequent machinery and equiptment that became the basis of technology people use today. The Industrial Revolution proved to have momentous value to shaping our world today, and a thought provoking question to think about as we study upcoming revolutions, is how the Industrial Revolution directly effected other historical events.