Industrial Revolution Dbq Analysis

Negatives of the Industrial Revolution

While some might argue that Industrialization had primarily positive consequences for society because of the mass creation of goods, it was actually a negative thing for society. Industrialization’s negative effects were the huge amount of child labor, the horrendous living conditions and the major city pollution. These main contributing factors are all reasons why the industrial revolution was mostly negative.

The first reason is because of the huge amounts of child labor. There were some children that were not getting an education because they had to work. In document 8 it is clear that the children in this photo are not getting an education. In fact most factories over worked and underpaid most children. In document 1 the girl says that “… I am at work in a spinning room tending four sides of warp which is one girl’s work” (document

In document 8 there is a picture of an old tenement and you can clearly see that the house is crowded. And some families were living with more than just their immediate families. “As countries industrialized, they also urbanized. This was a result of people moving to cities in large numbers in order to gain factory jobs.” (document 6). So there were masses of people moving into small crowded cities because it was closer to their place of work.

The last example was the major city pollution. The crowded cities were producing more and more waste and the cities were urbanized because of the factories and the factories were powered by children and the children were needed because of the rising demand for goods caused by the industrial revolution. There were no sewers during the industrial times so mostly the garbage was in the streets. So the air was bad and the cities were of poor quality and it definitely affected city life for the