Technological Changes In Human Civilization

The Industrial Revolution brought down the prices of crops produced by farmers, this meant that farmers were not making enough money to pay off their debts. This increasing problem was slowly digging farmers into a hole with what seemed to be no escape. To add on to their everlasting money problems, middlemen and railroad companies were price gouging the farmers. This meant, the companies were asking farmers to pay prices which had been far higher than the actual value of the products needed for the farmers to raise crops. Companies did this, because they knew that farmers could not buy their goods from other businesses due to the fact that there were not any others in sight.

In a time when America was coming out of the bloodiest war that was ever fought, against themselves, The Civil War, and when America looked overseas for a new frontier with Imperialism. It is in this context that America started to grow westward with farm land and in industry with the million of workers, but America still felt growing pains. Two significant ways in which farmers and industrial workers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age (1865-1900) were the formation of organizations to protect farmers, and the creation of labor unions and the use of strikes to protect the workers. One significant way in which farmers responded to industrialization in the Gilded Age (1865 - 1900) was the formation of organizations to protect farmers. During Westward Expansion farmers fell victims to the low pricing of the crops.

The documentary food chain shed light on the reality of farmworkers it also

The lords that owned these dying lands were desperate for work. Taking advantage of the situation, peasants began to demand for money for their labor. For the first time, peasants were making working conditions and they were working for themselves. The higher social classes did not have as much control over the lower classes. Without the Black Plague, job opportunities and the end of feudalism would not have happened.

On the list, there were some men without known jobs. A few off the unknown men may have known a little about farming, but most likely not enough. Droughts were also a problem. From “The Lost Colony and Jamestown Droughts,” the charts show that the drought lasted from “1605-1612.” With a drought that long, crops didn’t grow and colonists died from hunger and thirst.

George Washington Carver's most important legacy is his immense impact on agriculture. Carver did not only help farmers learn more about caring for their crops but he also gave new insights and uses for simple things crops produced. With this Carver even gave new jobs to people as now people had to do things such as make peanut butter from peanut crops. The advancements Carver gave to agriculture opened almost a whole new world to the condition of agriculture at his time. back then, though agriculture was a striving practice, many people were not original in the way they grew crops, and also didn't give much attention to the conditions of the crops, it's soil or it's plants.

Industrialization upgraded machines, but downgraded people’s health due to more pollutants getting put into the air. Along with this there were very poor working conditions that decreased people’s health. Upton Sinclair showed that industries should have safer and more sanitary working conditions before employing people to work and distributing their product, in order to decrease the amount of injuries and illnesses, in The Jungle. Sinclair wrote about how most of the machines in the factories were very dangerous. Many of the machines were run by the working men/women, so when a machine broke the man/woman working at it usually had to try to fix it.

Farmers failed to follow a new technique of farming which would help prevent wind erosion during the drought. Dryland farming would benefit farmers by using drought resistant crops and conserving moisture. Wheat, corn, and even watermelon were crops that would be grown. The method of dry farming would’ve benefitted the farmers in need of crops but the failure to acknowledge the technique had devastated farmers from all around in arid lands. In conclusion, the dust bowl was a man made phenomenon.

The society nowadays consists of different jobs and people from different areas, but they were not like that in the late 1800s. Most Americans lived on farms. When things started changing for farmers from what they were growing to how they borrowed money due to the radical policies, consequences were brought to the farmers as the radical politics started changing farmer’s life. One of the consequences is that the farmers are no longer dependent on themselves. In earlier times, farmers grew their own food, made their own tools, and were generally self-sufficient.

But why was social mobility so hard? Why were Egyptians forced to always follow in their parent’s footsteps? The way their social classes were structured also brings up some interesting questions. Farmers were at the bottom, but they provided food for the whole country.

Before the Enclosure Acts were put forth, multiple people worked a large area of land in random pieces as a living, this was known as the domestic system. This wasn’t the most reasonable way of producing goods because each piece had rugged edges which led to less food being harvested. Another downfall was that each piece had multiple people to divide the profit with. The British government realized these faults and put the Enclosure Acts into effect in 1801. This allowed one person to buy a large area of land to farm, which led to many

In a vicious circle, their farm machinery increased their output of grain, lowered the price, and drove them even deeper into debt. In 1890, many farmers lost land due to mortgages. Farmer then began sharecropping in order to survive. Water scarcity and over-used land made it hard for farmers to pay local taxes.

In addition, you depend completely on the animals. For example, say there is a drought, the grass would struggle to grow, thus leading to starvation among the animals. All leading back to the demise of your community. This called for a new way to find food, and in this situation the solution is not to find food, but to grow it.

Industrialization is something that was once accomplished with muscle power, and now would be done with machinery. Early factories were built in the United States due to Samuel Slater. In 1820 an entire factory town was built in Lowell, Massachusetts, and was completed. The industrial manufacture was a textile factory that produced clothing.

These poor people made up an ample amount of the population. The poor class of the South obviously was unable to afford a plantation or slaves for that matter. Consequently, it can be implied that did not have a very large impact on their will to fight in the Civil War. Farmers were the next class of people, they owned small patches of land, never large enough to be a plantation. These farmers supported at most one slave who were usually treated more as workers than property.