The Emergence of the Working Class through The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1914, in Europe, UK and USA.

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The Emergence if the Working Class through The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1914, in Europe, UK and USA.

        

During the period 1750-1914 Britain, Europe and the United States went through dramatic economic changes and transformations with many comparisons and contrasts throughout the three regions. The emergence of the working class is said to have been a direct result of these changes.

        The Industrial revolution, 1750 to 1914, has an enormously important part to play in the emergence of the working class and to understand properly its significance one must look back to a pre-industrialised society and thus identify the astronomic differences in the way people worked/survived.

        Before this Industrial Revolution occurred Britain along with the US and Europe were all largely agricultural, citizens would only farm and manufacture on a very small scale, doing so merely to provide for the family (domestic consumption). During this early period there was no such thing as factory work or mass production, whatever was needed be it pots, tools, clothes etc would all be made in the home. As far as population statistics are concerned only 15% of the population in England, during 1750, inhabited small towns/cities, which was echoed in the US and Europe. Thus the demand for mass production was low, this was not only due to the fact that not any great number of people lived in any one place, indicating that the labour force be low. But more significantly no one felt the need to produce for others out with their family circle. Therefore everyone, generally, was perceived to be essentially equal, thus economic and class status was more or less non-existent.

        The period of industrialisation was a slow and laborious process, which took many years to fully develop and thrive; it came in three main waves. The first of which occurred in Britain during the years 1780 to 1820, Britain pioneered the first industrial society and occurred due to failings in agriculture and the desire to drag Britain into a more productive and efficient economic state. Factories started to appear across Britain as manufacturing became more organised and productive and for the first time people started selling their labour as a workforce, rather than just working for themselves. The second wave hit in 1820 and continued

through to 1870, France, Germany and the US were not to be left behind and began to adopt some of Britain’s industrial qualities. This wave can be directly associated with immigration patterns, particularly with the US, as many British and European citizens travelled westwards, across the Atlantic, to seek opportunity by acquiring land etc to develop these British industrial ideas. This was relatively common as it was easy, and free, to gain entry to the states. Also there was little to no law against accepting immigrants. The third and final wave struck during 1880 and thrived through till 1914 which saw the US and Europe taking the lead over their founding father Britain. The US and Europe took Britains early industrial ideas and developed them more quickly and efficiently. This was particularly noticeable in the production of automobiles. In Britain automobiles were produced extremely slowly and expensively and only to order. The process was highly skillful including only a small group of talented men who would lovingly create each part of machinery by hand. As the automobiles were produced in this way they were excessively expensive, not only to the consumer but also to the producer. Therefore even though they would be sold for large sums of money the workers would only receive a very small quantity of the money, as cost of production was so high. An American called Henry Ford took the idea of industrialisation and adapted it to the automobile business. This also relates back to the previously mentioned immigration pattern as his parents emigrated from Ireland, during the potato famine, and perhaps may have influenced their son with talk of British industrial ideas. By 1903 he set up the Ford Motor Company where he introduced the first moving assembly line, thus mass-producing automobiles much more cheaply and efficiently in the US rather than the slow expensive method of Britain.

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        Through this period of industrial change, over the three areas, saw the introduction of mass production the development of new more efficient technologies and also economies of scale. These new developments in the type of work people were doing saw the rise of capitalism, dividing those who owned the means of production (e.g. Henry Ford) and those who did not, yet worked on the means of production (e.g. Henry

Ford’s employees). Therefore a divide between the once equal communities was now starting to emerge which the lesser would later be described as the working class.

        As ...

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