How Revolutionary Really Was The Industrialization?

Recently in Honors History Ten our class has been learning about the industrialization and how it changed the world to a much better place. The essential question for our class was “What was revolutionary about industrialization?” We covered four main subtopics on the industrialization and those were, people, technology, resources, and transportation, but today I will be focusing on only people and transportation.

People played a major role in the industrialization. People made the industrialization revolutionary by having the Dutch combine smaller fields to make larger fields. This may seem simple, but it had some major results that really helped improve farming. With larger fields the Dutch were able to grow more crops and grow new crops that they didn’t originally have room for. Also, they used fertilizer to help make sure that their soil was as rich as it could be. This was crucial because famine was always an imminent threat. Besides new crops the larger fields also helped stem the inventions of new machines that were needed to farm this land efficiently. Second, the enclosure movement was when wealthy landowners kicked peasant farmers off of their land and then fenced it off. This helped the landowners gain land for sheep to graze, and that meant more wool for clothes. The rich landowners became richer because there were fewer people for them to pay. Now that the farmers had no work they wandered to the cities were there was an abundance of jobs in factories now that many new inventions have been created. Finally, during industrialization death rates began to decline. This was vital because it reduced the risk of famine, which was always a constant threat. People discovered that if women ate healthier then their babies would also be healthier and there would be better chances that they would both survive childbirth, which was a common way to die back then.

Princess — 2-4-4 G-Scale Forney Locomotive, Painting, http://www.h-l-w.com/Products/locomotives.html 

Faster transportation had a huge impact on industrialization. Steamboats and locomotives helped city growth, increased trade over long distance and helped people gain access to goods that are not grown near them. Imagine living life where we have no access to things like bananas, grapes and many other fruits. People who lived in the northern part of the world didn’t have access to not only tropical fruits, but many other necessities that were only available closer to the equator until steam boats and locomotives. Steamboats were powered by steam engines, and they traveled the ocean at an average speed of five miles per hour. Steam Locomotives were revolutionary because they made railroad travel possible and they did not need to follow rivers. The first train was created in 1830 and by 1870 trains were very popular.

 Learn More About Industrialization Here