Industrial Revolution Innovations
This invention, improved by James Watt in 1776, powered factories, mines, and transport systems, making mass production possible.
What is the steam engine?
This term explains how several families often lived in one room, which led to the spread of diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis.
What is overcrowding?
This Charles Dickens novel features Coketown, a grim industrial city filled with smoke and monotonous factories.
What is Hard Times?
Modern urban slums in cities like Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro resemble the overcrowded tenements of this historical period.
What is the Victorian era?
This process, developed in 1856, allowed for the mass production of steel, revolutionizing construction and transportation.
What is the Bessemer Process?
In Victorian cities, why there were frequent outbreaks of disease from open sewers and lack of drinking water.
What is poor sanitation?
This wealthy, arrogant factory owner in Hard Times shows no empathy for his workers.
Who is Mr. Bounderby?
The 2013 collapse of this garment factory in Bangladesh highlighted dangerous working conditions in the modern world.
What is Rana Plaza?
This textile industry innovation increased production speed and reduced labor costs.
What is the Spinning Jenny or Power Loom?
Factory workers, including children, typically worked these many hours per day under dangerous conditions.
What is 14 to 16 hours?
This non-fiction work by Friedrich Engels exposed the inhumane living conditions of the working class in England.
What is The Condition of the Working Class in England?
For these reasons today's workers continue to struggle
Higher wages, better conditions, and job security against automation.