Negatives of the Industrial Revolution

The  Factory System

It would be impossible to understand the world we live in without understanding the factory system. When Richard Arkwright herded scores of men, women and children together in buildings to run the new power driven machinery, he became the father of the factory system.

By 1800 there were several hundred factories in England and as the nineteenth century progressed, the factories became more and more numerous until the factory system had almost completely replaced the home system of manufacture.

In some cases the change from home to factory may have been beneficial to the workers but more often it led to terrible suffering and degradation.

As a rule the factories wanted unskilled labour. Children and women were preferred because they were cheaper and  easier to manage. Many children under fourteen worked as many as sixteen hours a day. Poor houses frequently relieved themselves of the responsibility of caring for orphans by handing them over to factory owners. To prevent them from running away many such children were chained to their machines. 

All the results of the factory System were not beneficial. The differences between capital and labour resulted in two hostile groups. Unlike the Middle Ages where the employee had much in common, the line was sharply drawn between the two. The employers reaped huge profits while the workers toiled for  long hours at low wages. They had divergent interests which were irreconcilable. Women and children worked in factories under the most dreadful conditions and their poverty compelled them to live in crowded and miserable houses where basic amenities were totally lacking. Morality was out of the question. In the nineteenth century at least one tenth of Manchester's population lived in cellars in appalling conditions. Food prices rose to prohibitive level and the poor were underfed and under-nourished.

City Slums 

Another unfortunate result of the factory system was the growth of unhealthy and squalid slums around the factories. The early factories provided no housing and as such the workers lived in miserable little houses. Many a dark cellar served as home for an entire family. Fever and disease played havoc with the people.

Immorality

Such unhealthy conditions were not conducive to morality and house life. Modesty and virtue were hard to maintain when families lived herded together like cattle. Both men and women took to drinking. Children imitated the grown ups and picked up their views. What family life could have been is best left to one's imagination where ignorance, poverty , hunger, dirt and disease ruled the roost.

A marked change in the countryside was one of the most important transformation caused by the industrial revolution. Before the establishment  of factories , most of the people lived either in the country or in small towns spread over the countryside. With the construction of Factories, cities sprang up as if by magic. In place of quiet little villages, there were sites where chimneys emitted smoke and the streets were lined with miserable cottages. There were however other areas where were fine large houses- where the rich and the fortunate who had large profits from the changed conditions lived.

Division of Society

The industrial revolution divided society into two distinct groups  the rich middle class (bourgeoise comprising of manufacturers, merchants, bankers and professional men on the one hand and the wage earning) proletariat consisting of mill and factory workers on the other. The gap between employer and employees gave rise to many of our present day economic and social problems.