Energy and Industry in a Developing Europe

Chapter 21: The Revolution in Energy and Industry

During the political revolutions in France at the time leading the way for a new way of politics, a similar change in economics and social classes was occurring, especially in Great Britain. This change would come to be known as the Industrial Revolution and it would improve the lives of many people throughout Europe. Work would become mainly for wages instead of for agriculture and food, and a much more complex social structure would come to be. A higher style of living for all classes would come to be accepted by everyone, and now commoners in the upper middle class would rival the aristocracy in wealth and social class. However, a growing population throughout Europe would threaten these developments as not enough jobs were being created at the time, and it would make this transition to a more industrialized Europe very rough.

In this blog I hope to discuss the important people of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, primarily in Great Britain, and explain what how their developments led to the improvements in social structure and lifestyle for all people. I also hope to gain a better understanding for how the Industrial Revolution influences my life here in America today, as many of its developments are still seen today in our own social structure.

My essential question for this chapter is "How did the Industrial Revolution change the economic and social structure of Europe?"
The Industrial Revolution changed the economic and social structure of Europe dramatically. For the first time, the middle class was beginning to expand thanks to factory owners and industrial capitalists to the point that it rivaled the aristocracy in power and wealth. People now earned better wages and were better educated, which would form the modern idea of a middle class and the people were working for their lifestyle, creating the working class as well. However, children would now become close to slaves, working for very little money for over 12 hours a day in factories, which would lead to new legislation passed to protect them in England. The idea of separate spheres also came about thanks to the Industrial Revolution, where women were expected to be the homemakers instead of being co-wage earners with their husbands, and men were expected to be the wage-earners or "breadwinners" of the household. Single women were not given equal pay or equal opportunities as compared to men of the same age as them, and this idea of sexual division of labor would become commonplace throughout Europe.