The Beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

I remember in elementary school, during history classes, the teacher would always say: "Remember! Back in those days, there was no middle class" and I used to wonder then where did the middle class come from? Since then, I have widened my reading range from just the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings books and realized that the source of the middle class was actually The Industrial Revolution.

Steam Engine - James Watt 1760

I used to think that this was something similar to the French, American and Russian revolutions, but if i had to compare it to another era, it would be right now, people don't realize that we're going to practically another industrial revolution and we have been since the 80's and 90's. The one we're in now is based more on technology rather than just industry, but it is having a similar effect on society.
It practically began with the invention of the steam engine in 1760, by James Watt (the very first steam engine was actually created in 1698 - I guess Leonardo Da Vinci wasn't so far ahead of his time as I used to think) A lot of people think that this was the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution, others think the beginning was more centered around the time of Leonardo Da Vinci when he started looking at how a helicopter could be made back in the late fifteenth century - that's about 200 years before the very first steam engine was commercially available. In my opinion, I agree with the latter statement.

Sketch of an Aerial Screw by Leonardo Da Vinci circa. 1460-90

The reason I think this was the beginning of this revolution is that because of these sketches (which are very detailed and clearly noted by the way), Da Vinci made everyone think ahead. What would the world look like in 200 years? 300 years? and so on - I bet he would be proud to see how far humanity has gone in such a relatively short time. Inventors started trying to outdo each other but found it unable to create such machines, until finally Thomas Savery found a way to invent the steam engine in 1698 and all of a sudden these dreams became possible.

Okay, so, how did the middle class actually start? Well, when the steam engine became available, factories started sprouting up like daisies. They provided people with jobs which weren't as hard, safer (although at the beginning they were almost deadly) and for the amount of work they did, they got paid more.

These were the pros of the revolution, however, in the beginning there were a lot of cons which made this era of history seem bleak. The most important one was perhaps child labour. Although the invention of the flying shutter meant a faster and more efficient process as one worker could do the work of two, they would easily go flying off across the factory, and at that speed, they were deadly. There were factories which employed children to simply go and fetch the shutters when they "escaped".

Children outside a factory

This meant that children were continuously getting hurt, but it wasn't until one (or some) were killed that the laws against child labour were passed. Here, on might ask the question "why were children working anyway?" well the only reason women and children were working in the factories was because back then they didn't have equal status to men and so they could be paid less, which decreased the amount of expenses for the manufacturer.


To Be Continued in my next post....

References:
Leonardo da Vinci's Aerial Screw Invention. 2013. Leonardo Da Vinci's Aerial Screw Invention. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.da-vinci-inventions.com/aerial-screw.aspx. [Accessed 20 October 2013].

81.02.06: The Industrial Revolution. 2013. 81.02.06: The Industrial Revolution. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html. [Accessed 20 October 2013].

Industrial Revolution - Steam Engines. 2013. Industrial Revolution - Steam Engines. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.industrialrevolutionresearch.com/industrial_revolution_steam_engine.php. [Accessed 20 October 2013].

N/A, (N/A), Da Vinci Aerial Screw Sketch [ONLINE]. Available at: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Leonardo_da_Vinci_helicopter.jpg [Accessed 20 October 2013].

N/A, (N/A), James Watt Steam Engine [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/watteng.jpg [Accessed 20 October 13]

N/A, (N/A), Children standing outside a factory [ONLINE]. Available at: http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/Images/child-labor.jpg [Accessed 20 October 13].