Pg 827-861

The Industrial Revolution was a key time in the world's history. It was the turning point for the world to branch off ideologies and practices from old custom's and start anew so to speak. For some people like Great Britain it was good for the wealth it produced and also for the power it brought along with it. Others thought it to be the destruction of mankind. With its birth, the population of the world went up by an estimate of 700 million people. With the replacement of renewable energy like wind, water, and muscle power of people and animals, we decided to use things like coal, oil, and natural gas which were better for greater quantities of energy. Even with these amazing new resources of energy, this took a toll on our planets health, industrial waste was emptied into rivers making them a hazard to one's health, the smoke from coal would pollute the air that caused a spike in respiratory illness. The first to become an industrial society was the British. With there new found textile industries, the British had dramatically increased there use of both cotton, and coal in the 19th century. This revolution "was enormously painful, even traumatic process, full of social conflict, insecurity, and false starts as well as new opportunities, and eventually higher standard of living, and greater participation in public life" (Strayer). For citizen of this society they had never dealt with such a change in their life and it doesn't surprise me that they were furious at the changes that were going on during this time. Another thing that was horrific about this time was how the poor where treated. The poor class would work long hours, for low wages, and even child labor was acceptable in the community. It wasn't long until the Industrial Revolution spread to other countries like Russia, and the United States. For the U.S. this is exactly what they were waiting for, with their "country's huge size, the ready availability of natural resources, its expanding domestic market, and its relative political stability combined to make the United States the world's leading industrial power" (Strayer). The U.S. was the golden child for the revolution because while this was going on there were still expanding at the same time. For the Russian it took them a longer time to get accustom to this new way of living. Russia believed that the use of serfdom was incompatible with modern civilization and the crippled the county's development overall. So for the people who migrated from rural arenas, it was rough for them as one observer said "people live in impossible condition: filth, stench, suffocating heat" (Strayer).