The effects of the Industrial Revolution were both helpful and destructive to the people. The Industrial Revolution, which lasted from the mid 18th to mid 19th century, was the introduction and implementation of new manufacturing procedures.

It initiated significant changes to the social environment, and also introduced urbanization and an increase in population. Those who worked as merchants or industrialists were made very wealthy, while those who were working class were pushed to worse conditions and further into poverty. The gains of the Industrial Revolution from the late 18th to the late 19th centuries were not worth the pain that was caused to working class people, because it made their life even harder than it already was and further separated them from the middle class.

One of the things that the Industrial Revolution introduced to working class people was child labor. Children were given jobs in factories with terrible working conditions and no medical care or treatments were available to them. They were overworked and given very little money for their work. Children who were only four years old were working in these factories so that their family could eat. Some jobs that children had to do were working in coal mines, working on machines in factories, or climbing up chimneys and cleaning them from the inside. Many kids lost body parts like entire limbs or fingers and toes while working on the dangerous factory machines, and many died. Many children had to work in these conditions. According to ducksters.

com, “Estimates show that over 50% of the workers in some British factories in the early 1800s were under the age of 14. In the United States, there were over 750,000 children under the age of 15 working in 1870.” The Industrial Revolution caused many health problems by making the working class have to work in terrible conditions with no money for healthcare or treatments for illnesses. As stated before many workers lost limbs and fingers and toes while working on the machines in factories. Women who worked in match factories had to breath the terrible chemicals and often lost teeth because of it.

People who worked in the mines often got lung poisoning from the toxic air. Because the machines in the factories were new and factory owners wanted to implement them as soon as possible, they did not check to make sure these machines were safe, and because of this many machines in the factories were very dangerous and sometimes killed people. Since many of the workers were children, their bones were still forming, and sometimes the way they had to crawl and move around in the factories wore out their bones too quickly and their bones would just break.

The living conditions were another reason why the Industrial Revolution was so bad for working class people. Workers had to live in tenements, which were very small rooms made for two or three people to live in. However, because of the working conditions and little to no payment for their work, up to 12 people had to live in one tenement.

Many of these tenements had no windows or insulation, meaning there was no light at all during the night time, and during winter these rooms could go to very low temperatures, causing a lot of sickness and even death sometimes. Because of these large amounts of people and terrible living conditions, crime was very common. People had to feed their families and since many lost jobs they had nothing to do but crime in order to stay alive and keep healthy. In conclusion, the Industrial Revolution was not worth it because of how it affected the working class. If the working class was treated better, had better working and living conditions, and children did not have to work just to stay alive and have a home, then it would be worth it.

100 years of suffering was not necessary and could have easily been avoided if factory owners took safety seriously and paid their workers enough to keep them alive and able to pay for a home. Although the outcome of the Industrial Revolution was very good and created the world we live in today, the suffering that children and workers had to go through was not worth it.