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Industrial Revolution - Reading List: Recommended Ideas for Short and Long Term Consequences

Recommended Ideas for Short and Long Term Consequences

  1. How did work change for adults?

  1. How did the way goods were produced change?

  1. What effects did the Industrial Revolution have on the natural environment?

  1. How did settlement patterns change? 

Short-term Consequences

Primary source images you find to explain these effects should be from the 1800s

  • Adults had to find work outside the home

  • Left farms to work in factories

  • Poor working and living conditions that impacted health and wellbeing

  • Many adults lost work to machines and Luddite reactions spread

  • Machines used to produce goods instead of manual labour

  • Increase in the amount of goods produced in a shorter period of time

  • Price of goods decreased 

  • More metal, interchangeable parts

  • Assembly Line 

  • Mining of non-renewable resources i.e. coal

  • Poor air quality e.g.“London Fog” (smog) leading to respiratory illnesses

  • Habitat destroyed or changed - for ex., Peppered Moth evolution (trees turned black)

  • Increased waste without proper sanitation polluted the water system (Cholera in London)

  • City density

  • Rural to urban migration

  • Travel to work (didn’t work at home)

  • Cities grew near mining areas (esp. Northern UK

Long-term Consequences

(primary source images you find to explain these effects should be from more recent - the 1900s, 2000s, or today)

  • Workers’ rights movements grew (unions, Socialism, Communism)

  • Laws and rules to protect worker rights were passed

  • Public eduction (someone needed to watch the kids)

  • Growth of middle class

  • Patents and Copyright much more important than before

  • Greater trade and communication

  • Greater consumerism and access to goods 

  • More opportunities to create wealth 

  • Assembly line is automated

  • Globalisation (products mass-produced around the world)

  • Climate Change

  • Awareness of pollution, laws about environmental protection, species protection (for ex. London’s Clean Air Act)

  • Solutions to decrease human impact on the environment (SDGs)

  • Rail and car travel => suburbs and commuters, urban sprawl

  • Smaller household size (generations don’t live together like they used to)

  • Megacities (continued rural => urban migration)