Charles Dickens Research Paper

Throughout history, there have been many different types of revolutions. These revolutions have shaped the world into what it is today. One very influential and change evoking revolution was the industrial revolution. This revolution began in Great Britain during the 19th century. During this century Great Britain had and adequate food supply, as well as abundant natural resources. The food supply enabled the population to increase and many innovations were created. These innovations made the farming process much easier and faster. Farmers were no longer needed because of these innovations so they moved from rural to urban areas. Aside from having abundant resources, Great Britain also had an irregular coastline (that enabled them to build
ship ports), was surrounded by water, and at the time had greater political stability than anyone in the world. The Industrial Revolution brought about many long term and immediate impacts on people in Europe. Some of the immediate impacts were pollution, poor working and living conditions, child labor and rapid urbanization. However, as time progressed, many of these impacts were resolved and corrected.
People will join together to form unions, child labor will end, and workers will have laws that protect them. Some long term effects that we still experience today are capitalism and the creation of unions.

A few immediate effects of the Industrial Revolution were pollution and poor living and working conditions. As new technologies emerged, the population grew and the food supply increased. The agricultural technologies led to new manufacturing technologies to emerge as well. Many people moved to urbans areas in order to work in factories. According to Charles Dickens, "serpents of smoke trailed themselves forever… It had a black canal in it and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye." Charles Dickens’ tone is very disapproving. He is not in favor of industrialization. Dickens describes the city of "Coketown" as a highly polluted area. A "serpent" is usually associated with evil and slyness, which is how he is trying to portray industrialization as. A serpent is also known to choke its prey before eating it, and that is exactly what Charles believes the polluted air is doing to people, harming them. Dickens also uses colors such as "black," "red" and "purple " to show how
beaten up and dirty the town was. People often got sick because of the polluted air and water. Factories polluted most of the water in rivers, or canals, and the air with their waste. The Industrial Revolution didn't just affect environments, it also affected for working and living conditions. Fredrich Engles himself writes “The house is dirty, old, and tumble down, and the construction of the side streets are utterly horrible… The shops and beer houses hardly take the trouble to exhibit a trifling degree of cleanliness.” The essence of Engles argument is that houses were poorly made and this resulted in people living in poor conditions as well. They were “tumble down” because they were made quickly to satisfy the growing population. The faster houses were made the faster people were settled in and started working to satisfy the increasing demand for goods. Working conditions were also not great, they did not have "a trifling degree of cleanliness”. People were working in horrible conditions and were surrounded by dirt most of the time while they worked. Workers had to spend most of their day working and got paid low wages, they did not have any rights or were protected by laws. Fredrich Engles probably wrote this to show people the negative side of industrialization. He wanted to show how industrialization and capitalism ruined people's wellbeing. By showing this negative side of industrialIzation, he believes he is helping the working class receive rights and help from the government. Engels was against capitalism, he believed everyone should get help from the government and be in the same economic status. During the industrial revolution people were treated harshly based on their job and economic status.

The Industrial Revolution had so many effects it was inevitable that many of them evolved into long term ones.
Laws and ideas spread to support the creation of unions and capitalism. Unions were created to better the lives of the working class. Almost everyone in the working class was experiencing bad conditions at their job and at home. French writer, Flora Tristan, says “You must leave behind division and isolation as quickly as possible and March courageously and fraternally down the only appropriate path.” Tristan is speaking to the working class, her tone is very urgent throughout the document. The urgency is evident as she repeats the words unity and equality to emphasize the importance of what the working class must do. The “division and isolation” is the injustice they have amongst each other. Women made less money than men and had to give their money to the male figure in their families. She believes if the men treated women the same way and both earned the same amount of money, had the same rights and were treated with the same respect, then they would be able to come together and become much stronger. The stronger they are the much more impact their formed unions will make. The Unions enabled different workers to have a sense of protection and power over the wealthy people. Wealthy people had different lives than the poor, working class. The upper class usually were business or factory owners. These ownerships enabled them to get a lot of money because
they did not pay their employees enough money and gained a lot of profit. Most of them did not work hard like the working class and usually lived in distant towns from the poor. This injustice was partially because of capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of goods and services. This form of government made the wealthy richer and the poor poorer. The wealthy bourgeois were born into their wealth and were given an education, unlike the underclassmen. Flora’s intention of writing this document is to instill courage and reason into workers so they can form unions and urge reforms and protection in their workplaces. Another long term effect of the industrial revolution is capitalism. Capitalism was started by Adam Smith. It is the belief that the government shouldn't intervene, or step in, help the underclassmen and stabilize the economic system. A capitalist economy is driven by supply and demand, the more there is of something, the cheaper it is, the more people buy. During the industrial revolution, the demand for goods was extremely high, which crazed business owners to supply this demand with goods. They did this all while paying their employees low wages and receiving lots of profit. Although capitalism promoted hard work and opportunities to make money, there were many inequalities in wealth. According to Karl Marx, in his book “Communist Manifesto”, “in a word oppressor and oppressed stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted… fight, that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in a common ruin of the contending classes.” In other words, Marx believes that throughout history there has always been cases where there's a small group of people with much greater power than a larger group, an “oppressor” and the “oppressed”. It is always evident to see that both groups always have different ideas or beliefs. Karl Marx believes that this fight will change the way society is or both classes will be wiped out. In a capitalist society, economic status is inherited. In other words, if someone were born in a wealthy family they would have most likely been wealthy in the future as well, and vice versa. This was often criticized by anti-capitalists and the working classes because not everyone was given equal chances to have better futures and more money. Marx wrote the “Communist Manifesto” as a warning that there will be a revolt from the proletariats if the government doesn't intervene and help them. Most of the long term effects can still be seen today all over the world.

Upon analysis of evidence it is obvious that the Industrial Revolution was worth the cost to society. Although many people suffered during this period, if it were not for these abuses and mistakes, the world wouldn't be what it is today. If the proletariat did not fight for their rights, countries would not have laws that protect workers from being exploited today. Also, as seen throughout history, advances in technology and ways of thinking have enabled humans to progress. Once one invention was made, it caused a domino effect. In other words, people were influenced and driven by other beliefs and ideas to create better innovations. These innovations have enabled humans to live much easier and longer lives.