Industrial Rev.

The Industrial Revolution began in England for many reasons. In 1700s, Britain's economy was mainly an agricultural economy. Wealthy landowners bought up all the land and enclosed their land with fences allowing them to cultivate larger fields called enclosures. This caused the enclosure movement, which put most small farmers out of work causing them to move to cities. This movement to cities is known as urbanization, which gave Britain a large population of workers. Britain also had many natural resources and an expanding economy to support industrialzation, or the process of developing machine production of goods. The resources needed to provide these goods and services were called factors of production, which included land, labor, and capital (wealth).
Besides the postive effects, the Industrial Revolution also had negative effects. Because of urbanization, many cities, whose infrastructure system could not keep up with the rapid population growth, were overcrowded with people looking for jobs. England's cities lacked decent housing, sanitary codes, education, and police protection. Many workers of the working class lived in small, dirty shelters where sickness was widespread. With the introduction of steam, factory conditons became worse. Machines injured workers. Many factory owners wanted to get the cheapest labor possible. To do this, factory owners hired workers, mostly women and children because the were the cheapest labor, so they could work long hours for low wages. As the working class saw little improvements in living and working conditions, the middle class, made up of skilled workers, professionals, factory owners, and other well do to people, saw improvements in their lives. The middle class was now able to afford things that the wealthy only had acess to, such as servants.
In the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution created a major gap between the rich and the poor. Many reformers felt that the government needed to play an active role to