social changes during the industrial revolution Flashcards
urbanization
a movement of people from rural areas to towns and cities. factories were built in or near coal and iron ore mining towns, in northern England, the Midlands and Wales. people who were pushed off the land by farm enclosures, moved to live near mines and factories to find work. in this way, towns grew.
new, ever-growing towns
not pleasant places to live. factory owners built small houses for workers. the houses were crammed close together, near the factories with their smoking chimneys. houses were joined together and built in double rows, back-to-back. each street had only one water pump, and a sewer ran down the middle of the street. towns were very dirty and disease spread quickly.
lives of families
the lives of families who had been farmers and part of cottage industries changed completely. people became part of the factory system. The factory worked long hours at machines.wages were so low that men, women and children had to work to buy food to live. The children were the worst paid. factory owners became rich, but the workers lived in poverty.
workhouses
existed in Britain from the 1600s. they were places to help the very poor. in exchange for food and a place to sleep, people worked for no pay. workhouses were not comfortable places. only people who had nowhere else to go went to a workhouse. factory owners sometimes used orphan children from workhouses in their factories.
child labour in mines
coal mines were dangerous places to work. because they were small, children and women were employed to pull and carry coal along tunnels to the surface. before the passing of the Mines Act of 1842, even children under the age of ten were employed in mines.
child labour in factories
thousands of children worked in factories. factories that process raw materials like cotton and sugar are sometimes called mills. some mills employed children who were as young as five years old.
