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Did the Industrial Revolution affect the way people lived and worked in the 19th century for the better or for the worse? Explain your answer by providing examples.


Industrial Revolution is the invention of new machines and the discovery of new sources of power to drive these machines that brought about changes.

In the 18th century, making cloth by hand was a slow and tedious process. Workers could only produce enough cloth for self-use. New machines like the spinning machine were invented later on. These machines greatly changed the way goods were produced and shortened the production time.

The early machines made use of water power to work, steamed-engine was then invented to replace the initial one. Coal was burnt in the steam-engine to turn water into steam. The pressure from the steam provided the energy for machines to produce goods in great quantities. At the same time, railway trains and steamships were invented following the discovery of the steam-engine. People could travel longer distances in a shorter period of time to look for markets and raw materials.

With the invention of these machines, this help to create more job opportunities for the people and workers began to work in factories instead of working at home. The use of more effective machines meant that goods could produce cheaply in great quantities and at a faster rate. Raw materials were needed to manufacture these goods. More goods produced meant that there was a need for new markets. They began to look to the East for raw materials and markets for their goods. One of the places they turned to was Asia where they could sell their goods in return for the profits.

Communications also improved as a result of the arrival of steamships. Letter, which previously took about four to five months to arrive in the days of sailing ships, was reduced to about five weeks at that time.Letters and documents could be delivered in a much shorter time, this also bought Singapore into closer contact with Britain and the rest of the world.

In my opinion, i would conclude that the Industrial Revolution did affect the way people lived and worked in the 19th century for the better.