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DBQ: The Industrial Revolution

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There are many turning points in history that can be examined with none exceeding in importance that which took place during the 18th century. For much of the 17th century, and into the early 18th century the primary economic system was the domestic method, utilizing merchants and skilled craftsmen. However, as the 18th century progressed the world began to undergo a revolution that is now known as the Industrial Revolution. Because of its resources, geography, and beneficial governmental policy, England led the way in this new age where the factory replaced rural work. While this was a time of great technological advancement, not everything was a positive result of the Industrial Revolution. Nonetheless, the Industrial Revolution brought a …show more content…

Because of new inventions and the factory style of work, goods could be produced at a rapid pace with excellent accuracy in duplication. This excess of produced goods drove the price of goods down significantly allowing people of lower classes to buy things they could previously not afford. As seen when comparing the domestic system in Document 1 to the factory system in Document 4, it is also noticeable that the amount of steps in production of a product was cut down. Machines could do more work, more precisely, in less time. While this would seemingly eliminate jobs, the factories required a surprisingly extensive workforce, keeping the amount of jobs similar. The downside to this is that workers were now becoming less skilled. In the domestic system shown in Document 1, it is shown that the merchant must take the resource to multiple skilled laborers who turn the resource into a product. However, as seen in document 4, the machines do all the work as people just load them up and monitor them, thus making laborers less skilled. Logically, one would think that this drop in skilled labor would lead to citizens earning less but this was not the case. Though citizens were performing tasks requiring no skill, they were working longer hours, had more job security, and were getting paid pretty much the same, thus in general they had more money. Also, the price of goods was driven …show more content…

Through today's internet, we are able to utilize online shopping which drops the price of goods and promotes even greater competition by offering even more places to buy goods. This being similar to the decrease in prices and increase in goods during the Industrial Revolution. Another similarity to the Industrial Revolution is technology itself. Technology has been so mass produced that the prices have dropped significantly and now, nearly all “classes” of people have smartphones, similar to how workers during the Industrial Revolution could start to afford greater luxuries. Lastly the creation and elimination of jobs by technology parallels the factories of the Industrial Revolutions. Today the creation of computers is largely replacing the thinking and computing, as well as the completion of small tasks required by actual people in the workforce, but by the same token is opening up many more jobs in the technology field through repair,maintenance, and programming. Thus, like the Industrial Revolution where people traded skilled jobs for factory jobs, the job tradeoff in today's technological age seems fairly

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