1. SOCIAL IMPACT
OF THE
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION

2. PEOPLE MOVE TO CITIES
 Urbanization
 Movement of people to the cities
 Changes in farming, growing population and an
increasing demand for workers led people to
move from farms to cities
 Entrepreneurs
 Became wealthy as a result of the Industrial
Revolution
 Workers
 Exposed to poverty and horrible living conditions
 Suffered dangerous working conditions
 Had unsafe and unsanitary working conditions

3. NEW SOCIAL CLASSES EMERGE
 Industrial Revolution created a new middle class
and a new working class
 Middle Class owned and operated new machines,
factories, mines and railroads and they enjoyed a
more comfortable life than the working class
 Working Class became workers in the factories
and mines and lived in uncomfortable
environments

4. THE INDUSTRIAL MIDDLE CLASS
 Came from a variety of backgrounds
(merchants, inventors, rags to riches)
 Lived in well furnished and spacious
homes
 Wore fancy clothes, worked hard to get
ahead and had little sympathy for the
poor
 Women focused on raising the children

5. INDUSTRIAL WORKING CLASS
 Lived in foul smelling slums
 They were packed in tiny rooms in tenements (multistory
buildings divided into apartments)
 There was no running water, sewage or sanitation system
so waste and garbage rotted in the street
 Sewage was dumped into the river so there was a horrible
smell and the water became contaminated (unclean)
leading to the spread of diseases such as cholera

6. WORKERS STAGE PROTESTS
 Workers organized groups called labor unions,
although they were illegal many met in secret
 They wished to initiate reforms (changes) such
as increase in pay however they had no political
power and often times their frustration turned
into violence

7. WORKERS STAGE PROTESTS
 1811-1813 groups of textile workers known as
Luddites smashed the machines that were taking
over their jobs and they burned factories

8. LETS WATCH AND YOU DECIDE…
 The Luddites

9. WORKERS AND RELIGION
 Methodism
 Workers found comfort with this religion
 Stressed the need for a personal sense of
faith and encouraged followers to improve
themselves by adopting sober and moral
ways
 Had songs and hymns that promised
forgiveness and a better life to come
 Helped to channel workers anger away from
revolution and towards reform
What do workers do to
deal with their
frustration of their
bad working
conditions?

10. THE POWER OF JOURNALISM
 Muckrakers
 Term is said to be created by
Roosevelt because he references
the man who “rakes muck” in
comparison to the writers
 Investigative reporters who
shed light on people’s miserable
conditions
 Targeted trusts, crime, fraud,
public health and safety

11. THE POWER OF JOURNALISM
 Played a powerful role in bringing about
federal legislation to improve aspects of
society
 Upton Sinclair
 Wrote The Jungle
 “corrupt businessmen who treated the public
with utter contempt and disdain”
 Told about the filthy conditions under which
meat was packaged all for the sake of profit
and greed
 Roosevelt set out to prove Sinclair wrong,
however when his commission return they
report it was worse than what he had written!!
 Roosevelt establishes the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA)

12. WHAT DID YOU THINK???
Create a list of things
that shocked you about
the sanitary conditions,
or lack thereof, that
existed in the
nineteenth century