Re: A baffling question

Kendall K. Down wrote:

people back then were living
in an exciting age of advance and progress with a whole brave new world
ahead of them. "My steam engine is bigger than yours - look at the smoke"
sort of thing.


LOL, I have a 1929 encyclopedia: everything is wonderful. The war to end wars was won, technology is going to solve all problems, the future is endlessly bright.

But: back in early Industrial Revolution, things we're rosy for workers.


"ONCE UPON A TIME, so we'd like to believe, we lived in an idyllic, ale-quaffing, morris-dancing, cricket-on-the-village-green kind of Merrie England with wall-to-wall laughter and summer-long sunshine.

Then along came the Industrial Revolution and put an end to all that. The factory smoke blotted out the sun, demands of industry destroyed our innocence and long working hours took away any chance we had of finding pleasure in leisure.

In fact, for most people there never was such a golden age...

But the Industrial Revolution certainly made matters worse. If you work 14 or 15 hours a day in a factory, there is precious little time left for anything other than eating and sleeping.

Whole generations of workers existed in this way before the law was changed...."

http://www.cottontimes.co.uk/leisureo.htm

Also http://nhs.needham.k12.ma.us/cur/Baker_00/2002_p7/ak_p7/
childlabor.html


Etc. Farming was no picnic, but industry was worse. Except for the owners who enjoyed comparing steam engine sizes.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Global Warming is about giving your government more regulatory power and your eventual enslavmen
    ... of cars running around? ... "Industrial Revolution", when the steam engine had just been invented, ... record the weather, things like tree rings and isotope ratios have ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=A3_island_-_Public_Health_Announcement?=
    ... `This once great nation' is one of those phrases that sets off ... Considering the birth of the industrial revolution started here i ... the first steam engine 1698 you seem to forget about Newcomen, ...
    (uk.rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: Origin of the phrase "Industrial Revolution"
    ... name "Industrial Revolution," and when? ... characterizing and defining the IR, ... have been induced by the invention ... of the steam engine. ...
    (alt.politics)
  • Re: survivors 1975-77
    ... There were loads of reasons for the Industrial Revolution. ... And while UK scientists such as Michael Faraday may have invented the electric ... Because Sparta was on a permanent war footing - as they mainly occupied ... Athens established "colonies" abroad but only in mainly unoccupied territories, ...
    (uk.media.tv.misc)
  • Re: the asterisk
    ... >> founding of the United States. ... War, taxation without representation, revolution, constitution (no ... industrial revolution, civil war, immigrant experience/melting pot, ... (I almost put "New Deal" there rather than "founding of the United ...
    (alt.usage.english)