Spinning the Future: A Woven Dream & Other Industrial Revolution Topics

My Group Poster

My Honors History 10 class recently learned about the Industrial Revolution. To help us better understand the topics, we were split into groups and each group was assigned a different idea of the Industrial Revolution and created an exhibit. We used different kinds of sources including articles, pictures, and charts. 

The poster pictured is the project that my group worked to create. Our topic was mainly about spinning in the Lowell Mills, but we also talked about cottagers and how they were affected by the Industrial Revolution, hand looms, and the effects of the Industrial Revolution on London's population. My favorite section that out group covered was learning about cottagers, and how their business was unfortunately ruined by the Industrial Revolution. Cottagers were people that spun cotton in their own houses, and that way they were able to run a successful business, raise a family, and do other household chores all at the same time. However, when cotton factories were brought to America, the factories were able to produce cotton at a much quicker rate, and there was little to no business left for the cottagers. Another very interesting point was the chart on our poster that showed the growth in London's population as the Industrial Revolution grew. As more and more people began moving to the city to create new job opportunities, the population rose quickly. We also learned about the spinning wheel, and John Almond's Hand loom. Overall, my group worked very well today and created a very good project.

The hourglass picture seen on the
 "Cotton or Freedom" exhibit

Looking at the posters that the other groups made helped me to understand different aspects of the Industrial Revolution that weren't a part of my project. I learned about the steam engine in the exhibit "Hot Stuff: how the steam engine fired up the Industrial Revolution" and how it made travel and trade both faster and easier. Many people were skeptical of the steam engine at first because it was such a new and modern invention. The steam engine caused man-made canals to be created, because people wanted to create shorter ways for the engines to get places. The steam engine exhibit also included a timeline that showed the development of transportation. Another interesting exhibit was "Cotton or Freedom". This project talked about the role of slaves and slavery in making cotton in factories. When slaves were first brought to the factories, there were 500,000 of them working, and within 90 years, that number skyrocketed all the way to 4,000,000. The slaves produced cotton, the cotton produced money, the money was used to make more factories, and new factories meant they needed new slaves to work in them. The picture of the hourglass here was on the poster and is a visual representation of the slaves doing all the work to create money for the factory owners.

The next exhibit I saw was about child labor during the Industrial Revolution. The children working in the factories dealt with horrible conditions that were both unhealthy and unsafe. However, it did not stay this way forever. These issues were addressed in the Factory Act of 1883 which worked to create a better working environment for children and also limited the amount a time a child could work, which could not exceed 12 hours a day and 69 hours per week. The last project showed that although the Industrial Revolution was a great time for technology, it also created many issues for others. A large issue was the pollution created by the factories. The pollution was in both the water and the air, and was so bad that in the 19th century the sun was not even visible. Also, during the Industrial Revolution, the cost of living was high and the salaries were low, and in most cases they were not even, meaning many people had to give up everyday necessities of their daily lives.

I learned a lot from both my project and the ones created by others. It was a fun and interesting way to learn about the Industrial Revolution.