Social Class In The Industrial Revolution

1038 Words5 Pages
Would you classify the responses as mainly positive, mainly negative, or about equally divided? I would classify the responses as mainly negative. If there was an equal amount of people from each social class, the responses would be equally divided. But there were much more people that were poor than people that were rich. Only a small percentage of the population was wealthy and the majority of the population lived in poverty. People in the upper class were usually the entrepreneurs behind the businesses that fueled the industry. People like Alfred Krupp, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie were at the top of the social chains during the Industrial Revolution. Their businesses were majorly successful and they profited substantially.…show more content…
However, this was an extremely small percentage of the population. An enormous percentage of the population was the lower working class. The lower working class included the people that handled the lowly factory jobs that produced the profits for the wealthy. They slaved away in factories for long hours, for little pay. They also lived in very poor conditions because they had to live in slums. Slums were cramped living quarters that were in close proximity to the factories. However, they didn’t have much of a choice as most of the factory jobs were still higher pay than other available occupations. The Industrial Revolution also put family farmer producers out of business due to efficient, mass-producing factories. Because of this, the people who used to work farms were forced to move to industrial cities and take factory jobs. Low pay, poor working conditions, and unreasonably long hours resulted in revolts from the workers. The workers began to form labor unions/worker unions to try and create policies that demanded fair wages, better working conditions, eradicating child labor, and regulations for work hours. These revolts clearly demonstrated some sort…show more content…
The idea of an exposition of a nation’s success originally came from the world’s first fair, the London’s Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. At this fair, Britain paraded the global expansion of the British Empire. It also drew some inspiration from the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition. There was a major debate about where the fair would be held for the United States’s Exposition. In the end, it came down to Chicago or New York City. Due to Chicago’s ability to come up with enormous sums of money in a short amount of time. There were several buildings that were built to display different exhibits of America’s success. These exhibits were Administration, Agriculture, Electricity, Horticulture, Fisheries, Machinery Hall, Manufactures and Liberal Arts, Mines and Mining, and Transportation. The contributors to the construction of these exhibition buildings include Richard Morris Hunt, Charles McKim, William Mead, Stanford White, Henry Van Brunt, Frank Howe, William L. Jenney, William B. Mundie, Henry Ives Cobb, Robert Peabody, John Stearns, George B. Post, Solon Beman, Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan All of these exhibition buildings were painted a very chalky white, giving it the nickname, “the White City”. One of the other notable attractions at the World’s Columbian Exposition was the Midway Plaisance.
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