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The Industrial Revolution During The Nineteenth Century

Decent Essays

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the industrial revolution was a period when English society experienced a radical shift in terms of industrial expertise. T. S. Ashton, former University of London Economic History Professor, supports this statement saying, “The industrial revolution was in part cause, and in part effect, of a heightening and extension of the principle of specialization” (The Industrial Revolution 15). England experienced an extreme period of product specialization within the manufacturing system which included production of products, the structure of labor techniques, and the acceptance of improvements throughout the industrial society.
At the beginning the main goal of the manufacturing process was to acquire raw goods. Such products were provided by farms which specifically grew items necessary for this process. The increase of factory demand required a greater amount of raw materials, causing an increase in large farming. Small family farms, which had previously produced a variety of goods, began to vanish due to the strong emergence of large specialty farms. A letter written by agricultural workers concerning this decrease in small country-side farms reads, “Small parcels of ground have been swallowed up in the contiguous farms and inclosures…the families which used to occupy them are crowded together in decayed farmhouses, with hardly ground enough about them for a cabbage garden” (Davies 140). Small family farms found it nearly

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