Industrial society

Page 185

Exercise 1

DISCUSS in pairs. The poet William Blake used to phrase “dark satanic mills” to refer to the effects of the early Industrial Revolution on people's lives. What are the possible ways in which industrialisation affected the life of urban people?

As a result of enclosures, human populations that once inhabited the southern agricultural areas, they had to move to the northern industrial cities and begin to work in factories because the coal had become the new main source of income. The newcomers had to be arranged in small towns, called "mushroom town" just because they constantly increased, as "mushrooms" because the displacement of populations in urban centers grove and grove. Work in factories had two major consequences: more and more women and children were increasingly employed because they could be paide less and were easier to control, and also the working hours were more and more longer and the living conditions were increasingly bleak. Everything was polluted by smoke and dirt. The workers' lives were revolutionized thanks to mechanization and the division of labor, while the expectation of the poor life collapsed in just twenty years due to fatigue, discomfort and the consequent alienation. In the early 1800s unemployment grew as a result of new technologies and the Napoleonic wars: here begin three decades of political stagnation and repression.

Exercise 2

READ the text; then look for these words and write down the noun, adjective or phrase they are associated with.

1. There was a shifting of population from the agricultural and commercial areas of the south to the north and the midlands;

    

2. New factories were built near the coal fields which provided them with fuel;

    

3. “Mushroom towns” (the houses of workers);

    

4. Women and children were increasingly employed;

    

5. The city environment meant long working hours and terrible living conditions;

    

6. Industrial cities lacked elementary public services;

    

7. Air and water were polluted by smoke and filth;

    

8. The houses, built in endless rowns, were overcrowded;

    

9. The life expectancy of the poor inhabitants of industrial cities was well below tewnty years, due to incessant toil, disease and heavy drinking to bear the fatigue and alienation.

Exercise 3

OPEN CLOZE. Read the text about the exploitation of children during the 18^th century and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap.

Child labour was the crucial ingredient which allowed Britain's Industrial Revolution to succeed. By the early 19th century, England had more than a million child workers accounting for 15 per cent of the total labour force. Early factory owners – located in the countryside so they were able to exploit power from rivers – found that local labour wasscarce and that those agricultural workers who were available were unsuitable for industrial production. They therefore opted instead to create a new work force composed of children, tailor-made for their factories. Factory owners were looking for cheap, malleable and fast-learning work forces – and found them ready-made among the children of the urban workhouses. They weren't paid – simply fed and given dormitory accommodation. The exploitation of children massively increased as newly emerging factories began their operations in the late 18^th century. The use of working-class children to provide mcuh of the labour force for the Industrial Revolution was, however, merely an expansionand extension of an already long-established practice of working-class children employed by farmers or artisans.

Exercise 4

ANSWER these questions about the text above.

1. The percentage of child workers during the Industrial Revolution was 15 per cent of the total labour force.

2. They were at the same time cheap, malleable and fast-learning such as the kind of workers searched by factory owners in the 19^th century. Furthermore they weren't paid but they simply had a dormitory accommodation.

3. This is not a new practise: in fact it had been used by farmers and artisans for a long time.