Introduction

  • Do you have a part time job?
  • If so, are there restrictions on the number of hours or the type of work you can do as a minor?
  • Is there a basic hourly wage rate the employer must pay you?

The answer to those questions is of course yes, because our country has specific regulations regarding workers who are under the age of eighteen. Think about what your working life might be like if there were no regulations. What if the employer could determine how long you worked and the type of work you could do? What if he could pay you much less than your adult co-worker?

This was very much the reality for anyone who worked in the factories and mills during the early days of industrialization. There were no laws to govern working conditions nor was the employer responsible if anything happened to the workers. That is, if the worker was injured or worse yet, killed on the job, the family would receive nothing.

Lesson Objectives

Following successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to:

  • Describe the impact of technological inventions, conditions of labor, and the economic theories of capitalism, liberalism, socialism, and Marxism during the Industrial Revolution on the economies, societies, and politics of Europe.
  • Identifying important inventors in Europe during the Industrial Revolution
  • Comparing the Industrial Revolution in England to later revolutions in Europe
  • Describe the influence of urbanization on the Western World during the nineteenth century.
    Examples: interaction with the environment, provisions for public health, increased opportunities for upward mobility, changes in social stratification, development of Romanticism and Realism, development of Impressionism and Cubism
  • Describing the search for political democracy and social justice in the Western World
    Examples: European Revolution of 1848, slavery and emancipation in the United States, emancipation of serfs in Russia, universal manhood suffrage, women's suffrage

The above objectives correspond with the Alabama Course of Study: World History: 1500 to the Present Objective(s): 9, 9B1, 9B2, 10, 10B1.

This lesson incorporates the following Literacy Standard(s):

 

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