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Fueled by coal and steam engines the Industrial Revolution was [Steam train flies by]

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our ticket to the modern era, and like kids who hung out too long on a

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merry-go-round we're still reeling from its effects. Astronomical population [Kids sat on a merry-go-round]

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growth and climate change came along with the new modern comforts and

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economic booms of the Industrial Revolution. Proving once again that bad [Aerial footage of skyscrapers]

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things always come along with the good, but we're pretty sure the existence of

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black jellybeans already proved that fact right. Anyway the Industrial

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Revolution was a monster as revolutions go, basically it changed everything about [Robot stands on planet earth]

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well pretty much everything, the economic structure of the world, the nature of

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production and labor, gender relations, consumer culture and the fundamental way [Workers in a factory]

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that humans use energy, so you know on all little things... For some people it

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meant Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth. For others it meant poverty and crushing [Man jumps into pile of gold and treasures]

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despair, because sure steam power led to an increase in global wealth but it also

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concentrated that wealth in even fewer hands and check this out in the 1700s India [Money being put through a funnel]

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produced about 23% of the world wealth by 1900 it produced two percent so what

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happened in between there India? No every Indian didn't just decide to

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retire and start crocheting ugly socks, though that does down like a pleasant [Woman crocheting]

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retirement nope. Britain's industrialized textile mills destroyed India's own

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cotton production. For the first time people didn't have to make stuff by hand [Old footage of Indian cotton fields]

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Britain's steam-powered factories could pump out machine made products really [Machine running in a factory]

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really fast and they were super cheap too so there was no reason to buy

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anything else. Well sayonara handmade craftsmanship. Industrial production also [Man handing over money at a till]

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required new kinds of work and workers. Paid labor had always been about

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product rather than time people would pay a weaver for his finished cloth not

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hire him to weave for a few hours unless that was just something they like to [Sewing machinists working]

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watch, but that'd be kinda weird... Anyway, but industrial production was

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different, it was about churning out the same stuff over and over and over again [Workers on a production line]

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anybody could do it. Industrialists just hired a bunch of kids to run the

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machines and pay them like two cents an hour, it was a great way to get [Kids working in a factory]

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fabulously rich while ensuring that everybody else was just scraping by.

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Well work used to be limited by how long people could physically and mentally [Workers in hard hats and jumpsuits have a race]

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endure their tasks, but that one's a thing of the past. Steam engines never got tired,

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or hungry, or irritated, people became more like cogs in the machine or bricks [Thomas the tank engine looking unhappy]

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in the wall, is there a song about that? Something about not needing an education...

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That's fine we don't take offense to that or anything not like it's our life's

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purpose but you know whatever... [Unhappy kid in a Shmoop shirt]

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