The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution essentially sprouted from the French Revolution. The French Revolution brought new ways of thinking into the world and before that the Scientific Revolution brought in new ideas about God and the universe. There were always pushes for scientific and technological advancement, but they were always made by the royalty and high classes of society so they were usually superfluous inventions made for hobbies or weaponry for the military. There hadn’t been any huge movements for making life easier for the lower classes. There had been inventions, but no huge, ongoing improvements. And of course, the lower classes had been too busy working to discover and invent much more than what they stumbled upon by accident. However, once the social boundaries and strict classes were brought down (at least, the idea of social boundaries being brought down was put in before being shut down), it was much easier for the poor farmer to become a wealthy middle-class man. All he needed was a way to be more efficient than all the other poor farmers he was competing with. Thus, the Industrial Revolution would have a driving force behind it. The Industrial revolution was also related to the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Industrial revolution was all about more efficiency and higher profits, as was the Slave Trade. They both created opportunities to make more money for less work/money, the Slave Trade was just a lot less ethical. Slaves were a huge asset to America’s economy at the time, they held up the plantations for much less money than what paid laborers would have.