So I was learning about the Industrial Revolution in Roots: History the other day. I mean, the lecture was filled with thought-provoking concepts and ideas, yet I could not get over the feeling that this whole happening was the foundation of our current crisis in which we find ourselves.
Alright, now the birth of the steam engine in England was the first to screw us. Granted, this was a very helpful development, considering the enablement of boats to move up-stream and trains to move cross-country. It sped up land and sea travel, with no worries of wind nor high-jackers to interfere with trade; the hot money-makin’ means in the day. Markets were connected and we were getting more goods more quickly. Holla.
But as people were applying their science and logic of the Enlightenment to mass production, factories that were normally powered by water or horses were now running on burnt coal. Textile factories were hip. With machines making things instead of people making things, cotton could be spun into thread 200 times faster, thread could be woven into clothing a hell of a lot faster, and with the use of chlorine and sulfuric acid to bleach these clothes instead of the traditional buttermilk soak and sunbath, they were all fresh and bought up faster. More adversely, cotton had to be picked faster, more slaves had to be used to pick this cotton, and since slave importation had since been outlawed, the breeding of slaves began to take place, sparking the internal slave trade.
On the up side, due to this mass production, poorer people could afford more than one outfit. A man could have more than two pairs of shoes. A woman would have a wardrobe instead of just the “everyday outfit” and the “Sunday best.” How bourgie. Affordability and availability for everything fueled the movement, and the scent of materialism was beginning to find its way into the nose of the middle-class by the day.
Urban growth was massive—machines had to fit into city factories as opposed to rural houses—but sewer systems and hygienic education were not. Human waste flowed freely in the streets, those chemicals from bleaching clothes were dumped into local rivers, as was the coal waste, and disease spread like Smuckers. Ever heard of the term “Mad Hatter?” This was not just the crazy, tea-obsessed, hyperactive character from Alice in Wonderland, but a term coined to describe the men who made hats, treated them with mercury, then went mad with dementia.
Oh, they dumped that in the water too.
Paris lost 18,000 people to disease alone in 1832. The average age of death for a laborer was 15. Urban slums developed, claiming sons eight inches shorter than those of the elite. Women and children were slaving away. Even after a series of laws had passed, nine yr. olds were still working at least ten hours a day.
Lumber to support the weight of coal mines led to deforestation on a devastating scale.
Deforestation led to soil erosion.
Soil erosion led to food decline.
People were hungry, sick, and dying.
There were no environmental rules.
It was capitalism without any government regulation.
Guys, I only bring this up because although we really shot ourselves in the foot with this one, I’m inspired that we were once able to re-vamp our whole way of doing business, and really turned everything on its ass at one point. We might have turned it the wrong way, but we actually turned it. We were less-educated, less-connected, and less-aware of what was going on, yet we still changed everything. Who’s to say we can’t flip it again?
I guess just sit on that for today.
Thanks for reading.
A special thanks to Dr. Droubie for the lecture haha.
Ashton
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