The Industrial Revolution: Social Impact

New Social Classes: Industrial Middle Class/Working Class
- Entrepreneurs: built factories/bought machines; organization
Diverse social origins (farmers, apprentices, merchants, aristocrats)
- Industrial entrenpreneurs on par with noble elites
- Agricultural laborers, domestic servants, factory workers
Decline of artisans/craftspeople

Standards of Living:
- Growth of gap between rich and poor
- Wide variation: increase/decrease in standards of living
- Best gains: middle class/skilled workers

Change: Reformers
- Trade unions: improve wages/working conditions
- Combination Acts 1799, 1800: Outlawed labor unions
- Luddites: destroyed machinery (1812)
- Chartism: achieve political democracy
People's Charter (1838) Goals: universal male suffrage
Parliament: pay/annual sessions/no property qualifications
Achieved sense of working-class consciousness

Government Reforms:
- Helped by civic-minded citizens/parliamentary commissions
- Factory Act of 1833:
Children (9-13) = 8 hrs/day & (13-18) = 12 hrs/day
(Factory inspectors appointed)
- Ten Hours Act (1837) included women
- Coal Mines Act (1842): no boys under 10 or women