People

Key Figures in the First Industrial Revolution

Morphing social classes meet at the Great Exhibition in 1851
Photo Source: (8)

Industrialists and Inventors

Typically, industrialists and inventors are who come to mind when thinking about historical figures from the Industrial Revolution. There was an abundance of shrewd businessmen like William Cockerill, Josiah Wedgwood, and George Stephenson who made their fortunes and helped change the future.

There were other brilliant inventors, like Samuel Crompton who built upon earlier spinning inventions and made the mule-jenny around 1779 but did not become rich. Sir Richard Arkwright on the other hand had made so much money that he retired at 48. However, the amount of riches and fame pales in comparison to the accomplishments they made.

Working Class

Until the Factory Act of 1833, men, women and children worked long hours side by side. Slowly, it became predominantly males working industry jobs while girls and women were once again regulated back into the home or doing odd jobs like piece work.

The more affluent the woman’s family the more restricted her life became and books like The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits only reinforced the oppressive mentality. It stressed that “the sphere of their direct personal influence is central, and consequently small” and that instead of pursuing education become a women “free from selfishness” in order to please a husband (4 p. 1611).

Even after reforms children still went to work as young as 9 to help support their family. This engraving shows two children being sent to cotton mills which was an improvement over coal mining (2 p. 167)

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2. Breunig, Charles. The Age of Revolution and Reaction, 1789-1850. Second. New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 1977.
4. Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D & E. New York : W. W Norton & Company, Inc., 2012.
6. Baines, Edward. History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain. London : H. Fisher, R. Fisher, and P. Jackson, 1835. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7188799M/History_of_the_cotton_manufacture_in_Great_Britan
8. The masses meet the upper classes at the Great Exhibition. [book auth.] Jeffrey Auerbach. The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display. New Haven : Yale U. Press, 1999, p. 153. http://www1.umassd.edu/ir/gallery/expo1851.cfm#