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Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution transformed the way Europeans and Americans thought, lived, and worked. It brought new ideas that spurred movements across the lands, changing not only individuals, but societies and nations. Factories were built, imperialism became prominent, transportation was transformed, economies shifted, laws were reformed, and education improved all during this tumultuous time. After the Industrial Revolution, life around the world changed. The revolution first started making its impact as factories were being built all around Britain. Before, a family would all work together by hand to make textiles at their own, leisurely pace in a comfortable setting. This changed when machines were implemented, expediting work; but they were expensive and bulky, so they had to be located in one place where people would commute to: a factory. As a result of factory work, attitudes toward work changed negatively, but speed and efficiency was increased, and many more textiles could be produced. Eventually, the United States saw the potential in industrializing and it stole factory ideas from the successful factories in Britain by posing as investors. The United States then set up its own prosperous factories that particularly thrived in New England because it had the factors of production: land, labor, and capital. Overtime, Lowell, Massachusetts became the leading center of textiles—the commodity American industry was based on. The factories in Britain and America produced a much loftier number of textiles than ever before, thus the demand for raw materials was greater in response. In the beginning, Britain, and more specifically England, would get its raw material for textiles—cotton—from the American south due almost entirely to Eli Whitney’s cotton gin. Usable cotton could then be mass-produced, and America later took advantage of

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