Industrial Revolution Argumentative Essay

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A major debate among Historians is if the Industrial Revolution was helpful or harmful. The industrial revolution created a big change in the society of America. It was an age of innovation and creativeness for the inventors of the world. It was an age of sorrow and despair for the workers of the world. The industrial revolution created an age of wonder for the rich but also created a nightmare for the workers powering the industrial revolution. The period of rapid industrial growth during the 1800s and into the early 1900s was more harmful because of poor working conditions, violent labor disputes and poor regulations at factories. The businessmen of the industrial revolution created poor working conditions for men and women just …show more content…

The following quote is from the struggle between business and labor reading. In the quote, the narrator is reflecting back on what happened during the haymarket affair, “On May 3, union members, strike-breakers, and police clashed. One union member died. As police moved in to end the meeting, and unknown person threw a bomb. It killed seven police and wounded about sixty people. The police than fired on the crowd, killing several people and wounding one hundred people,” The Haymarket affair was horrible because it gave the employers more leverage on the workers because the could use the Haymarket affair as a weapon to keep employees in line. Also, many innocent lives were lost because the harvester company didn’t want to raise wages just a few cents. Instead of raising wages the company provoked the workers and that’s why the fights in the streets broke out. In the following quote from the Homestead strike reading is a reflection of what happened, “The Battle at Homestead will be remembered as an occasion where human greed and civil rights collided and neither one came out on top” The Homestead strike made the Industrial Revolution more harmful because it lost many lives that didn’t need to be lost. Carnegie company was one of the richest ever and it couldn’t afford to give poor men and women a small pay raise. Also, they created a horrible situation by sending in the Pinkertons to do their dirty work. The amazing thing is that Frick had a huge mansion ten miles away but he still had to starve families. In conclusion, the violent labor disputes made the industrial revolution more harmful and lost unnecessary

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