Industrial Revolution?

Here is a question that has inspired volume after volume of writing: Did the Industrial Revolution help the common man or hinder his progress?

It used to be that workers made things by hand, and those products were expensive, as each item was hand-made, and even the Bible says that a worker is due his wage. Machines made things much, much cheaper! A steam-powered loom could make in an hour what a weaver could make in a month, so the price of cloth fell, making quality clothing affordable, but putting weavers out of work forever. Qui bono? (Who benefits?) People got cheaper clothes, but weavers starved to death...or they found work operating steam looms.

BTW, in Belgium, workers protested this progress by throwing their wooden shoes into the gears of the steam looms. The Flemish (Belgian, and French) word for shoe is "sabot." This practice was called "sabotage" or shoe-ing, if you will.

Here's the right answer.

It was good.

In the end, the Industrial Revolution created Unions. These unions eventually created a fairer, but not perfect, playing field. They were all the general, and common, man had.

The Triangle fire is the best representative to what you ask. When you see the legislative truth due to what happened, you will see a very real change in the development of not only the USA, but of other countries as well.

More bad.
:(