The Industrial Revolution: Britain, 1770-1810

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a profound change swept across England. The rapid advance of technology increased industrial productivity to a level previously unimaginable. To support this new technology, people flocked from the countryside into the cities to take jobs in the factories. The movement caused a great deal of social unrest as technology replaced many of the "old ways", and the populations of cities swelled far beyond the ability of the government to provi...