The Steam Engine

The Industrial revolution took place during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a time when America switched from a rural society into an urban society. This was a drastic change in many peoples lifestyle. People moved from their farm homelands into cities. The reason for this was because there were many more job opportunities and availability for a better life. Many new inventions were discovered during the Industrial Revolution but it was a dangerous and harmful time with extremely bad working conditions, especially for women and children but helped improve the way the world is today.

One fixation in the Industrial Revolution was the waterpower steam engine. The steam engine was one of the most important technologies during the Industrial Revolution. A man named Hero was the first to devise the steam engine. After Hero devised the steam engine many people experimented with steam-powered devices. In 1712 Thomas Newcomens finally developed the first successful engine. Although it was successful it still had many faults. In 1785 James Watt improved the steam engine based off of what Newcomens had built. In order to power the engines you needed coal. Steam engines became a very important source of power all the way to the 20th century. During the Industrial Revolution, steam power replaced waterpower and muscle power, which usually came from horses. Waterpower was used as a primary source of power in industries. It allowed factories to locate where waterpower was not available. In the beginning it was used to pump water from mines but later on got many more important uses, by using steam engines factories didn’t have to be located close to a water resource, they were able to be located anywhere. Steam engines made a very big impact...

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...e limited to working 48 hours a week. There were laws passed to maximum the amount of hours women and children were able to work per day they were called Factory Act of 1844 and Factory Act of 1847. The Act of 1844 stated that women could work a maximum of twelve hours a day. The Factory Act of 1847 stated that women and children could work a maximum of ten hours a day. Three years later they reduced the amount of hours that women could work because twelve hours a day were too many. The Factory Act of 1850 upped the amount of hours women and children could work. They could work upto ten and a half hours, but they are not allowed to work before 6am or after 6pm. The Factory Act of 1850 was an act that stated that no one is allowed to work for more then 56 ½ hours per week. The Factory Acts was the first step to help improve working conditions and hours tremendously.