The Social Impact of the Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution was a wide-ranging phenomenon as well as an intensely human one. Its technological and organizational core had ramifications reaching into almost every facet of society—from personal life to wider institutions and cultures. Specific impacts varied with each region. The experiences of women during French industrialization, for example, differed from those in Britain because a larger number of French women stayed in the labor force; by the late nineteenth century about 23 percent of the French labor force was female compared with about 15 percent in Britain. Nevertheless, in broad outline the social impact of industrialization was similar in most Western countries. In turn, industrialization’s social impact changed the nature of ordinary life, even for groups not directly involved with the new technologies and organizations. Social impact is one of the basic reasons the whole experience was revolutionary: an industrial society was a new phenomenon in many respects.