In 1750, many people did things in ways that would have been recognizable to their ancestors. Most everything was made in the home, farm, or small artisanal shops, and mostly by hand. The Industrial Revolution began when people learned to harness new fossil fuels and machines to do work. It transformed the way we worked, the places we lived, our sense of families and identities, our relationships to our food and to each other, and much more. The results weren’t the same for everyone, but they helped to shape the modern world.

This video introduces you to arguably the most dramatic revolution of the long nineteenth century: The Industrial Revolution. You’ll start learning how industrialization began, how it spread, and the various ways it affected people. You will evaluate these changes when you respond to the Unit 5 Problem: “How did industrialization transform societies around the world?”

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What argument does this video make about production of goods immediately prior to the Industrial Revolution?
2. What big change does this video argue was the foundation of industrialization?
3. According to the video, how did industrialization change our sense of community?
4. According to the data presented in the video, what happened to exports, labor, and Co2 emissions when states industrialized?
5. According to the video, what made Britain’s rapid industrialization possible? What evidence does the video use?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. Looking at the changes presented in this video, do you think industrializing was a good decision for a society? Why or why not? What evidence from the video supports your argument?

Your life, and the lives of everyone around you, have been shaped by the forces of industrialization. The Industrial Revolution that created these forces was itself a result of people and changes around the world, even if they first came together in the tiny islands of Great Britain. Once it took hold, industrialization was spread around the world by people who saw its advantages. But that expansion was lumpy. It was different in various regions and for a range of people.

This overview article introduces Unit 5. This article raises two of the most important questions covered in this unit. The first is, “Where did the Industrial Revolution begin, and what were the global and local causes of that origin?” The second is, “What was the impact of industrialization in different parts of the world?” This overview article provides evidence at a global level as you begin answering these questions and identifying some of the effects of industrialization on individuals, families, and societies.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

Fill out the Skimming for Gist section of the Three Close Reads worksheet as you complete your first close read. As a reminder, this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

For this reading, you should be looking for unfamiliar vocabulary words, the major claim and key supporting details, and analysis and evidence. By the end of the second close read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. According to the author, what are some of the elements of a modern life that didn’t exist prior to 1750?
2. What does the article suggest as some reasons for Britain’s early industrialization?
3. Take a look at the photo of the 2012 Olympics. Why do you think Britain would want to celebrate being the birthplace of industrialization?
4. The article argues that the impacts of industrialization varied. Does it give any clues about what that might mean? What clues?
5. How did the Industrial Revolution change families?

Evaluating and Corroborating

For the third close read, you should think about how the article relates to the idea or question you thought about as you read.

At the end of the third close read, respond to the following questions:

1. In the last unit, you read about the political revolutions of the long nineteenth century. After reading this overview, do you think the Industrial Revolution was a more important revolution than those political transformations? Why or why not?

In 1750, most people in the world were still farmers, herders, and artisans—people who produced food and made things, typically with their hands. But, beginning in 1750 with the start of the Industrial Revolution, all that started to change. The production and distribution frame is all about how we make, share, and use things. Industrialization was a change in production and distribution, but it also brought about major transformations in relationships and identity in this period—labor, childhood, and gender. As people sought to improve living and working conditions and to shape the way society operated, they created global networks of activists and reformers.

This video will help you explore how the Industrial Revolution changed the world. In particular, this video focuses on helping you to situate these changes through the production and distribution and the networks frames. Today’s world remains an industrialized one, and understanding how that happened—and what the legacy of industrialization is—can help you understand what it means to live with the ongoing effects of the Industrial Revolution today.

Preview – Skimming for Gist

As a reminder, open and skim the transcript, and read the questions before you watch the video.

Key Ideas – Understanding Content

Think about the following questions as you watch this video:

1. What, according to this video, did pre-industrial production and distribution look like?
2. According to the video, industrialized societies needed fewer famers, herders, and artisans and more “workers.” What did workers do and how did this lead to more change?
3. Why did industrialized societies have an advantage over non-industrialized societies?
4. According to the video, how did the movement of people away from villages and into industrial cities lead to new types of communities?
5. What were conditions like in many factories?
6. How did the conditions in factories lead to the development of new networks?

Evaluating and Corroborating

1. Networks are ways that humans connect and relate to each other, sharing ideas as well as things, often across societies. Why do you think international networks were so important to the work of reformers in this period? Why wasn’t it enough for reform to happen within each country or society individually?

The Industrial Revolution is associated with a lot of changes. One of the most important of these is urbanization—the movement of people into cities. Why does urbanization matter? When people move into cities, amazing changes occur in their daily lives, the food they eat, their health, their work, their ideas about the world. In this mapping exercise, you will identify some of the biggest changes in the size of cities during the period of the first Industrial Revolution—from about 1750 to 1871—and make some predictions about what this tells us about where industrialization happened first.

You’ll begin this activity by identifying some large cities on the 1750 Political Map. Then you will compare keys for the 1750 and 1871 Political Maps. In the third step, you will identify where large urbanization has taken place since 1750 using the 1871 Political Map. Finally, you will make some prediction as to where we will see evidence of industrialization during the period studied.

Step 1

With your teacher, you will look at the map legend for the 1750 Political Map and identify the symbols for different sizes of cities. Then you’ll use the chart to identify six of the largest cities in the world in 1750. What patterns do you see?

Step 2

With your teacher, you will compare changes in city sizes by examining the keys for the 1750 and 1871 Political Maps. In terms of population size, what has changed? You should note some general trends.

Then, individually or in groups, you will locate every city on the map with over 1,000,000 people and record these locations on the 1871 Blank Map.

Step 3

Finally, you will use the 1871 Blank Map to predict where you think urbanization occurred between 1750 and 1871. You will shade in at least two areas where you think urbanization occurred.

This repeated activity should help you become familiar with a process for understanding unfamiliar words anytime you encounter them in the course.

Take out your vocab tracker and be sure to record new and unfamiliar words on it according to your teacher’s instructions.

Understanding vocabulary helps you access course content and become a better reader, a better writer, and a better communicator. This word wall activity will help you begin to learn some of the key vocabulary from the unit.

In this activity, you’ll work with your class to create a word wall using the Unit 5 vocabulary.

Your teacher will assign a vocab card to each of you. Once you get yours, take a few minutes to look it up in the Vocab Guide and then examine the unit itself (click around and quickly skim the content) to see where in the unit your word might be most applicable. Then, add as many antonyms to your card for your word as possible. Be careful if you decide to use the “related words” section from the vocab guide – it doesn’t distinguish between synonyms and antonyms. Your teacher will give you a limited amount of time to write antonyms. Then, the people with the most correct antonyms at the end of the time will put their words on the word wall first.

Your teacher may add some fun twists to this assignment, so be sure to listen closely for directions!

Each unit of the WHP course is guided by a Unit Problem. You’re learning a ton of stuff in this and every other unit, and it can be hard to keep track of what’s most important. It would be pretty easy to become obsessed with a detail that, although interesting and a great way to impress people at a party is relatively unimportant. This activity will help you stay focused! You’ll think about the Unit Problems, and then you’ll respond to them in writing. By keeping track of how your thinking changes throughout each unit, you’ll see how much you’re learning as you move through each section of the course.

Use the Unit 5 Problem Notebook Worksheet to respond to the prompts as best as you can. Be prepared to talk about your ideas with your class.

Open these five charts in your internet browser:

• Chart 1 – Child Labor in Italy: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour-in-italy
• Chart 2 – Incidence of Child Labor in the UK: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour-in-the-uk?time=1851..1911
• Chart 3 – Incidence of Child Labor in the United States: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour-in-the-united-states-1890-1930?time=1890..1930
• Chart 4 – Global Incidence of Child Labor, 2000 to 2012: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2016/02/ourworldindata_child-labor-global-post-2000.png
• Chart 5 – Share of Children in Employment, 1994–2016: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incidence-of-child-labour?tab=map&year=latest

Children have historically been an important part of the workforce all around the world. During the Industrial Revolution, reform movements sprung up to regulate child labor. In the twentieth century, many countries took steps to drastically decrease the number of working children. However, today, there are still about 265 million children working. The charts in this exploration examine the entangled histories of industrialization and child labor, our less-than-perfect present, and geographical differences in child labor.

Demographers and data researchers work hard to collect good data. It’s tough work—not as tough as children working in a coal mine, but still. Despite their efforts, we rarely have complete data for anything. This is particularly obvious in the case of child labor data. You’ll need to learn to see gaps in data—sometimes what’s missing can tell you just as much as what’s there. The charts in this data exploration will help you evaluate changes in child labor over time, but they will also help you evaluate how useful incomplete data can be for understanding historical and future trends.

Your teacher will let you know if there is an overall question to hold in your mind as complete your three reads of the article.

Preview – What Do We Have?

Fill out the Read 1: Preview section of the Three Close Reads for Data worksheet as you complete your first close read. Remember—this should be a quick process!

Key Ideas – What Do We Know?

For this read, your goal is to understand the “story” the chart is telling by identifying its arguments and evaluating its presentation of data. You will decide what claim or claims this chart is making and what evidence is being used to support those claims. Do you think the data is reliable? Is the chart misleading in any way? By the end of this read, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1. How are Charts 1, 2, and 3 similar? How are they different?
2. Chart 1 shows a spike, when child labor in Italy started rising again instead of falling. Why do you think this spike occurred? Why don’t we see a similar spike in the UK or US?
3. Charts 1 and 3 show really dramatic decreases in child labor. Why does Chart 2 not show this sort of dramatic decline?
4. What does Chart 4 measure? Why do you think the percentages are so much higher than at the ends of Charts 1, 2, and 3?
5. Is there anything missing from Chart 5?
6. Why do you think Chart 5 lists “no data” for wealthy countries in Europe, North America, and elsewhere?
7. There’s a lot of data missing from the “global” information in Charts 4 and 5. What impact does this have on our understanding of child labor?

Making Connections – What Does This Tell Us?

The third read is really about why the chart is important, what it can tell us about the past, and how it can help us think about the future. At the end of this read, respond to the following questions:

1. Why does this chart matter? What do these charts about child labor tell us about human communities since the Industrial Revolution? What do they tell us about the way humans produce things?
2. Using these charts, make one prediction about how child labor will change in your lifetime. What evidence from the charts supports your prediction? What evidence challenges it?