Steam that Powers a Nation

In class we have started to learn about the Industrial Revolution. An important question we have been focusing on is "What was 'revolutionary' about industrialization?". There were a lot of different aspects that can help answer this question. Answers to the question can be split up into smaller categories which are people, technology, resources, and transportation. The industrial revolution was very important in advancing all of these different parts of life and has shaped the way we live now. A lot of things we have in our lives today were a result of industrialization back in the 18th and 19th centuries. I will be talking about how people and transportation were very revolutionary at the time.

A model of the seed drill invented by Jethro Tull
http://apwh.pbworks.com/w/page/
7624322/Agricultural%20Revolution

The Industrial Revolution brought on improvements and changes in people's lives. With agricultural advances, more food was available for everybody which increased life expectancy and overall population. This also meant there were less infant deaths because mothers were healthier. With better technology, there wasn't as much need for child labor so more children were able to attend school and get educations. Farming was changed a lot with industrialization. There was better quality and quantity of the products. People started building structures called dikes which sheltered the farming land from the sea. Farmers used a more efficient way of planting seeds by using a seed drill and planting them in rows instead of scattering them randomly which wasted land. People rotated crops, mixed different kinds of soil, and used manure as fertilizer to renew the soil and improve the crop yield. Another major change was the enclosing of farming land  that was formerly shared by peasant farmers. With this and newly developed technology, farmers were able to farm more land and produce more crops with less workers. This meant that peasants were not needed as workers and were kicked off the land and had to live in the cities. There they helped to fuel growing industries during the revolution.

Steam Powered Locomotive
http://www.industrialrevolutionresearch.com
/industrial_revolution_steam_engine.php

Before the Industrial Revolution transporting goods and people was more difficult and took much longer. A very important invention in the revolution was the steam engine. It worked by boiling water and creating steam that out pressure on a piston that would move some object, usually a wheel. The way peopled powered the steam engines was with coal to heat the water. The steam engine powered a lot of large vehicles such as boats and locomotives. It made transportation much easier and more efficient. Before the steam engine, trains were powered by water wheels and went very slow. Thanks to this very useful invention, train tracks no longer needed to be next to bodies of water. Vehicles could now travel faster so cities were able to get resources transported to them in less time. Also, with the steam engine powering boats too, they no longer depended entirely on weather conditions and could travel at consistent rates.