The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Industrial Revolution for Kids

Almost everything we have had to be invented. Some inventions are very old like the wheel or the bow and arrow. Sometimes two inventors invented the same thing at the same time. Almost every invention is improved over and over until sometimes it evolves into a different invention entirely! So there is nothing new about invention. What was new or different about the time period in history that we call "The Industrial Revolution" was that a whole bunch of new inventions were built at about the same time with a common goal - that being to replace a large number of workers with a machine so that goods could be made more rapidly. 

The first such machine was called the Spinning Jenny. Around 250 years ago, a new machine, the Spinning Jenny, was invented in England. The Jenny was created to speed up the way yarn was made. One machine could spin as fast as 8 workers. There were soon machines invented for weaving as well. These machines ran on running water. They had to be located near a stream to use them. Then the steam engine was invented. And everything changed. The steam engine could run other machines anywhere. Suddenly, there were many new inventions that could do the work of several workers each!

The use of machines spread to other industries besides spinning and weaving. The use of machines spread to other countries as well. There was an explosion of new machines and new ways of doing things. This time period in history is called the Industrial Revolution. There were many good things and many bad things about the Industrial Revolution.