A the time, Americans were devastated by the effects of the Industrial Revolution. The normal, everyday workers got screwed over so badly they could barely survive. To natural resources were abused to the point in which people actually had to stand up to the big corporations and try to get them to stop. The amount of pollution generated around this time was something people have never seen before, so they had no idea how bad the impact of it would be on the country and environment. The companies that employed the workers did not even bother to make sure that the people that they hired to do their work for them did not get killed by the machines used to make the products. So many people got killed and injured by working in the factories that the people had to take a stand. The greedy corporations only cared about their profits, and not whatsoever about how their workers were treated or how their working conditions were.
The middle class during this time barely existed whatsoever. The vast majority of the population was either filthy rich or dirt poor living in shacks. You basically had the business owners and high-ranking employees making all the money they could ever want, and then you had all the poor people starving almost to death. Usually, all members of the household had to work long hours every day. Even children had to work from the crack of dawn until late into the night, and they were lucky if they got even one day off during the week. This is also where pollution started getting worse and worse every year, because there were no regulations on how the factories operated and where they dumped their waste from manufacturing. The water communities used for drinking became contaminated, the air in cities became hard to breathe, and the forests were being cut down and used for getting rid of by-products made by the factories. Life sure seemed a lot better before big corporations started taking over during the industrial revolution.
The middle class during this time barely existed whatsoever. The vast majority of the population was either filthy rich or dirt poor living in shacks. You basically had the business owners and high-ranking employees making all the money they could ever want, and then you had all the poor people starving almost to death. Usually, all members of the household had to work long hours every day. Even children had to work from the crack of dawn until late into the night, and they were lucky if they got even one day off during the week. This is also where pollution started getting worse and worse every year, because there were no regulations on how the factories operated and where they dumped their waste from manufacturing. The water communities used for drinking became contaminated, the air in cities became hard to breathe, and the forests were being cut down and used for getting rid of by-products made by the factories. Life sure seemed a lot better before big corporations started taking over during the industrial revolution.