Industrialization- Not Worth the Cost

The benefits of new technologies from industrialization were worth the costs. According to the article “Polluting the Environment,” power plants, steel mills, and factories produced so much pollution. The pollution became so heavy that cities needed streetlights in order to see. This shows that industrialization was polluting the environment, causing many problems. It was unhealthy to live with polluted air, so therefore many people got sick. Because industrialization was harming the environment, it was not worth the cost. In a poster illustrated by Lewis Wickes Hine (1912-1914), children are doing labor in factories instead of playing and going to school. In child labor, the children don’t get any freedom and are abused. The poster shows how the children are at first, and the effect. The effect is that they look miserable, and they are very dirty. The photographer was trying to show the impact of child labor. This shows that people were taking advantage of children. In this case, industrialization was not worth the cost. An excerpt written by Eastman Crystal (1916) shows how industrialization was not worth the cost. Multiple men have lost their lives in industrialization during work accidents. According to accident report it states, “By industrial accidents, Allegheny County loses more than 500 workmen every year.” This shows how many accidents are caused in the factories and work areas and how many people are affected by this. Industrialization was not worth all these men's lives lost. For these reasons, industrialization was not worth the cost.