Was it Worth the Cost?

Industrialization was a time when many factories were being built and when new technologies were being made. But were the new technologies worth the price? No, I think that the new technologies were not worth the price. First, kids were working hard and not getting paid well instead of being in school or having fun. A poster by Lewis Wickes Hines (1913 - 1914), shows and informs people about kids working in factories and how it turns them into human junk. It shows the process of kids working in the factories. Factories bribed kids into working for them by getting them started with high wages and then they turn the kids into human junk. Instead kids should be playing or learning. New technologies hurt many kids by putting them into low wages and the technology was definitely not worth the cost. Second, factories produced lots of smoke and that hurt the environment. When the factory population was growing during the time of industrialization, it started to really hurt the environment. The picture of Factory Smokestacks by the Detroit Publishing Company shows how much smoke it lets off into the environment. The smoke goes into rivers, swamps and wetlands. The thick smoke also hurt people's lungs and bodies, it also made people sick. New technology was definitely not worth the cost of smokestacks and ill people. Lastly, many accidents took place in factories. In many of the factories during industrialization, many accidents took place. From an accident report from Eastman Crystal (1916), it talks about how “526 men were killed by work-accidents in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.” Industrialization had many problems and had killed many people. New technologies were not worth the cost of many deaths of people in the work industry. New technology was definitely not worth the cost.