MOSI Hangout - Exploring the Industrial Revolution

To prepare for the video chat with Jamie from the Museum of Science and Industry, we first went to the MOSI site (http://www.mosi.org.uk/explore-mosi/explore-galleries/textiles-gallery.aspx) and looked around, taking notes. On the site, we learned about Sir Richard Arkwright, who was known as the father of the textile mill. Following that, we watched a quick video Jamie had sent us about what he’d talk about whilst videochatting. During the video, the class all took notes on the vocabulary presented, looked them all up on Google, and compared definitions to find the best matches. Next, we all came up with questions that we had for Jamie.

Though the chat was plagued by a poor connection, Jamie still taught us a lot about the Industrial Revolution, the working conditions, and the machines that were involved. Originally, families worked together in ‘Cottage Looms’, which were small-medium sized looms that the whole family worked at in one room. The families wanted to maximize hours of usage, so they would put the machine in a very well lit area. Sadly, this format of creating textiles was slow and not very profitable. To make the most progress in a day, the families worked from sunrise to sundown, and the children even helped out by brushing debris out of cotton with a metal brush. It was a very hand to mouth existence, and they made their own clothes too. Next came the Arkwright factory looms. These were up to 4x more productive than cottage looms, using the same amount of people. Oftentimes, these looms would harvest the power of water from a water wheel located outside the factory. Since these were almost automated, the workers only needed to do some tasks and feed in the cotton. Next up was the spinning machine, or the almost completely automated, infamous mills that were very loud and very dangerous. Over time they became slightly safer, but they were still the cause for many a death in the Industrial Revolution. In addition to this, they were terrible for the environment, and pumped out massive amounts of pollution per year. We learned how dangerous operating the machines could be; Jamie said that children’s fingers could be stripped down to the bone.

Here’s a picture from the chat:

I really enjoyed this chat, it really showed me that the Industrial Revolution still lives today. I was quite impressed with the MOSI’s textile mill machine collection. Jamie was pretty cool, and this activity was definitely both a lot of fun and very educational.

Exploring The Industrial Revolution

Curating this exhibit basically entailed gathering images from our sources and the web, and adding in information found from or sources, all in an effort to teach the reader about child labor in the Industrial Revolution.We used tons of pretty colors to make it stand out, hoping readers would gravitate toward our exhibit over any other. We used minecarts to connect our points and pictures, and even included a QR code with link to the original documents and pictures on Edline.

The first exhibit was on Textile Mills and Looms. Throughout the industrial revolution, many iterations of looms were created, each being more productive than the next. Originally, there was the hand loom, which was used by hand, then the almond loom, which was much more automated, then the mechanized loom, which required a lot less manual work than ever before. Finally, the textile mill was created. It was a massive creation, increasing productivity by the sheer amount of textiles it could put out.

The second exhibit was on transportation, featuring mainly the steam engine. With the steam engine, trains could move faster than ever before, and really became a standard for material transportation.

The third exhibit was all about the pollution and lifestyle changes the Industrial Revolution brought about. Factories pumped out tons of smog and dumped all their solid and liquid waste into rivers, making air conditions and water conditions worse than ever before, sickening many in the process. Slums became more common too, because many wanted to be close to their workplaces. Another reason slums became more common is because the cost of living went way up, with new technologies becoming parts of rich households every day.

The fourth exhibit can be seen above.

The fifth exhibit was on slavery. Child labor is kind of a subdivision of this, but to set a bottom line, slavery rates exploded during the Industrial Revolution. Everyone wanted a job, and most factory owners could get away with paying less than living wages to those in need, and they definitely did. This huge workforce enabled the factories and mines to double production, increasing product and profit.

Resources and Transportation in the Industrial Revolution

‘The Industrial Revolution.’ It sounds daunting, a string of long words, but in reality it was simply a time period in which the Industrial world went about accelerating itself into the future at astonishing speeds, with many great inventions popping up. But what really was it? The Industrial Revolution propelled many practices and technologies forward, from simple things like cleaning clothing all the way to the creation of complex machines used in mining operations far away from other resources. People could access water and electricity in rural places, instead of clustering around cities or food/water supplies in a bid to survive. Farmers, using new machines, increased productivity, increased production, and increased profit.

            Resources - the valuable commodities that seem to make the world go round. From coal to flax seeds, the only way to harvest resources was to do it manually. Farmers and miners had a hard and long job, and usually had to pay others to help them. Over the course of the Industrial Revolution, this problem slowly withered away. Farm machines were invented, pushing many out of the farmhand market and into the cities, where new machines and technologies were being developed. Many went to work in factories, making the parts and machines that were instrumental to the new success of the revolution. With these new machines, farmers could make use of all their land a lot easier and pull a lot more product in. More productivity = more production = more profit. New machines made mining a lot easier, with devices to pump water out of the mineshafts for easier access, and new drills that sped up the mining process so it didn’t have to be done all by hand. As said before, more productivity = more production = more profit.

            Next up is transportation. Pre-Industrial Revolution, everyone got around by horse. Now, there was steam engines. Steam engines were the answer for everything. Steam engine trains, steam engine farm machines, everything. Trains moved at fast speeds, could hold huge loads and transport things very easily. They were a huge advance in technology, and made things much, much easier for the whole world.

Literacy In Media: A Journey

During class this week, we learned that one has to be careful whilst researching on the internet, and make sure that all their sources are.

A Google a Day (http://www.agoogleaday.com/) is a website that challenges its users by having them find the answers to obscure questions from deep inside the bowels of the internet. Due to my experience with computers and Google, I found it quite enjoyable and relatively easy, though there was one question that stumped the whole class. I did learn that the school internet connection is even worse than I originally thought.

So you’re writing an essay. You stumble across a website that has a smooth user interface, detailed pictures and solid information. This research paper is writing itself right before your eyes. You greedily scroll through the site’s info, eventually reaching the bottom. You do a double-take. Where are the sources? You click on the sidebar, frantically searching for something to back up your info, and….nothing. All your time has gone to waste, using uncitable sources is not a mistake you will make again. A prime example of a site that appears to be reputable but is in fact a fake is the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ this site has no real sources at all, with obviously falsified pictures and low resolution videos that just scream ‘fake’. However, at quick glance, it can appear to be real, and can definitely teach a lesson about checking sources on sites. Then there’s Accuracy, Authenticity, and Reliability. This is a way to check if a website is legitimate. What one should do first is to check and see if other websites that are unaffiliated with the one you’re checking have the same info. That’s Accuracy. Secondly, for Authenticity, one should check and see if sources are cited on both all sites that have the same info as this one. Lastly, for Reliability, one should step back and just check out the site, making sure that it basically looks legitimate and okay to use.

A screencap of the Tree Octopus Site: