The most far-reaching, influential transformation of human culture was the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century Europe, between 1750 and 830, which changed the ways of the world.
Where the Industrial Revolution improved life generally, it also proved harmful in some aspects. Conditions changed all over; pollution inreased, working conditions were harmful, and capitalists employed women and young children, making them work long and hard hours. The industrial revolution was a time for change, for better, or for worse.
The technological changes of the eighteenth century did not appear suddenly. The consequences of this revolution would change irrevocably human labor, consumption, family structure, social structure, and even the very soul and thoughts of the individual.
A lot was happening during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; by 1700 in England, and by 1750 in France, the tendency of the state and the guilds to resist industrialization was weakening.
France saw the worst kind of upheaval after the industrial revolution set in. Society in France was torn apart and the elite and poor were thrust against each other, causing anarchy at the hands of the common man.
The hundred years that followed the French Revolution were filled with radical political, economic, and social change. New structures emerged, novel governments took power, and old problems were given rapid, untried solutions - most of them, for a variety of reasons, being diametrically opposed to the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Christian churches played an active role in criticizing the exploitation of industrial laborers from the middle of the nineteenth century. The evils of the Factory System and modern industrialized society were analyzed using Christian principles and action to alleviate the suffering of workers was proposed by both the Christian Socialist movement (mainly supported by Protestants) and the Catholic Church.
Perhaps the....
