Essay Sample: Difference Between 19th and 20th Century

Throughout time, many events have occurred that have changed how we live our day-to-day lives. Someone in the 19th century would have lived a drastically different life from someone in the 21st century. As we walk through the important times during the 19th century, there will be bad and good things that happen during the changes, some events are big when others are not that big events, or there will be times when history is important to us then and now. During the 19th century, Abolishing Slavery, the Industrial revolution, scientific discoveries, and Imperialism changed people's lives. Abolishment of Slavery: Slavery, where all the African Americans were focused to work in abusive environments, and terrible working place. They started slavery in 1619, when a Portuguese slave ship called the Sao Joao Batista, had traveled through the Atlantic oceans with captive humans. Without getting paid for any of the work, which is free labor. Slavery happens mostly in the south, of America. But it also happens in China, Babylonia, Persia, India, the Roman Empire, and many other countries. If slaves did not work fast enough or were too tried to where they couldn’t work then they will be abused or punished for not getting the work done. It gets to the point where the slaves were depressed, sad, and worst taken from their families. In the New York Times article, “A Brief of History Slavery, that you Didn’t Learn in Schools”, they explained that during the 19th century, slavery was stopped legally, but people continued to do it. For example, the French forced them to come back and work during the late 1950s. Industrial Revolution The industrial revolution is where the economy changed and how making money was an important key role in moving up classes. In this event we will be talking about the importance of how children experience, working for little pay, working in unsafe environments. In the 21st century, children played with toys and were allowed to use their imaginations, but it was not like that for children in the 19th century. Children and women from low classes had to work to provide for their families. Some common jobs for children would be on the farm or in a factory, working in jobs that were not meant for children. Child labor was a big thing. As the children would work they would either get low paid, or some would not get paid at all. Men would work in war, young boys would work in farms, factories, but women and young girls would work in most factories but sometimes they would work on the farm as well. In a YouTube video, called “The Children Who Built Victorian Britain,” Prof. Jane Humpries explained some of the children's stories that she found in letters and writing of the stories. Prof. Humpries explains that. “Farmworker was often the only children employed on an establishment, and also housed with their master or another adult worker” (16:40-16:56) In the story about it was about a boy that worked on the farm and explains how a little boy was employed as a human scarecrow, which the little boy who was six years which at the time they would be able to start working. explain how working on the farm was how it was lonely, how he was crying for his mother because of the age at which children started working. And, there was a 13-year-old boy that was stuck in a machine, and could not get out and that was the point where he died in the machine. This shows another reason how children are abused, and powerless during the 19th century. Scientific discovery: A law or even something else which is something I like to call scientific discovery can cause changes. Every day, every month, and every year we create something new, like the MacBook, iPhone, TV, new toys, beds, and fashion of the mouth. It is all an invention, which is something that people experienced during the 19th century. Inventions are important because it is a way for people to get things done faster and at a nice time-space. Items that were created in the 19th century were a typewriter, camera, electric battery, telephone, aspirin, coffee pot, sewing machine, and even the telegraph. Which were the most popular things that were invented during the 19th century. People in the 19th century in their day-to-day life. For example, telephones are a great way for high-class people to communicate with other people. But then there was some dangerous stuff that was invented during the 19th century, which was the automated cloth-weaving loom, which hurt a lot of workers during the 1800s. There were helpful inventions such as the train, and railroad. Can help people travel from place to place. Back then before the trains, people would have had to walk, but people still got from place to place on the train. Then there was the Automated cloth- weaving loom which was a great way to make clothes but also was a dangerous machine, which made it harder for workers to do their jobs. Overall these inventions and there were more and more to come. As people in the 19th century, most people could not afford it because of the low pay income For the higher classes, could enjoy and use most of the stuff: but for the lower class income, they could not afford it. So the higher class during the 19th century was so happy about the changes that were to come, but the lower-income classes can still use it, but the situation is that they can not get their own, they would have to use a public station.

Imperialism: The period of old imperialism started with Spain and Portugal going to South America and talking over the land during the 1500s. The focus during the old imperialism was that there was a lot of gold, which in the article called the 7.6 Imperialism they called it the “Gold, Glory and God” which they said was “the motivation for exploration” 7.6 Imperialism (Paragraph one). Countries in Europe wanted the gold and the resources to make more money, or to become rich. Then the time during the new imperialism, which started as Africa had unclaimed land that the Europeans wanted to take African land to get and sell the resources to other people. This mainly took place in west-east Africa. A Belgian guy named Leopold II governed/ ruled over southwest Africa. During 1884/85 approved to have Leopold II before personal rule in Congo. As Leopold took over the land, the citizens of Congo were forced to work focused on trying to take over land, and money, which went into the industrial revolution, which will be talked about in the article's section called Industrial Revolution. Then as we continued into imperialism, there was a period called the Great Hanoi Rat Hunt. During the period, the French took over a city in China called Hanoi. The French settled down and started to settle. There was a French guy named Paul Doumer, who was the governor of Hanoi. During the time Dumor changed a lot during the period. For example, they used public transportation, put in electrical systems, a new modern plumbing system, and even set up a medical school. Then the French took over the Qing Dynasty, trapped all the pirates, and killed all the pirate leaders which took place in Hanoi. In the book called The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt, Doumer had to increase the city taxes because of the new upgrades that they were doing. “New Patterns of land tenure and taxation schemes increased rural debit and punched other peasants off the land towards Hanoi.” (50). The French also wanted to get lower-class citizens to work to get the city ungraded and rebuilt, but paid the people low. The working class was getting paid low. The Doumer also increased the taxes due to the upgrades. Most of the working class could not pay their taxes, the working class was forced to work until they paid their taxes. As the city started to grow, there was a new friend in the city, which was the rats. That invaded Hanoi, Dormer wanted to get rid of all the rats. So what Doumer did was he put a bounty on the rats. 4cents for every rat that gets killed. To get rid of them, and also use the working class. “The bounty will create an incentive for the Anna mites. In addition to solving our rat problems, it will teach them about market forces and the value of earning a cash payment”(Page 89). As we know it, the French people were trying to get the working class inserted into the hunt. As the days and days went by there were a lot of rats being killed, and the working-class people were getting money from killing rats. Most were to pay their taxes so that they would not be sent to jail. But then the rats in the city because also the working class could not find the rats. The working class hired someone to bring more rats to release in the city so that the working class can get more money. As Dormer started to think about how more rats were getting into the city, he decreased the bounty until the workers did not want to kill the rats anymore. During this period, the lower-income people were taken advantage of in both the Belgian and the Great Hanoi Rat hunt. The working classes, where both abused, most worked for no reason. For example, During the time of Belgians, they would cut off the people's hands if they did not work or disobey. In the great Hanoi rat hunt. The abuse was crazier than I imagined. 

Conclusion 

As you read the different events during the 19th century, such as Imperialism, Industrial Revolution, Abolishment of Slavery, scientific discoveries. During the 19th century lower classes were mostly abused by higher leaders such as Leopold., and also taken advantage of during the events of the writing. Events that happened during the 19th century are super important. The people's experience during the 19th century. Important to understand this is the people that can understand it more. Humankind creates history, let us listen to their voices of cries, and respect them.