LA MÁQUINA

                                                               Britain, October 5th 1890

​

A few days ago I have been talking with my grandparents about their life a few years ago. They told me a lot of things and most of them really interesting.

They told me the Industrial Revolution changed everyone's life due to the profound economic and social changes, caused by the widespread use of machinery in production.

My grandparents lived in the countryside so thise affected them directly because agrarian, rural societies were transformed into industrial, urban societies. Both of them were very poor and suffered the Second Industrial Revolution, which began in 1870. My grandmother had a little painting about how cities look like in the Revolution and everything looked strange.

They also talled me  lots of new advances of the demographic and the agricultural revolutions. Lots of new advances in nutrition that were possible thanks to advances in agriculture and changes in people’s diets. Lots of personal and public hygiene which seemed to be one of the bests due to my grandparents opinion. All these affected  public and personal health and so epidemics, which had been frequent in the Early Modern period, caused fewer deaths due to all these improvements. Thise led to a population growth.

My grandfather which worked in agriculture noticed a great increased demand for food which led to innovations in crop and livestock farming. Lots of new farming techniques appeared like the four-field system, new farming machines (like the seed drill we can observe in the picture my grandmother gave me)

Also lands became private property and part of the land was used to grow fodder, or food for livestock.

In conclusion I have noticed in my grandparents voice that all of these changes have been really difficult for them but with effort and work they could survive and have a quite good life.  I think they are very brave and they have experienced a lot of good and bad things. I’ll never overcome them, but I’m also very glad of having them as my grandparents.