A Developing Era

Jessica Pukavage

Mrs. Hoppel

Honors English 9 Period 1

11 September 2008

A Developing Era

Many influences have come from the Industrial Revolution, some bad but most good. From the 18th to 19th century, The US greatly benefited from the technological increases and developing ideas. New materials were used such as iron and steel; new fuels were developed for use. Coal, electricity, petroleum, steam engines, and internal combustion chambers were all developed for fule and motive power. New machines were inventend and used such as the Spinning Jenny and the Power Loom which led to the loss of handmade goods. Specialized work function in factories arose in this era and with the invention have quickened the assembly lines. Transportation and communication developed as well as the automobile, airplane, telegraph, and the radio. Wealth swept through the country which soon led to international trading and political changes. New policies, autority patterns, working-class movements, and cultural transformations developed according to the era have changed the American culture immensely. Working laws such as child labor laws were concluded due to economic ways in this time period.

About The Author: Charles Dickens

Born on the 7th of February in 1812, Charles John Huffam Dickens would now be the second of 8 children to John and Elizabeth Dickens. Until he was five, he grew up in Landsport, Portsmouth, Hampshire. The family then moved to Chatham, Kent then again to Camden Town, London when he was only 10. (1822) He spent time outdoors, reading avidly. The family's early wealth ended abruptly after it started when his father was placed in Marshalsea, a debters' prison. The rest of Charles' family, realizing no other options, soon joined John in the prison. Charles was left in board, no family. Soon before his father's imprisonment, Charles started working a 10-hour/day job at the nearby Warren's Blacking Warehouse. By pasting labels on thick shoe polish jars, earning six shillings a week, helping to support his family by paying for his lodgings at a family friend's house, Mrs. Elizabeth Roylance. Charles was later moved to a "back-attic" at a court agent's home on Lant street. His experiences formed a base for his fiction and essays written later in life. They were his basis of the poor socioeconomic and labor conditions in pre- Industrial-Revolution England.

After John and his family spent only a few months in prison, the death of John's paternal grandmother, and her will in which John was left £450 and he and his family were released. They were headed for Mrs. Roylance's home. Though Charles later attended Wellington House Academy, he wasn't immediately removed from the warehouse work. This resentment was used to produce his favorite novel, David Copperfield.

Charles, 15, began new work in May 1827, as a clerk in the law office of Ellis and Blackmore. Though he was only working in a junior position, this job qualified him for the Bar. When he was 17, he got the court's job as a stenographer and in 1830, he met his first love named Maria Beadnell, whose parents dissaproved of the courtship and ended their relationship by sending her to France. It is believed that Maria inspired the role of Dora in David Copperfield.

The marriage of Charles and Catherine Thompson Hogarth took place on April 2, 1836. The births of ten children came from this marriage after they settled in Bloomsbury. Catherine's sister later moved in with the newly-weds. Mary died in Charle's arms of a brief illness in 1837. She was used as characters and roles in many of his novels. He also had a pet raven named Grip and it died in 1841; it was stuffed for him and is now in The Free Library of Philadelphia.