Define industrialization and urbanization, and explain the role of each in furthering sociological thought

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Industrialization is the process by which societies are transformed from

dependence on agriculture and handmade products to an emphasis on

manufacturing and related industries. By the mid-nineteenth century,

industrialization was well under way in the United States. Massive

economic, technological, and social changes occurred as machine

technology and the factory system shifted the economic base from

agriculture to manufacturing. A new social class of industrialists emerged

in textiles, iron smelting, and related industries. Many people who had

labored on the land were forced to leave their tightly knit rural

communities and sacrifice well-defined social relationships to seek

employment as factory workers in the emerging cities, which became the

centers of industrial work. Urbanization accompanied modernization and

the rapid process of industrialization. Urbanization is the process by

which an increasing proportion of a population lives in cities rather than in

rural areas. The development of the factory system led to a rapid

increase in both the number of cities and the size of the population.

People from very diverse backgrounds worked together in the same

factory. At the same time, many people shifted from being producers to

being consumers. For example, families living in the cities had to buy

food with their new wages because they could no longer grow their own

crops to consume or to barter for other resources. Similarly, people had

to pay rent for their lodging because they could no longer exchange their

services for shelter. These living and working conditions led to the

development of new social problems: inadequate housing, crowding,

unsanitary conditions, poverty, pollution, and crime.

Wages were so low that entire families—including very young children—were forced to work,

often under hazardous conditions and with no job security. As these conditions became

more visible, a new breed of social thinkers turned its attention to trying to understand why

and how society was changing.