How did the steam engine affect daily life?

Answer 1

Talking of their effects on 19VC life: Stationary steam-engines drove factory machines proving a lot of employment. They were used to power water & sewage pumping stations, in the drive to improve public health; and later, especially once the steam-turbine became established, to power alternators for public electricity supplies.. On the railways, steam locomotives could haul freight and passenger trains reasonably swiftly in either local routes or over great distances. Used in ships, steam power meant far more rapid transport, far more reliably and safely than under sail whether along rivers or across the oceans. It's important to realise it was not so much the engine being steam that mattered, as it providing for the first time in history, a machinery power-source that could be made in large quantities, suitable for the purposes and not dependent on natural forces like river-flow or the wind.