Lives of workers during the industrial revolution

Lives of workers during the industrial revolution

The industrial revolution marked the beginning of a new America, a change from agrarian, hand and home production to machines and factories. Advancements in [http://open-encyclopedia.com/Steam_engine technology] and [http://americanhistory.about.com/od/industrialrev/a/indrevoverview_2.htm communication] created a movement of people from farms to cities. Cities became over-populated leading to socioeconomic and cultural problems. A great difference in the standards of living existed between the owners and the workers.

Working conditions

-- () 10:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)The factories at Lowell, Massachusetts, comprised the first large-scale mechanized factory complex built in the United States. Lowell, called the “city of spindles,” had 52 mills employing 8,800 women and 4,400 men and making 2.25 million yards of cotton cloth each week. [William Dudley, "The Industrial Revolution: Opposing View Points." Greenhaven Press, 1998] With so much work available and so many people looking for a way to support their families. It was only obvious that the owners would take full advantage of the situation. Twelve- or thirteen-hour working days, noisy, unsanitary and sometimes dangerous workplaces, restrictive regulations, and periodic layoffs, wage cutbacks, and work speedups. . Factories often were not well ventilated and became very hot in the summer. Worker health and safety regulations were non-existent. Workers who suffered debilitating injuries from work were simply dismissed without any compensation. Some argued that the system of slavery in the South was actually more humane and just than the wage labor system of the North.

Education

Education suffered because of the demands of work. Factory jobs did not require formal education, training periods were brief, and factory workers lacked social status.

Home life

Home life suffered as women were faced with the double burden of factory work followed by domestic chores and child care.

Women at work

The meager pay and flooded labor market forced women into the factories in order to make enough for the family to survive. [Thomas Dublin, "New England lives in the Industrial Revolution: Transforming Women's Work." Cornell University Press, 1946] Men assumed supervisory roles over women and received higher wages. Young women away from their home generated societal fears over their fate.

Children at work

What made the horrible conditions of the workplace especially noticeable was the fact that so much of the workforce was made up of children. The early textile factories employed a large number of children. Two-thirds of the workers in 143 water-powered cotton mills were children. Poor families would send there children as young as 6 to 7 to work in the factories to contribute to the household economy

Notes and References

General

*Ashton, Thomas S., "The Industrial Revolution (1760-1830)", Oxford University Press, 1948, ISBN 0195002520 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=77198082 online edition]
* Berlanstein; Lenard R. "The Industrial Revolution and work in nineteenth-century Europe" Routledge, 1992 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=107622068 online edition]
*Bernal, John Desmond, "Science and Industry in the Nineteenth Century", Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970.
*Paul Bairoch, "Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes." University of Chicago Press, 1993
* J. H. Clapham; "An Economic History of Modern Britain: The Early Railway Age, 1820-1850". Cambridge University Press, 1926 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=83597738 online edition]

ocial Impact

*Hobsbawm, Eric J., "Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day", W. W. Norton, 1999.
* Smelser, Neil J. "Social Change in the Industrial Revolution: An Application of Theory to the British Cotton Industry" University of Chicago Press, 1959 [http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=55370383 online edition]
*Thompson, E. P., "The Making of the English Working Class", London: Penguin Books, 1980. (First published 1963.)


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