Industrial Revolution Factory Conditions



A History of Factory Conditions During the Industrial Revolution Britain Richard Arkwright is the person credited with being the brains behind the growth of factories. After he patented his spinning frame in 1769, he created the first true factory at Cromford, near Derby.This act was to change Great Britain. Before very long, this factory employed over 300 people. Nothing had ever been seen like this before. The domestic system only needed two to three people working in their own home. By 1789, the Cromford mill employed 800 people. With the exception of a few engineers in the factory, the bulk of the work force were essentially unskilled. They had their own job to do over a set number of hours. Whereas those in the domestic system could work their own hours and enjoyed a degree of flexibility, those in the factories were governed by a clock and factory rules.Edmund Cartwright's power loom ended the life style of skilled weavers. In the 1790's, weavers were well paid. Within 30 years many had become labourers in factories as their skill had now been taken over by machines. In 1813, there were only 2,400 power looms in Britain. by 1850, there were 250,000.Factories were run for profit. Any form of machine safety guard cost money. As a result there were no safety guards. Safety clothing was non-existent. Workers wore their normal day-to-day clothes. In this era, clothes were frequently loose and an obvious danger. Children were employed for four simple reasons : there were plenty of them in orphanages and they could be replaced easily if accidents did occur they were much cheaper than adults as a factory owner did not have to pay them as much they were small enough to crawl under machinery to tie up broken threads they were young enough to be bullied by 'strappers' - adults would not have stood for this. Some factory owners were better than others when it came to looking after their work force. Arkwright was one of these. He had some harsh factory rules (such as workers being fined for whistling at work or looking out of the window) but he also built homes for his work force, churches and expected his child workers to receive a basic amount of education. Other owners were not so charitable as they believed that the workers at their factories should be grateful for having a job and the comforts built by the likes of Arkwright did not extend elsewhere.At the time when the Industrial Revolution was at its height, very few laws had been passed by Parliament to protect the workers. As many factory owners were Members of Parliament or knew MP's, this was likely to be the case. Factory inspectors were easily bribed as they were so poorly paid. Also there were so few of them, that covering all of Britain's factories would have been impossible.Factories rarely kept any records of the ages of children and adults who worked for them. As employment in cities could be difficult to get, many people did lie about their age - and how could the owner know any better ? Under this system, children in particular suffered."Factories in the Industrial Revolution".?HistoryLearningSite.co.uk.?2014. Web.Britain By the early part of the 18th century much of the easily mined surface (or adit mined) coal had been extracted. Increasingly coal had to brought up from deep mines, often two kilometers beneath the earth. As the coal industry expanded, more and more miners went underground to extract coal and often worked very long hours in hazardous conditions.09207500In early mines coal was brought up the surface in very primitive ways. Whole families worked at the mines. The father and the boys hewed the coal (cutting the coal from seams with a pick). The mother and girls ‘hurried’ (carried) the coal to the surface by climbing a spiral staircase with a basket, filled with coal, on their backs. It was held in place by a strap around the front of their heads. This often made their hair at the front wear away, creating a bald spot.In some mines, both the coal and the miners were brought to the surface in wooden buckets which were pulled up the shaft. Sometimes the miners just had a rope to hold on to. Rope breaks and mistakes with a windlass often led to miners plunging to their deaths. As these awful accidents became known, there were calls to find out just how bad conditions were in the mines. A commission was set up to investigate the working conditions in the mines.In 1842 a Parliamentary Committee which reported on the mines found that many workers were working in the most appalling conditions. Not only did they work very long hours, but they were also hired at very young ages. Children as young as five were used as ‘trappers’ to open and close underground doors in the mine to let the ‘hurriers’, who pulled the loaded wagons, get through. These children worked in the dark because their families were often too poor to be able to afford candles. They were in the dark for up to twelve hours each day and often had rats scurrying all over them. If they fell asleep they were beaten by the miners.-635381000The commission also found that children were employed as coal ‘hurriers’, pulling carts or sledges filled with coal over long distances and through very small tunnels. Girls as young as thirteen were often used fir this work. The chain around their waist caused damage to their pelvic bones, distorting them and making them smaller. This often proved fatal in later life when many of them died in childbirth.The commission discovered that men, women, boys and girls were working together in the most frightening circumstances. Strangely enough, it was the fact that girls were mixed with ‘near naked’ men which caused the most upset, and not the long hours or the harsh and brutal conditions. Other commissions, such as the Factories Inquiry Commission of 1833, gathered evidence and reported that the situation in factories was just as awful. The factory inspectors found that children worked twelve hour days, generally with only a one hour break. If the factory or mill was busy, they might work up to eighteen hours a day. The conditions were every bit as bad as in the mines, and some reports told of children spending their entire working lives doubled up under machinery in cotton mills. They were often permanently disabled as a result.The combination of public outrage, political pressure and changes in the law eventually led to better and safer working conditions.By the end of the 19th century, conditions had greatly improved. However, this was not achieved without pressure from the workers themselves, who increasingly gathered to protest about their conditions of work. These gatherings eventually led to organized self-help groups which later became known as Trade Unions.“Working Conditions” . 2015. Web. United States Child labor, the practice of employing young children in factories and in other industries, was a widespread means of providing mass labor at little expense to employers during the American Industrial Revolution. The employers forced young workers into dangerous labor-intensive jobs that caused "severe and permanent physical, psychological, intellectual, and social damage" (Greene 10). By 1900 over two million children, mostly immigrant children under the age of sixteen, were employed. Many young immigrants to the United States lived in abject poverty in tenement houses located in urban areas. The immigrant children worked in inhumane conditions in textile mills, coalmines, flourmills, machine shops, garment factories, tobacco factories, shoe factories, and carpet plants, in order to provide a source of income for their families. In numerous industries children labored around unsafe machinery. Children labored for many hours, but received wages that were much lower than those received by adult laborers for comparable work. Each and every industry that emerged during the Industrial Revolution contributed to the impairment of the health and social well being of its young workers.Coalmining was a prominent industry throughout eastern Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, and Wyoming. In 1885, legislation was passed in order to restrict the working age of miners. Breaker boys, who worked aboveground to sort slate, rocks, and other debris from the coal, were required to be at least twelve years of age. Underground miners were required to be at least fourteen years of age. Boys' parents often presented a fake birth certificate with an altered date of birth in order to have their children, who were often as young as five or six years of age, work in the mines. Breaker boys, the youngest of the miners, were subjected to large quantities of coal dust while they sat on the edges of trough-like chutes in order to handpick debris from the coal. Employers did not allow the breaker boys to wear gloves for fear that they would inhibit the agility of the boys' hands. If a boy were caught wearing gloves, the boss would beat him. A skin condition that miners termed "red tips" was brought about by prolonged contact with sulfur from the coal. Breaker boys' fingers often became cracked, bloody, and swollen from sorting. Breaker boys also suffered from chronic throat trouble and respiratory illnesses that were caused by inhaling coal dust. Aboveground machinery, particularly coal crushers, was dangerously loud. If a breaker boy worked long hours around the coal crusher he often suffered from hearing loss. After working for very long hours, as long as twelve hours a day, a breaker boy would become exhausted and careless around the machinery. Exhausted boys ran the risk of serious injury from the machinery. Fingers were often caught in coal conveyers, causing either severe maiming of the hand or the loss of fingers. Occasionally a boy fell into the coal crusher and was ground to pieces. Working conditions were significantly more dangerous in the underground mining operations. The daily chances of severe injury or death were much greater than aboveground. Poisonous gases, especially methane, which was released naturally by the process of coalmining, were always present underground. Miners defecated in the mines due to lack of proper sanitation facilities. Rat infestation was a common problem that led to the spread of disease. Nippers, boys who opened doors for incoming mining cars filled with up to four tons of coal, were often run over and killed when they carelessly forgot to open the passageway in order to allow the car to continue through. Spraggers were boys who kept the mining cars in motion by using long sticks in order to keep the wheels turning. Many spraggers got an arm or a leg entangled in and cut off by the spokes of one of the wheels. Both aboveground or underground child miners attempted strikes in order to protest against the merciless working conditions. However, the strikes usually failed; employers would beat and whip the young workers until they reluctantly returned to work.The machinery in textile mills was just as dangerous as the machinery in the mines. Spinner girls watched numerous rows of bobbins spin at a rapid pace. Their job was to tie threads together that had snapped on the bobbins. Spinners did this monotonous, menial task for as long as seventy hours each week. A spinner, who worked the night shift at a textile mill in North Carolina in the early 20th century, commented on her job; "My eyes hurt always from watching the threads at night. Sometimes the threads seem to be cutting into my eyes" (Saller 14). Sweatshops were in-house garment factories that were located in tenement houses. They were poorly ventilated and were infested with vermin. Parents kept children home from school in order to perform tedious and repetitive tasks. Children finished seams, sewed pieces of garments such as shirtsleeves, or sewed on buttons. They handled poisonous glues and numerous chemicals that were frequently used in the garment industry. The rooms in which the children labored were locked in order to ensure that each laborer worked for his or her full ten to twelve hours each day. If there were a fire in the house, there was no means of escape; the children were trapped behind the locked doors.Federal reform of child labor was brought about by the Fair Labor standards Act of 1938. It has proven to be the basis of other labor reforms throughout the past sixty-four years.The Jungle At the turn of the Twentieth century, the United States was entering the era of progressivism as many lower-class Americans demanded change at the workplace.? This included higher wages, the rights for workers to unionize without penalty, safer working conditions, amongst others.On September 20, 1878, Upton Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland into a poor, lower class family.? His family resided in Baltimore, until their move to New York City when he was ten.? After finishing Columbia University, Sinclair traveled along the Northeast.? He married Meta Fuller and settled down in Princeton, N.J.? After publishing many unsuccessful novels, he got caught in the growing socialist movement in America under Eugene V. Debs. Sinclair began to write books advocating change through investigative journalism; this practice was called muckraking.? Upon hearing about a job in Chicago to investigate the meat-packing industry, he moved there to examine the workers’ conditions.? He published his findings in The Jungle, a novel depicting an immigrant who worked in one of plants.Although many people thought the aim of The Jungle was to target the unsanitary conditions of the meat-packing industry, Sinclair was more focused on revolutionizing America into a socialistic society.? He advocated for the end of “wage slavery” and a redistribution of wealth.Nonetheless, his book had a significant impact on society.? Instead of helping out the working class, the book made the public aware that the plants were filthy and dangerous, posing a threat to the public.? Therefore, this made it possible for the federal government to intervene and regulate the food industry with the passing of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.? Even though these acts were passed, change did not occur instantaneously. ?As a result, each state and local government passed its own set of rules and health codes to supplement.? In Maryland, most health codes were not passed until 1910 when the legislature expanded the scope of power of the State Board of Health by creating the State Food and Drug Commissioner. ................
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