Chapter 22Part 4

The Industrial Revolution

Changes in working conditions

Factory work meant more discipline and less personal freedom

Work became impersonal The factory environment was so

different than what cottagers were used to that they were reluctant to work in factories even for better wages

Working Conditions

Early factories resembled English poorhouses where destitute people went to live on welfare

Some poorhouses really were industrial prisons

Child Labor Increased

More agricultural workers became weavers and were paid fairly well so were unwilling to move to factories

Factory owners turned to child labor

Abandoned children became a main source of labor from local parishes and orphanages

Child Labor

Factory owners treated children like slaves

Hours were long; conditions were appalling

Factories, mines, chimney sweeps, market girls, shoemakers, etc.

BUT this was much the same as child labor in cottage industries

Child Labor

Did child labor in factories only APPEAR to be worse?

As the Industrial Revolution continued, child labor declined

BUT at first, families worked in factories in units

Parents were unwilling to be separated from their children in factories and mines

Working together made the work more tolerable

In Cotton Mills

Children worked for mothers or fathers

Collected waste and pieced together broken thread

In mines children sorted coal and picked up stray bits that fell from the corvees (carts) pushed by their mothers while fathers mined the seams

Parents DID protest inhumane treatment

See Listening to the Past752-753

Parliament tried to limit Child Labor

The Saddler Commission: investigated working conditions and helped to initiate legislation to improve conditions in factories

The Factory Act 1833 Limited the workday for children 9-13 to

8 hours a day

Limited ages 14-18 to 12 hours a day

Prohibited hiring children under age 9

Were to attend elementary schools that factory owners were required to establish

Employment of Children declined rapidly

BUT the Factory Act of 1833 helped to destroy the family as a working unit

The Mines Act of 1842

Prohibited boys and girls under age 10 from working underground

Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Society

Urbanization: was the most important sociological effect

Was the largest population transfer in human history

Birth of factory towns: cities grew into large industrial centers…like Manchester

Before the Industrial Revolution

Most people lived in the South of England

BUT coal and iron were located in the Midlands and in the North

In 1785 only 3 cities had more than 50,000 people in England and Scotland

By 1820, 31 cities with 50,000 or more

The role of the city had changed

From governmental and cultural centers

To industrial centers

Living conditions SEEMED worse (due to overcrowding) in the cities but did not differ much from those living on farms

Reformers tried to improve

life in cities The big issues of the 19th century:

working class injustices gender exploitation standard-of-living issues

The family structure and gender roles within the

family changed Families were no longer a unit of

production and consumption

Families were less closely bound together

Productive work was taken out of the home

New roles

As wages rose for skilled adult males women and children were separated from the workplace

Gender-determined roles at home and a new “domestic” life slowly emerged

Married women stayed at home Husband was the wage earner

Women Were expected to create a nurturing

environment for family members who returned from work

Married women DID work outside the home IF family required it: illness, death of a spouse

Single women and widows had much work available BUT few skills required and very low wages

No way to protect themselves from exploitation

The Irish

Increased numbers to Great Britain Became urban workers

Many Irish were forced out of Ireland…poor economic conditions, population growth and the Potato Famine

The Irish

Ireland had not industrialized

The Industrial Revolution may have limited human catastrophe elsewhere…factory work provided better wages…people could buy food from elsewhere

Better transport could have brought food in

The Irish

Overpopulation and rural poverty in Ireland

Most were Irish Catholic peasants and lived in abject poverty

Rented land from a tiny minority of Anglicans

Most landowners were absentee Had not improved agriculture (new

crops, methods of the Agricultural Revolution NOT introduced)

The Potato Famine

1845 & 46…Crop failure Again in 1848 & 1851

Also…fever epidemics!

Higher food prices, tremendous suffering, social unrest

Irish Potato Famine

1.5 million died or went unborn 1840-1855: 2 million left Ireland

Most went to U.S. or Britain

By 1911…population in Ireland 4.4 million

1845 population in Ireland was 8 million

British government response was abysmal

It might have happened

Anywhere that there was rapid population growth without industrialization

Central Russia, western Germany, Southern Italy were vulnerable

All relied on the potato, were overpopulated and poor

The Dismal Science(Economics)

Thomas Malthus Essay on the Principle of Population (1798): argued that the population would always grow faster than the food supply

The only way to ward off “positive checks” on population growth: war, famine, disease…to marry later in life.

The Dismal Science

David Ricardo (1722-1823) The Iron Law of Wages: due to population growth, wages would always sink to subsistence level

Wages would be just high enough to keep workers from starving

John Maynard Keynes

During the Great Depression of the 1930’s

“We are all dead in the long run….”

Friedrich List German journalist and thinker:

Promoted economic nationalism (became increasingly popular in 1840’s)

Government should protect industry with tariffs

Government should subsidize RR’s, etc.

Wrote: National System of Political Economy (1841)

What would Adam Smith say?

Capitalists viewed the Industrial Revolution as a Positive Force in the

long runIn the end it did fulfill human wants and needs

Industry provided the power to replace human labor

Wealth for all increased Huge amounts of food, clothing, energy

became available to all Luxuries became commonplace Life expectance increased More leisure time available Prevented human catastrophe (like in

Ireland)

Socialists and Communists

Believed the Industrial Revolution to be the continued exploitation of the have-nots (proletariat) by the haves (Bourgeoisie)

Workers had to wait until the second ½ of the 19th century to share in the wealth

Until then: low wages, poor conditions, abuse