Chapter 22
Part 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

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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 Past
752-753
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

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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

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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

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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 run
In 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
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