DBQ: Adverse Effects of Industrialization
Question: Explain the ways in which Southern slave owners could manipulate data to justify the
benefits of the slave system versus the life of the industrial wage earner in Northern factories.
The 22–30 Essay
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Contains a clear, well-developed thesis that explains the ways in which Southern slave owners could
manipulate data to justify the benefits of the slave system versus the life of the industrial wage earner in
Northern factories.
Presents an effective analysis of both aspects of the question (benefits of the slave system;
detriments of the factory system), although treatment may be somewhat uneven.
Effectively uses a substantial number of documents to explain and analyze how Southern slave owners
could manipulate data to justify the benefits of the slave system versus the life of the industrial wage
earner in Northern factories.
Develops the thesis with substantial and relevant outside information.
May contain minor errors that do not detract from the quality of the essay.
Is well organized and well written.
The 16–21 Essay
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Contains a partially developed thesis that explains the ways in which Southern slave owners could
manipulate data to justify the benefits of the slave system versus the life of the industrial wage earner in
Northern factories.
Provides some analysis of the topic, but treatment of multiple parts may be uneven.
Effectively uses some documents.
Supports the thesis with some relevant outside information.
May contain errors that do not seriously detract from the quality of the essay.
Has acceptable organization and writing.
The 7–15 Essay
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Contains an unfocused or limited thesis that explains the ways in which Southern slave owners could
manipulate data to justify the benefits of the slave system versus the life of the industrial wage earner in
Northern factories.
Deals with the question in a general manner; simplistic, superficial treatment of the subject.
Merely paraphrases, quotes, or briefly cites documents.
Contains little outside information or lists facts with little or no application to the question.
May have major errors.
May be poorly organized and/or written.
The 6–Below Essay
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Contains no thesis or a thesis that does not explain the ways in which Southern slave owners could
manipulate data to justify the benefits of the slave system versus the life of the industrial wage earner
in Northern factories.
Exhibits inadequate or incorrect understanding of the question.
Has little or no understanding of the documents or ignores them completely.
Has numerous errors.
Is organized and/or written so poorly that it inhibits understanding.
Modesto Junior College’s content standards applicable to this activity:
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Analyze the impact of immigration on American society and culture.
Compare and contrast regional Western, Southern, and North Eastern political, social and economic
developments after the America Revolution.
Identify regional cause and effect relationships between technological and industrial developments of
the nineteenth century.
DBQ - Industrialization - 1820s–1860s (submit via turnitin.com—due before the beginning of next class)
Class: 6572547; Password: 1234
Document A
Lowell Nov 5th 1848
Dear Father
Doubtless you have been looking for a letter from me all the week past. . . . I was unable to get my old
place in the cloth room on the Suffolk or on any other corporation. . . . So I went to my old overseer on the
Tremont Cor[poration] . . . and I went to work last Tuesday--warping--the same work I used to do.
It is very hard indeed and sometimes I think I shall not be able to endure it. I never
worked so hard in my life but perhaps I shall get used to it. . . . The wages are to be reduced on the 20th
of this month. . . . The companies pretend they are losing immense sums every day and therefore they are
obliged to lessen the wages, but this seems perfectly absurd to me for they are constantly making repairs and it
seems to me that this would not be if there were really any danger of their being obliged to stop the mills.
It is very difficult for any one to get into the mill on any corporation. All seem to be very full of help. I
expect to be paid about two dollars a week but it will be dearly earned. . . .
Write soon. Yours affectionately
Mary S Paul
P.S. Do not forget to direct [letters to me] to No. 5 Tremont Cor and tell all others to do the same.
- Mary Paul's Letters to Her Father
Document B
- New England Factory Life -"Bell-time." By an unidentified artist, American, 19th century.
Document C
“The laws fitted for a free community should be plain and simple, adapted to the apprehension of
every capacity, and placed in the hands of every citizen. Not only our property, but freedom and life
itself are now at the mercy of laws which the people never made, which none of us understand, and
which are interpreted only by men whose opinions are in the market for the highest bidder.
- “To the Working-men of New England,” August 1832
Document D
We have trusted to the influence of the justice and good sense of our political leaders, to prevent the
continuance of . . . abuses, which destroy the natural bands of equality so essential to the attainment
of moral happiness, but they have been deaf to the voice of justice. . . .
Therefore, we, the working class of society, of the city of New York . . . do, in the spirit, and by the
authority of that political liberty which has been promised to us equally with our fellow men, solemnly
publish and declare . . . “that we are, & of right ought to be,” entitled to equal means to obtain equal
moral happiness, and social enjoyment, and that all lawful and constitutional measures ought to be
adopted to the attainment of those objects. “And for the support of this declaration, we mutually
pledge to each other” our faithful aid to the end of our lives.
- George H. Evans, a founder of the Working Man’s Party, “The Working Men’s Declaration of
Independence,” 1829.
Document E
We have been too long subjected to the odious, cruel, unjust, and tyrannical system which compels
the operative Mechanic to exhaust his physical and mental powers by excessive toil, until he has no
desire but to eat and sleep, and in many cases he has no power to do either from extreme debility...
We cannot, we will not, longer be mere slaves to inhuman, insatiable and unpitying avarice.
- Seth Luther, Ten-Hour Circular, 1835
Document F
- Detail from cover of ''The Celebrated Negro Melodies, as Sung by the Virginia Minstrels'', arranged
by Th. Comer, Boston, 1843
Document G
“They are an ardent race and are fully possessed with that hatred of labor, which is the principle of
progress in the human race, as any other people. They must and will have the enjoyment without the
sweat. So they buy slaves where the women will permit it; where they will not, they make the wind,
the tide, the waterfall, the steam, the cloud, the lightening, do the work, by every art and device their
cunningest brain can achieve.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, 1841–1843, discussing mill owners
Document H
- “Le récolter du coton sur une habitation de l’Amerique de Sud,” 1864, New York Public Library
Document I
Thus thirteen hours per day of close attention and monotonous labor are extracted from the young
women in these manufactories.... So fatigued—we should say, exhausted and worn out, but we wish to
speak of the system in the simplest language—are numbers of girls that they go to bed soon after their
evening meal, and endeavor by a comparatively long sleep to resuscitate their weakened frames for
the toil of the coming day…
Enter with us into the large rooms, when the looms are at work. The largest that we saw is in the
Amoskeag Mills at Manchester.... The din and clatter of these five hundred looms, under full
operation, struck us on first entering as something frightful and infernal, for it seemed such an
atrocious violation of one of the faculties of the human soul, the sense of hearing. After a while we
became somewhat used to it, and by speaking quite close to the ear of an operative and quite loud, we
could hold a conversation and make the inquiries we wished.
- The Female Workers of Lowell: The Harbinger, November 14, 1836
Document J
Let me now present the facts I learned by observation or inquiry on the spot. I was there in midwinter, and every morning I was awakened at five, by the bells calling to labor. The time allowed for
dressing and breakfast was so short, as many told me that both were performed hurriedly, and then
the work was begun at the mill by lamplight, and prosecuted without remission till twelve, and chiefly
in a standing position. Then half an hour only allowed for dinner, from which the time for going and
returning was deducted. Then back to the mills to work till seven o'clock... It must be remembered
that all the hours of labor are spent in rooms where oil lamps, together with from 40 to 80 persons,
are exhausting the healthful principle of the air and where the air is loaded with particles of cotton
thrown from thousands of cards, spindles, and looms.
- Catharine Beecher, early 1840s describing mill work in Lowell