Thesis: The Industrial Revolution was negative because of low living standards for the proletariat and bad working
conditions and was positive because of modern conveniences and eventual laws creating more equal work
environments. (it kept the wealthy people free and comfortable)
I.
The Industrial Revolution was negative because of low living standards for the proletariat.
a. The following is an excerpt from William Cooper’s testimony before Sadler Committee in 1832. The
Sadler Committee was an organization working to expose the working conditions in factories during the
Industrial Revolution. The testimony was given about a century after the IR started.
i.
“Sadler: When did you first begin to work in mills? Cooper: When I was ten years of age. Sadler:
What were your usual hours of working? Cooper: We began at five in the morning and stopped
at nine in the night. Sadler: What time did you have for meals? Cooper: We had just one period
of forty minutes in the sixteen hours. Sadler: When your hours were so long, did you have time
to attend a day school? Cooper: We had no time to go to day school.”
1. Cooper shares his personal experience with the committee. He speaks of the long hours
he worked at his job in the factory. Coopers account of his day was not uncommon.
Most people had similar conditions beginning as young or younger than he, resulting in
adults deprived not only of nutrition and general health, but education.
a. This is a primary document. Cooper’s retelling was of a first hand experience, of
someone in the depths of the muck that was factory lifestyle. It is told in an
unbiased way, partly because of how the questions were posed. While the
interviewer’s purpose was to gather negative information, the questions don’t
boast that notion. In modern court hearings, questions like these are required
when questioning a witness, or they get reprimanded and the question must be
withdrawn for “leading the witness”.
b. This excerpt from The Conditions of the Working Class in England was written by Friedrich Engels after
he visited an English industrial city in 1844.
i.
“The streets are usually unpaved, full of holes, filthy and strewn with refuse. Since they have
neither gutters nor drains, the refuse accumulates in stagnant, stinking puddles…One walks
along a very rough path on the ricer bank to reach a chaotic group of little, one-story, one-room
cabins…In front of the doors, filth and garbage abounded…”
1. Engels gives a description of his venture into the grunge of working class living. He
enforces my sub point by explaining the grime and filth he witness just walking past and
around the homes. If he was so appalled by just peering into the lives of these poor
people, imagine what they have to live through on a daily basis, with no escape. The
gross buildup surrounding the homes of the proletariat were a result of economic
neglect. They could only afford grungy, dank homes in the city. If parts of their habitat
were deteriorated or unaffected, such as the lack of gutters or drains, they had no
money or power to seek aid to fix the problem.
a. This is direct quote from a book written in the time period of a man’s account of
the environment the proletariat suffered through. While descriptive, the
information is quite objective. The title, as opposed to the Working Man’s
Companion is unbiased. The author is simple telling his tale. Alternatively, the
excerpt is persuasive. It attempts to convince the reader that the conditions the
working class is put it is not sufficient in any respect. He attempts to put the
reader in the place of these people so that if they were to be put in their shoes
how would it feel?
II.
The Industrial Revolution was negative because of bad working conditions.
a. The photo was taken at some point in the Industrial Revolution, judging by the quality and the men’s
clothing and surroundings.
i.
The picture shows a group of thirty or so men standing in a rather organized fashion. They all
look drained and disheveled. Their clothes are dirty and none are smiling.
1. The photo is an average depiction of factory workers during the Industrial Revolution.
They look miserable, most likely due to their awful jobs. We can tell that this is a
purposeful, structured photo because the men are all sort of lined up facing the camera.
If the men were happy in their jobs there would not all look like dirty, deflated balloons.
a. This source is a primary document, shot in the setting being analyzed. A photo
of the men in the process of working would probably be more accurate, for the
foreman could have organized the picture in a deceiving way. For example, he
could have placed a man with two broken legs because of accidents behind
machinery. He could have put the men with the most infected scrapes and
bruises farthest away. Overall it is a fairly reliable source because of it’s setting
and the time period it was taken even though it’s not totally candid.
b. This is a political cartoon shows a large man (presumably a factory foreman) riding a chariot labeled
“child labor exploiter” pulled by dreary kids.
i.
[Document 10]
1. The man riding the chariot is large, signifying his power over the significantly smaller
worker children, even given their age difference. He is also fat, expressing how people
like him were well fed, but it is exaggerated, as is the nature of political cartoons. Both
of these elements are used to juxtapose the differences between the workers and the
owner. Additionally, the cartoon obviously is trying to show that children were exploited
in the workplace during the Industrial Revolution.
a. Political cartoons are the artist’s depiction of their interpretation of events.
Because of this, it may not be incredibly accurate or reliable. Adding to this, we
don’t know the artist or their background, so it is more difficult to make a
judgment on the credibility of the source.
c. Here is an excerpt from the testimony of Jospeh Hebergam to the Sadler Committee. The Sadler
Committee was an organization working to expose the working conditions in factories during the
Industrial Revolution.
i.
“Sadler: Do you know of any other children who died? Hebergam: There were about a dozen
died during the two years and a half I was there. At the Mill…a boy was caught in a machine and
had both his thighbones broke and from his knee to his hip the flesh was ripped up the same as
it had been cut by a knife. His hand was bruised, his eyes were nearly torn and his arms were
broken. His sister, who ran to pull him off, had both her arms broke and her head bruised.”
1. Proof of the document above. This is a horrendous dictation of an accident witnessed by
a factory worker. Not only were children forced to neglect education and work the same
long hours as adults, theses accidents were not a common occurrence (for either kids or
adults). Children, with their small limbs, were sometimes put to work at more
dangerous machines. They were also instructed to crawl among the machinery to pick
up remnants and scraps. Those risky jobs combined with inevitable youthful
carelessness (heightened by their fatigue and malnutrition), it was quite common for
these young workers to be disgustingly damaged by the equipment.
a. This is a primary document. Hebergam’s retelling was of a first hand experience,
of someone in the depths of the muck that was factory lifestyle. It is told in an
unbiased way, partly because of how the questions were posed. While the
interviewer’s purpose was to gather negative information, the questions don’t
boast that notion. In modern court hearings, questions like these are required
when questioning a witness, or they get reprimanded and the question must be
withdrawn for “leading the witness”.
III.
The Industrial Revolution was positive because of modern conveniences
a. This excerpt is from The Working Man’s Companion subtitled The Results of Machinery, Namely Cheap
Production and Increased Employment. It was published in 1831.
i.
“You are surrounded ... with an infinite number of comforts and conveniences which had no
existence two or three centuries ago … your houses are better built your clothes are
cheaper…”
1. The quote explains the modern positive results of the Industrial Revolution, listing some
of the main benefits. It forgets to note how we have the “cheap production” mentioned
in the subtitle. The purpose of this handbook was to convince factory workers to stop
forming rallies unions about your horrible wages and just keep working ridiculously long
and tedious jobs while we sit here in our cockroach free houses eating our nutritional
meals.
a. Even the title is biased. From the start this book projects the idea that the
Industrial Revolution was only a time that resulted in wonderful things, paying
no mind to the suffering that got them there. Not too mention that the author
had to have been a member of the bourgeoisie and not actively involved in the
production of such conveniences. This is clear by the fact that books are written,
and as shown in the first source, most members of the proletariat had no time
to go to school and therefore could not read or write.
Conclusion: Overall, while the Industrial Revolution resulted in many beneficial things, such as the numerous
conveniences we have today, the road to get there was paved by the blood and sweat of children and adults alike. Living
conditions were insufferable, and working in the factory was positively horrific. Fortunately, due to these awful
circumstances, some of the world learned from these mistakes, putting things like child labor laws and minimum wage in
place. Sadly we are still working towards these laws being fair. Currently the minimum wage is barely livable, child labor
continues to be exploited, and the rich stay happy and comfortable, while the poor barely scrape by. We are currently in
a more modern technological revolution, so history is mirroring itself and similar events are occurring as the ones back in
the 1800s. Hopefully we can find a way to avoid some of the more detrimental mistakes of the past this time around.
Additional Bibliography:
"China: End Child Labor in State Schools." Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch, n.d. Web. 21 May 2014.
"Most Americans Say Rich Should Pay More Taxes, According to New Survey." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 27 Aug. 2012.
Web. 21 May 2014.
Roberts, Joel John. "Unlivable Wages Mean Unlivable Conditions." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 June
2011. Web. 21 May 2014.