As the old agriculture system declined it gave birth to a new era known as the Industrial Revolution. This change led to the growth of factories and production of textiles. Even though people could argue that factories and slums were not terrible, during the Victorian England period, both those places had harsh and unsanitary conditions because the people who lived in the slums had an uninhabitable environment and factories had cruel and harsh surroundings.
During the Victorian England period people were slowly changing their ways of life. People were slowly adjusting from agriculture to industry. Although it benefitted mostly the middle class and higher, it devastated the working class. In the eighteenth century, factory workers had unequal rights. Men and women were forced to work from twelve to fifteen hours every single day. With this schedule, the workers were unable to get fully rested for the next day and continued to decrease their health. According to James, of Primary Facts, said, “In cotton mills, dust from the yarn covered the workers and got in their throats. In order to make sure that the cotton was kept strong, factory owners kept their mills warm and damp. This meant that the workers often suffered with lung and chest infections.” Not only did it tire them out to the point of exhaustion, but it also increased their potential for infections. From his quote, it showed how the owners did not care for their employees’ health and can replace them in no time. Workers were expected to work quickly and delicately, but if they failed to do so some sort of consequence will happen to them. As time passed by, factories continued to prosper, the number of goods increased. This led to advancement of technology and made their ma...
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James. “Victorian Factories and the Machines of Industry: Facts and Information” Primary Facts, Primary Facts, 2013. Web. 21, May 2014. < www.primaryfacts.com/1683/Victorian-factories-and-the-machines-of-industry-facts-and-information/ >
Mitchell, Sally. Daily Life in Victorian England. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press; 1996. 41-47, 56-57. Print.
Peacock Doug. “Lifestyle: Slum Housing” Cotton Times understanding the industrial revolution. Cotton Times. 8 December, 2007. Web. 21, May 2014. < www.cottontimes.co.uk/housingo.htm. >
Trevelyan, George. “The Transition from Agriculture to Industry” Victorian England. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000. 104-106.108.112.Print.
Trueman, Chris. “Life in Industrial Towns.” History Learning Site. HistoryLearningSites.co.uk. 2000-2013. Web. 21 May, 2014. < www.historylearningsite.co.uk/industrial_revolution_towns.htm >
English textile factories were very bad for the health of the working class families. As Dr. Ward stated, “Last summer I visited three cotton factories with Dr. Clough of Preston and Mr. Barker of Manchester, and we could not remain ten minutes in the factory without gasping for breath...¨ This shows that the conditions were so bad that they had trouble breathing because how bad the air was. Dr. Ward also says, ¨Cotton factories are highly unfavourable, both to the health and morals of those employed in them. They are really nurseries of disease and vice. These factories were very unsafe and you could get many diseases and injuries, especially if you were a kid as a lot were. The kids were in many accidents in the factories, as Dr. Ward states,
In the nineteenth century, various inventions like the steam engine stimulated demand for products, thus introducing factories and workshops to manufacture those commodities. The popularization of Manchester initiated assorted reactions towards the industrialization of the cities surrounding Great Britain. While the industrial revolution ensued, numerous concerns occurred which all contemplated the affects of factories and industries engaged by the working division of society. As industry began to evolve for the operational lower classes, the positive, negative, and mutual reactions are denoted by various speakers whom were among the diverse social classes of society.
Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2000), Kindle edition, chap. 1.
Prior to the industrial revolution people rarely experienced change. It was an extremely different place than it is now. During the industrial revolution there was a radical change in the socioeconomic and cultural conditions. People in majority were farmers since they didn’t have any technology everybody had to grow their own food. They were interdependent in maintaining all their necessities, mainly in their local communities because of the difficulty in distant transportation because they had no motorized vehicles. In villages there were private and public lands and in most there was no separating fence. In the public lands or village commons villagers could gather wood or have their livestock graze in the pastures and sum of the less wealthy farmers would even produce crops from it. The rich landowners lived on enormous estates and giant houses, cottages, and massive barns and huge fields. They also had servants who did whatever they wanted. However the people who rented land from them had quite a controversial life style. They often had to live with the farm animals they raised and a considerable amount lived in tinny, smoky, ill lighten, cottages.
Buzard, James, Linda K. Hughes. "The Victorian Nation and its Others" and "1870." A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture. Ed. Herbert F. Tucker. Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 35-50, 438-455.
Harris, Beth. ""Slaves of the Needle:" The Seamstress in the 1840s." Victorian Web. 21 Nov.
The Industrial Revolution in America began to develop in the mid-eighteen hundreds after the Civil War. Prior to this industrial growth the work force was mainly based in agriculture, especially in the South (“Industrial Revolution”). The advancement in machinery and manufacturing on a large scale changed the structure of the work force. Families began to leave the farm and relocate to larger settings to work in the ever-growing industries. One area that saw a major change in the work force was textile manufacturing. Towns in the early nineteen hundreds were established around mills, and workers were subjected to strenuous working conditions. It would take decades before these issues were addressed. Until then, people worked and struggled for a life for themselves and their families. While conditions were harsh in the textile industry, it was the sense of community that sustained life in the mill villages.
This confusion can be seen in two reports from separate journals that differ greatly--so much so that the ability to attribute them to the same issue seems unlikely and unrealistic. William Alexander Abram, a journalist and historian in the 1860’s, wrote an article about the vast improvements made during the industrialization process (Doc 6). Abram specifically mentions the Hours of Labor in Factories Act of 1844 that prohibited excessively long work days. Additionally, Abram mentioned the increased wages and the subsequent increase quality of life. Abram attempts to justify any issues with the industrialization by addressing the new, more spacious cotton mill and the lower sickness and mortality rates. Abram describes the positive forces that arose during the industrialization to outweigh the mass concerns people had about the laboring class’s working conditions. This positive opinion is counteracted by an image included in a magazine from the 1870’s that shows the visual of a bridge and its surrounding factories at the time (Doc 7). The Graphic, a weekly magazine that dealt with social issues, included the view from Blackfriars bridge over the River Irwell that contained the numerous factories concentrated in the one location. The Graphic was famously influential within the art world for its use of imagery and attempt to conquer grand social issues with art. The factories are all emitting gas and the general conditions of the streets and buildings is less than ideal. This negative portrayal of the industrialization sheds a different light on the effects of industrialization. Between these two conflicting articles, it is difficult to see the true extent of the industrializations process’s benefits and harms. This uncertainty also supports the proposed
Imagine being forced to work in conditions that might cause you to lose a limb, to be beaten daily, or to be left with long term respiratory conditions. These terrible conditions were realities to families who worked in textile factories in the 1700’s. England was the first to adopt textile factories which would benefit with mass production of cotton material. According to the power point, “Industrial Revolution; Life in English Factories”, low and unskilled workers, often children, ran the machines and moved material, this helped lower the cost of goods. During this time, commissions investigated the working conditions of the factories.
"The Condition of England" in Victorian Literature: 1830-1900. Ed. Dorothy Mermin, and Herbert Tucker. Accessed on 3 Nov. 2003.
Mary Poovey, “Domesticity and Class Formation: Chadwick’s 1842 Sanitary Report,” in Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation, 1839-1864 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 115-131
O'Brien, Patrick, and Roland Quinault, eds. The Industrial Revolution and British Society. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. Print.
The Industrial Revolution in nineteenth-century England brought about many changes in British society. It was the advent of faster means of production, growing wealth for the Nation and a surplus of new jobs for thousands of people living in poverty. Cities were growing too fast to adequately house the numerous people pouring in, thus leading to squalid living conditions, increased filth and disease, and the families reliance upon their children to survive. The exploitation of children hit an all time peak in Britain when generations of its youth were sacrificed to child labor and the “Coffers” of England.
Evans, Eric J. The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain. London and New York: Longman, 1996.
"History in Focus." : The Victorian Era (Introduction). Institute of Historical Research., Apr. 2001. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.