From the 1880s to 1930s, India and Japan faced the mechanization of their cotton industry. Both countries provided their factory workers with low wages and increased the production rates; however they were not exactly the same. With the rise of female workers, Japan joined in, while India remained predominantly male. The workers also had harsher conditions than in India according to the documents given. Industrialization, as it did in other countries, caused the formation of factories and machines that sped up how much cotton products are produced. In document 6, Radhakamal Mukerjee, an Indian economist, says “there has been a rapid decline of the hand-woven cloth industry…on account of the competition of machine manufactures…though many wear …show more content…
In document 9, the British Royal Commission of Labor in India reports “Most of the workers in the cotton mills are recruited from among the small peasant and agriculture laborers of the villagers…wages are low…no significant changes.” The Japanese are also saying in document 4 that “the money that a factory girl earned was often more than farmer’s income.” This shows that it is important for the countryside workers to make their living in the factories, as it will help them be able to purchase the necessities they need for basic living. They would resort to sending their children off to work in hopes of gaining more profit. In document 3 a young girl from the Japanese factories said that “[her sister] had come to the factory determined to become a 100 yen worker and make our mother happy.” This would’ve taken many years to achieve as another girl had said, “We were not paid the first year, in the second…35 yen...following year 50 yen.” Document 5 gives an explanation as to why workers wages are low, which is that they are “an unattached component of the family. All he or she has to do is earn enough to maintain own living.” It shows how force agriculture continues to be important in a nation’s commerce and …show more content…
In document 3, two Japanese women recall their experience as working until “we hardly had to strength to stand on our feet”, “no heat even in the winter,” and the illness spreading throughout. “There were about thirty sick people at the factory…everyone feared tuberculosis and no one would come near such patients.” Japan also had more young girls and women working in the factories than India had. According to document 7, the percentage of Indian women workers dropped from 22.1% to 18.9% over
During the Japanese Industrial Revolution, female workers played a big role in the silk factories, but there were many negatives that came with that. Every factory worker during the Japanese Industrial Revolution had to work hard. Factories hired women and they were treated unfairly. Also the factories were very unsanitary which caused even more trouble for the workers. Female workers in Japanese Silk Factories: Did the costs outweigh the benefits? For the female silk factory workers the costs outweighed the benefits for two reasons. The first reason was that there were long, hard working hours. The second reason was that men got paid a lot more than women did.
In Britain, industrialization changed the lives of workers in many ways. One way workers lives changed is being able to earn higher wages. They could make more money in factories than on farms. Wi...
Most of the factories owners treated their employees unfairly and unequally. They made them work large amounts of hours for underpaid wages. Most of the people, even children, worked 16 hours for 25 cents a day. Their employees had to deal with unsafe machines that sometimes were extremely dangerous. If they got injured, they didn’t have any financial aid or any kind of compensation that helps them to get better.
The working class faced conditions in the factory that wealthier skill workers did not have deal with. These men were not in a comfortable financial situation at home, and could not find comfort in hazardous working conditions with the dangerous machines they had to operate. Workers were harmed daily and among these injured employees were children (Shi 62). Many of these children were as young as nine years old, and due to financial reasons their families sent them away to work in workshops, mines, and even in factories surrounded by dangerous machinery. Realistically, these children were doomed to working in a factory for their entire lives. They did not attended school and worked to help provide for their families. With no education, they would not be able to find a more prestigious job with higher pay. The waged for factory workers were low, but they were not always guaranteed. The Knights of Labor pushed for a federal law that would force employers to “pay employees weekly, in full, for labor performed during the preceding week” (Shi 62). These people were only working in harmful conditions to survive but were not guaranteed enough money to feed their families. Charity handouts did not necessarily help feed a poor family, but aimed to “... produce most beneficial results to [the] community” (Shi 60). This meant that the wealthy didn’t directly give citizens money, but
The "technological retardist" theories are strongest in considering the erosion of "King Cotton` s" pre eminence, due in part to America` s competition and, the critics suggest, the British cotton manager` s lack of judgement. It is said that the slow adoption of the ring spindle in spinning, and the low uptake of the automatic loom in weaving seriously hampered those industries` competitive edge.
During the peak of the Great Depression, approximately one of every four workers was unemployed. For the greater part of the Depression, however employment in the auto industry remained steady, consisting of about half a million workers. But these jobs were plagued by terrible working conditions. Auto companies arbitrarily laid off and fired workers. Job security and safety standards were non-existent. In their enthusiasm to recoup Depression-era losses, auto companies worked their employees harder, faster, and longer. Families spoke of young men grown old from speed-up of the assembly line. These problems were compounded by an ever-increasing disparity between the economic status of auto workers and the affluence of upper management. In addition, the automobile companies were firmly controlled by millionaire autocratic owners who had a tight grip on the political and business worlds, and a predominance over the nation’s economy.
On a normal day they only received 35 minutes of break total, and could work up to 17 hours per day. There was about 61 girls per factory, making the working spaces cramped and hot (Doc A). Due to the miserable conditions and high stress, contracting diseases and sickness was very easy among silk factory workers. In fact, 39% of girls were either released from the job or died due to a work related illness. Also, since there was no electricity at the time, the factory owners needed to use every minute of daylight they could. This meant that the girls were working, on their feet, from dawn to dusk everyday. When surveyed, 40% of the women said that the treatment when sick was poor (Doc F). There is no real way to argue that any of these working conditions sounded the least bit pleasant or worth the little bit of pay received by the
The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to the rapid industrialization of many cities in England and the rest of the United Kingdom. This rapid industrialization led to many new machines that increased efficiency and created a lesser need for workers. The workers of Leeds, England feared the repercussions of such a lesser need for workers, so they petitioned to their factory owners and managers, pleading them to lessen the use of machines. The factory owners replied claiming that everyone would benefit from their machines. Even though both of the two groups backed up their position with good reasoning and facts, the factory workers’ arguments were more solid in their defense, both presenting numbers and very real truths in their evidence
In the 1800's the construction of cotton mills brought about a new phenomenon in American labor. The owners needed a new source of labor to tend these water powered machines and looked to women. Since these jobs didn't need strength or special skills th...
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.
Many of us complain about the tough hours we work or the amount of chores we have to complete, but think about the truly harsh conditions that young girls and women had to work in the textile industry with very little pay and no accolades. Back in the 18th century, when the Industrial Revolution struck, it made it hard for female mill workers to enjoy being employed. Due to the terrible working conditions, the amount of hours worked, and the low wages were a few of the similarities that the female mill workers in England and Japan shared.
The Industrial Revolution was a time in where machines were making great changes in people's’ lives. Making threads were easier to make with the spinning jenny, clothes were being made faster than in a blink of an eye. Machines were being spread throughout the globe in which for some countries were good and for some were bad. The Japanese borrowed many ideas from but in a country like Japan silk and other clothes goods were needed and making Japan very rich in connections with other countries and money. The idea of the machines were very revolutionary for the Japanese, especially since silk needed a long process to make into threads. But there was some costs in employing workers for these factories and some benefits for the employees who were
Other examples of long working hours included these rules published in the Zachariah Allen Papers “From 20th March to 20th Septr the wheel starts at sunrise and stops at sunset” (Kulik et al.). In addition to long working hours, they were paid low wages per the Pomfret Manufacturing Company Records “Rhonda chooses to weave two wks by the wk at 12 (12 shillings = $2) then by the yard” (Kulik et al.). Other mills paid similar wages; Sally Rice wrote to her father about the wages in a letter dated Feb 23, 1845. She said, “James Alger’s sister makes 3 dollars per week” (Kulik et al.). Rice compares her wages in the mill to those of a house worker by saying “I think it will be better than to do housework for nine shillings” (Kulik et al.). The mills had other strict rules which included the inability to leave the floor without permission of the overseer, meeting their quota of work daily and few breaks during the often sun up to sundown days. The long hours, poor pay and strict rules took their toll on the women. As Sally Rice told her father in a letter dated September 14,1945 after seven months in a mill job “You surely cannot blame me for leaving the factory so long as I realized that it was killing me to work in it” (Rice). Factory owners and operators viewed the women as a dispensable workforce and did not invest in the employer-employee relationship. (Feller 121).
Young girls were not allowed to open the windows and had to breathe in the dust, deal with the nerve-racking noises of the machines all day, and were expected to continue work even if they 're suffering from a violent headache or toothache (Doc 2). The author of this report is in favor of employing young women since he claimed they seemed happy and they loved their machines so they polished them and tied ribbons on them, but he didn 't consider that they were implemented to make their awful situations more bearable. A woman who worked in both factory and field also stated she preferred working in the field rather than the factory because it was hard work but it never hurt her health (Doc 1), showing how dangerous it was to work in a factory with poor living conditions. Poor living conditions were common for nearly all workers, and similar to what the journalist saw, may have been overlooked due to everyone seeming
Though female workers were more skilled in spinning and weaving, they received far less payment than their male counterpart, which was, in some case, even less than that of their child. A complaint from a female worker wrote that "My husband earns SC. a week; I earn 2s., the eldest child 4s. 6d., second child 3s. 6d., the third child 2s. 6d." (Document F). This illustrated that an adult female mother was paid less than her smallest child (eleven years old) and nearly one sixth of the wage of her husband. The wage of the female mother accounts for less than one twelfth of the total family income. Mill wages report in Hyed, English depicted that the average daily wage of the 114 female loom operators was 26 pence and 40 pence for male workers (Document G). Female workers got only nearly 65 percent of that of their male counterparts. The average daily wage of Japanese female and male cotton mill worker was at a ratio of 9/17, 9/16 for seasonal agricultural wageworker and 13/27 for silk factory worker in the year 1892 (Document H). The female workers received almost half of that of male workers. Their payment was not enough for a living when compared with the price level at that time. As described in "Rice in Nagano" that "I quart of rice cost I sen, I quart made about 15 servings", which uncovered that female not only received far less Thant male workers but also got such a low wage that was not even enough for making a living (Document