Early Industry and Inventions

The Nature of the Market Revolution

Industrial Revolution

• The first Industrial Revolution began in England in the late 18th century.

• An industrial revolution is when hand tools are replaced by factory machines, and farming is replaced by large-scale manufacturing.

• An example is the making of clothes.

Spinning Jenny and Power Loom

• Before the Industrial Revolution, clothes

were made at home.• Afterwards, clothes

were made by machines in factories.

• Often these machines were run by children.

Factory System

• The factory system had many workers under one roof working at machines.

• Many people left farms and moved to the city to work in factories. They wanted the money that factories paid.

• This change was not always for the better.

Factories Come to New England

• New England was a good place to have a factory.

• Factories needed water power, and New England had many fast-moving rivers.

The Lowell Mills Hire Women

• In 1813, Francis Cabot Lowell built a factory in eastern Massachusetts, near the Concord River.

• The factory spun cotton into yarn and wove the cotton into cloth.

• Something was different about this factory, they hired women.

• The “Lowell girls” lived in company-owned boardinghouses.

• The girls worked over 12 hours a day in deafening noise.

The Lowell Girls

• Young women came to Lowell in spite of the noise.

• They came for the good wages: between two and four dollars a week.

• The girls usually only worked for a few years until they married.

The Rules from the Handbook

REGULATIONS TO BE OBSERVED by all persons employed in the factories of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company. The overseers are to be always in their rooms at the starting of the mill, and not absent unnecessarily during working hours. They are to see that a all those employed in their rooms, are in their places in due season, and keep a correct account of their time and work. They may grant leave of absence to those employed under them, when they have spare hands to supply their places, and not otherwise, except in cases of absolute necessity.

All persons in the employ of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, are to observe the regulations of the room where they are employed. They are not to be absent from their work without the consent of the over-seer, except in cases of sickness, and then t hey are to send him word of the cause of their absence. They are to board in one of the houses of the company and give information at the counting room, where they board, when they begin, or, whenever they change their boarding place; and are to observe t he regulations of their boarding-house.

Those intending to leave the employment of the company, are to give at least two weeks' notice thereof to their overseer. All persons entering into the employment of the company, are considered as engaged for twelve months, and those who leave

sooner, or do not comply with all these regulations, will not be entitled to a regular discharge.

The company will not employ any one who is habitually absent from public worship on the Sabbath, or known to be guilty of immorality.

A physician will attend once in every month at the counting-room, to vaccinate all who may need it, free of expense.

Any one who shall take from the mills or the yard, any yarn, cloth or other article belonging to the company, will be considered guilty of stealing and be liable to prosecution.

Payment will be made monthly, including board and wages. The accounts will be made up to the last Saturday but one in every month, and paid in the course of the following week.

These regulations are considered part of the contract, with which all persons entering into the employment of the Hamilton Manufacturing Company, engage to comply.

The Working Conditions

The working conditions were often times not good. The girls worked between 60 and 80 hours a week.

*In return for monthly cash wages, female workers in Lowell agreed to regulations that varied little from company to company: work for at least a year live in a company boardinghouse, attend church. Many worked for a year and went back to the farm, some repeating this pattern two or three times.

*Supervisors believed that the breeze through open windows would cause the threads to break more often so windows were always shut tight. Cotton dust and fabric particles filled the uncirculated air, causing many workers to develop tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases. Lighting was insufficient and workers often could not see well enough to avoid injury from the constantly running, high-speed machines.

*

The Working Conditions Continued

Even at the pinnacle of its renown, however, conditions in Lowell had begun to deteriorate. In 1834, an economic downturn led to the mills' first wage cuts. In the 1840s, managers instituted a speedup, requiring higher and higher output for the same hourly wage.

*The women formed the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association and tried to appeal to their employers and then to the state legislature through petitions. They wanted better and safer living and working conditions.

*Lowell's early mills used power looms, and operations combined the spinning of yarn and the weaving of cloth. To operate the equipment, Lowell employed women and girls.

*The Lowell girls worked on machines, usually they were in charge of multiple machines. The machinery operated at high speeds. The demands of textile mills took tolls on worker’s health and safety as the years went by.

• Bedrooms in boarding houses offered little or no privacy, usually between four and six women shared a room, and sometimes two women had to share a double bed.

• These dwellings housed 20 to 40 people and contained a kitchen, a dining room and parlor, a keeper’s quarters, and up to ten bedrooms. Row after row of boardinghouse blocks visually distinguished Lowell from earlier New England mill towns.

• This type of communal living encouraged close bonds between the women, and helped the new girls adjust to new city lives.

• Room and board costs, which ranged from $1.25 to $1.50 per week during the 1830s and 1840s, were deducted from wages. For this amount, workers received three meals a day, limited laundry service, and a bed in a shared room.

• Many of the workers saved money and gained economic independence. The city’s shops and religious institutions, along with its educational and recreational activities, gave the girls exciting social lives they never would have experienced living on a farm or in a small village.

• Living in a boarding house was hugely different than life on a farm. They had to share rooms and beds, they had to say prayers with their three meals a day, and they all dined together in a common room. They created strong bonds and those bonds helped them adjust to their news lives in a boarding house.

• The boarding houses were also later used to hold meetings on protests.

• Personal Accounts

• Harriet Hanson Robinson worked in the Lowell Mills at age ten until she married at twenty-three. Months after her fathers death, Harriet's mother moved to Lowell to get support from her family to help raise her four children. Harriet's mother took in boarders in their house in Lowell to make money. At age ten, when it was obvious that not enough money was being earned, Harriet went to work in the Lowell Mills. She worked 14-hour days for six days each week and was paid $2 for her labor.

• In October of 1836, it was made clear to the mill girls that the wages were going to be cut. Harriet and many mill girls became upset and decided to take part in a strike. Harriet and many other girls were unsure about walking out. Harriet realized she should support her fellow workers and join in the strike. Once she took part, the others followed after her.

• Harriet wrote an autobiography to tell people about her life as a female factory worker in the textile mills of Lowell, Mass.

Personal Accounts

Sarah Bagely began work in a Lowell factory in 1836 and by 1844 had begun had organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) to protect deteriorating working conditions. She organization quickly grew to include five hundred workers, and Bagley served as its first president. During the legislative hearings in February 1845, she argued in favor of the ten-hour day, which by then was a full-fledged cause among workers. Bagley testified that in addition to suffering physically from their long hours in the mills, female workers lacked sufficient time to improve their minds, an activity she considered essential for laborers in a republic. When the legislature ruled against the women, Bagley was farsighted enough to recognize that male and female workers needed to cooperate to advance their cause and sought affiliation with the New England Workingmen's Association. As one of the editors of that organization's Voice of Industry, she developed a "female department," under the title, "As is Woman, so is the Race." Little is known of Bagley after she left both the LFLRA and the mills in 1846 and went to work as a telegraph operator, perhaps the first woman to hold that job. Although her time in public life was brief, Bagley raised issues relating to the health of workers and their need for sufficient leisure to fulfill civic duties that remain important today, as is her insistence that women are entitled to "be heard and our rights acknowledged . . . ."

Song of the Spinners

Poem

Poem that Concluded Lowell Women Workers’ 1834 Petition to Manufacturers

Let oppression shrug her shoulders,

And a haughty tyrant frown,

And little upstart Ignorance,

In mockery look down.

Yet I value not the feeble threats

Of Tories in disguise,

While the flag of Independence

O’re our noble nation flies.

Interchangeable Parts

• The first use of interchangeable parts was created by inventor Eli Whitney. • Before this time, guns were made one at a time. Each gun was different. • If a part broke, a new part had to be created. • Whitney created muskets with exactly the same parts, so any part would fit

any gun. • The use of interchangeable parts speeded up production, made repairs

easier, and allowed the use of lower-paid, less skilled workers.

Steamboat

• Robert Fulton designed a steam engine for a steamboat that could move against the current of a river or against the wind.

• The steamboat created more opportunities for trade and transportation on rivers.

The Telegraph

• The telegraph was invented by Samuel Morse.

• This machine sent long and short pulses of electricity along a wire.

• With the telegraph, it took only seconds to communicate with another city.

• The invention of the steamboat and telegraph brought the people of the nation closer to each other.

John Deere and the plow

• In 1836, John Deere invented a lightweight plow with a steel cutting edge.

• Deere’s plow made preparing the ground for planting much less work.

Cyrus McCormick and the reaper

• Cyrus McCormick invented a mechanical reaper, cut grain from the fields.

• This allowed farmers to plant much more seed because they could harvest it easier.

The Threshing Machine

• The threshing machine separated the kernels of wheat from the husks, which was a far faster way of getting wheat than picking it by hand.

• The threshing machine increased the growing of wheat.

New Technologies help nation grow

• With new farm equipment, Midwestern farmers grew food to feed Northeastern factory workers.

• Midwestern farmers became a market for Northeastern manufactured goods.

• The growth of the textile factories increased the demand for Southern cotton.

• This led to the expansion of slavery.

The cotton gin

• Inventory Eli Whitney also invented the cotton gin.

• The gin took the seeds out of the cotton, which was much faster than doing it by hand.

• The cotton gin also greatly expanded the need for slaves.