Images of the Industrial Revolution

Analysis of the lives of factory workers and the effects of

Industrialization

A. Describe what you see here. What does this image say about living conditions during the Industrial Revolution?

1.

2.

3.

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B. Describe what you see in each of these images - 2, 3, 4, and 5. What do they say about workers and working conditions during the Industrial Revolution? Be very specific.

5.

6.

7.

8.

C. Describe what you see in each of these images.

D. What do these images say about factories and industrialization?

Images 6,7,8

E. What is the significance of the steam engine during the Industrial Revolution?

9.

Gross Domestic Product 1830-1890

Population in Rural Areas 1820-1910

Gross domestic product means how much a

country produces in a given year.

10.

Use the graphs to answer these questions

F. Looking at the provided graphs. who had the fastest growth in GDP? Why?G. What does the first graph say about rural population growth? Explain the differences in the rural populations of each of the countries.H. How are these graphs related to Malthusian Theory?

ELIZABETH BENTLEY, CALLED IN; AND EXAMINED  What age are you, -- Twenty-three. . . .  What time did You begin to work at a factory -- When I was six years old. . . .  What were your hours of labor in that mill? -- From 5 in the morning till 9 at night, What time was allowed for your meals? -- Forty minutes at noon.  Had you any time to get your breakfast or drinking? -- No, we got it as we could.  Explain what it is you had to do-, -- When the frames are full, they have to stop the frames, and take the flyers off, and take the full bobbins off, and carry them to the roller; and then put empty ones on, and set the frames on again.  Does that keep you constantly on your feet? -- Yes, there are so many frames and they run so quick. 

Testimonies before the British Parliament Committees on Working Conditions11.

Suppose you flagged a little, or were too late, what would they do, -- Strap us.  Girls as well as boys? -- Yes.  Have you ever been strapped? -- Yes.  Severely? -- Yes.  Could you eat your food well in that factory? -- No, indeed, I had not much to eat, and the little I had I. . . Did you live far from the mill? -- Yes, two miles.  Supposing you had not been in time enough in the morning at the mills, what would have been the consequence? -- We should have been quartered.  What do you mean by that? -- If we were a quarter of an hour too late, they would take off half an hour; we only got a penny an hour, and they would take a halfpenny more. . . .  Were you generally there in time? -- Yes. my mother has been up at 4 o'clock in the morning,

MR. GEORGE ARMITAGE   I am now a teacher at Hoyland school; I worked at Silkstone until I was 22 years old and worked in the pit above 10 years. . . . I hardly know how to [describe the] girls working in pits; nothing can be worse. I have no doubt that debauchery is carried on, for which there is every opportunity; for the girls go constantly, when hurrying, to the men, who work often alone in the bank-faces apart from every one. I think it scarcely possible for girls to remain modest who are in pits, regularly mixing with such company and hearing and such language as they do - it is next to impossible. I dare venture to say that many of the wives who come from pits know nothing of sewing or any household duty, such as women ought to know - they lose all disposition to learn such things; they are rendered unfit for learning them also by being overworked and not being trained to the habit of it….I think, if girls were trained properly, as girls ought to be, that there would be no more difficulty, in finding suitable employment for them than in other places. Many a miner spends in drink what he has shut up a young child the whole week to earn in a dark cold corner as a trapper. The education of the children is universally bad. They are generally ignorant of common facts in Christian history and principles, and, indeed, in almost everything else. Little can be learned merely on Sundays, and they are too tired as well as indisposed go to night schools. . .

12.

I. What do these documents reveal about the economic circumstances of working- class families and the attitudes of these families towards their children?

J. Do the workers express anger? Do they demand changes?

K. What might explain their attitudes?

Use #11 & #12 (Testimonies) to answer the following:

“My Family Was Poor”Japanese Workers Song, late 19th century

“My family was poor,At the tender age of twelveI was sold to a factory....

I was carried away by sweet-sounding words.My money was stolen and thrown away.Unaware of the hardship of the future,

I was duckweed in the wind.Excited I arrived at the gate, where I bowed to the doorman,

I was taken immediately to the dormitory,Where I bowed to the room supervisor.

I was taken immediately to the infirmary,Where I risked my life having a medical examination.

13.

I was taken immediately to the cafeteria,Where I asked what was for dinner.

I was told it was low-grade rice mixed with sand....We friends are wretched,

Separated from our homes in a strange place,Put in a miserable dormitory

Waken up at four-thirty in the morning,Eating when five o’clock sounds,

Dressing at the third bell,Glared at by the manager and section head,

Used by the inspector.How wretched we are!”

Source: E. Patricia Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan.

It is China’s small industries, which are not regulated and pay the lowest wages, that fuel the country’s sizzling export sector. These factories assembly the toys, clothes, shoes, tools, electronics, decorative items, and cosmetic goods that flood the shelves of stores in the West. The South Korean small company called Daxu came to China ten years ago because Korean companies could no longer compete in the market for the company’s production of false eyelashes, which sell for as little as 50 cents a set in Asia and the United States. The workers recruited for this company come from the impoverished rural north.

“Ma Pighui, 16, and her friend Wei Qi, also 16 and also a Chinese farm girl barely out of junior high school, had been lured to the factory in Anshan by a South Korean boss who said he was prepared to pay $120 a month, a princely sum for unskilled peasants, to make false eyelashes. Their local government labor bureau lent its support, recruiting workers and arranging a bus to take them to the big city of Anshan.

14.

The girls first heard about the job offer from an advertisement on local television. The ad was sponsored by the Labor Bureau of Huairen Country. ‘If this had not been arranged through official channels, we would not have let such a young girl go,’ said Wei Zhixing, Ms. Wei’s father.As soon as they arrived in Anshan, however, the problems began. They were asked to sign a contract that offered monthly pay far below the advertised level, initially just $24, minus a $13 charge for room and board. Bonuses were promised, but only for those who produced eyelashes above quotas. The contract also demanded that workers pay the boss $58 if they left before the end of the year long contract, and $2,400 if they ‘stole intellectual property’ by defecting to a rival eyelash maker. Such terms are not unusual. Cut-throat capitalism and sweatshop factories are as much a part of China’s economic revolution today as they were the early days of industrialization in the West.”

Source: Excerpt from “Chinese Girls’ Toil Brings Pain, Not Riches,” Joseph Kahn, New York Times, October, 2, 2003.

Documents #13 & #14

L. Why did women leave home to work in the factories?M. Give examples from these documents as to how the positions/status of the girls/women contributed to factory recruitment and their subsequent treatment.