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Unit 3 An Era of European Imperialism 1800-1914
Industrialization
Workers Find Comfort in Religion
Methodist meetings featured hymns and sermons promising forgiveness of sin and a better life to come. Methodist preachers took this message of salvation into the slums. There, they tried to rekindle hope among the working poor. They set up Sunday schools where followers not only studied the Bible but also learned to read and write. Methodists helped channel workers’ anger away from revolution and toward reform.
Checkpoint
How did members of the working class react to their new experiences in industrial cities?
Life in the Factories and Mines
The heart of the new industrial city was the factory. There, the technology of the machine age and the rapid pace of industrialization imposed a harsh new way of life on workers.
Discovery School Channel
Watch In Old New York on the Witness History Discovery School™ video program to learn about life during the Industrial Age.
Factory Workers Face Harsh Conditions
Working in a factory system differed greatly from working on a farm. In rural villages, people worked hard, but their work varied according to the season. Life was also hard for poor rural workers who were part of the putting-out system, but at least they worked at their own pace. In the grim factories of industrial towns, workers faced a rigid schedule set by the factory whistle.
Working hours were long, with shifts lasting from 12 to 16 hours, six or seven days a week. Workers could only take breaks when the factory owners gave permission. Exhausted workers suffered accidents from machines that had no safety devices. They might lose a finger, a limb, or even their lives. In textile mills, workers constantly breathed air filled with lint, which damaged their lungs. Those workers who became sick or injured lost their jobs.
The majority of early factory workers were women rather than men. Employers often preferred to hire women workers because they thought women could adapt more easily to machines and were easier to manage. In addition, employers generally paid women half what they paid men.
Factory work created a double burden for women. Their new jobs took them out of their homes for 12 hours or more a day. They then returned to their tenements, which might consist of one damp room with a single bed. They had to feed and clothe their families, clean, and cope with such problems as sickness and injury.
Miners Face Worse Conditions
The Industrial Revolution increased the demand for iron and coal, which in turn increased the need for miners. Although miners were paid more, working conditions in the mines were even worse than in the factories. They worked in darkness, and the coal dust destroyed their lungs. There were always the dangers of explosions, flooding, and collapsing tunnels. Women and children carted heavy loads of coal, sometimes on all fours in low passages. They also climbed ladders carrying heavy baskets of coal several times a day.
Even children as young as five years old worked in the mines. James Kay-Shuttleworth worked as a physician among the different classes of the Industrial Revolution in Manchester. His profession allowed him to see the working conditions of poor in the cities. How was work in factories and mines different from work on the farm?
Children were accustomed to work on a farm: the money earned by children was vital to most working class families during the early 20th century and before.
Primary Source
“Whilst the engine runs, people must work—men, women, and children are yoked together with iron and steam. The animal machine is chained fast to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and weariness.”
—James Kay-Shuttleworth, 1832
Children Have Dangerous Jobs
Factories and mines also hired many boys and girls. These children often started working at age seven or eight, a few as young as five. Nimble-fingered and quick-moving, they changed spools in the hot and humid textile mills where sometimes they could not see because of all the dust. They also crawled under machinery to repair broken threads in the mills. Conditions were even worse for children who worked in the mines. Some sat all day in the dark, opening and closing air vents. Others hauled coal carts in the extreme heat. Because children had helped with work on the farm, parents accepted the idea of child labor. The wages the children earned were needed to keep their families from starving.
Child labor reform laws called “factory acts” were passed in the early 1800s. These laws were passed to reduce a child’s workday to twelve hours and also to remove children under the age of eight or nine from the cotton mills. Because the laws were generally not enforced, British lawmakers formed teams of inspectors to ensure that factories and mines obeyed the laws in the 1830s and 1840s. More laws were then passed to shorten the workday for women and require that child workers be educated.
Families could afford to take trips to such places as the zoo as wages increased.
Checkpoint
How did the Industrial Revolution affect the lives of men, women, and children?
Early Socialism
While the champions of laissez-faire economics praised individual rights, other thinkers focused on the good of society in general. They condemned the evils of industrial capitalism, which they believed had created a gulf between rich and poor. To end poverty and injustice, they offered a radical solution—socialism. Under socialism, the people as a whole rather than private individuals would own and operate the means of production—the farms, factories, railways, and other large businesses that produced and distributed goods. Socialism grew out of the Enlightenment faith in progress, its belief in the basic goodness of human nature, and its concern for social justice.
Are Utopians Dreamers?
A number of early socialists established communities in which all work was shared and all property was owned in common. When there was no difference between rich and poor, they said, fighting between people would disappear. These early socialists were called Utopians. The name implied that they were impractical dreamers. The Utopian Robert Owen set up a model community in New Lanark, Scotland, to put his own ideas into practice.
Infographic
Owen’s Utopia
For: Interactive Village
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: nap-1941
Owen Establishes a Utopia
A poor Welsh boy, Owen became a successful mill owner. Unlike most industrialists at the time, he refused to use child labor. He campaigned vigorously for laws that limited child labor and encouraged the organization of labor unions.
Checkpoint
What did early socialists believe?
Reading Check
Describing
What type of working conditions did the industrial workers face?
References and Resources
Rise of the Working Class by Jurgen Kuczynski
Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson
Cultural Foundations of Industrial Civilization by John U. Nef
Sign entering the village. Graphic source: The Next Generation
A living museum can be viewed at Old Sturbridge Village. At the village visitors can ride the stagecoach, interact with the farm animals, talk with costumed historians, and watch the blacksmith, cooper, potter, and farmers at work. In the village visitors can experience life in the 1830s--with 40 antique homes, buildings, and water-powered mills. The village is well worth exploring in some detail.
Old Sturbridge Village Feature Shown on Al Jazeera Television winter 2008
Laura Linney and Ken Burns on the importance of Old Sturbridge Village
4th of July at OSV.
Redcoats to Rebels at OSV.
Traditional American Music performed live at Mystic Seaport, CT: Part 1
Traditional American Music performed live at Mystic Seaport, CT: Part 3
The Charles W. Morgan embarks on a voyage of restoration at the Henry B. DuPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport. Shipyard Director, Quentin Snediker explains what is done to prepare the ship for the historic journey.
The Charles W. Morgan is the last surviving wooden whaling ship from the great days of sail. Built in 1841 in New Bedford, MA, the Morgan had a successful 80-year whaling career. She made 37 voyages before retiring in 1921, and was preserved as an exhibit through the efforts of a number of dedicated citizens. After being on display in South Dartmouth, MA, until 1941, she came to Mystic Seaport, where each year thousands of visitors walk her decks and hear the fascinating story of her career as a whaling vessel, historic exhibit, film and media star, and a porthole into America's rich history.
Over the last three decades, the Charles W. Morgan has undergone two regimes of partial restoration along with annual maintenance. Despite these efforts, the inevitable effects of time on the wooden fabric of the vessel's structure demand additional extensive restoration. If left unchecked, these deficiencies will threaten the structural integrity of the Morgan and her use as a primary artifact in Mystic Seaport's interpretive programs.
Mystic Seaport, 1960 (No, this is not Dr. Smith as a boy), from family home movies.
Whaling in popular culture: Mountain, "Nantucket Sleighride"
The cold hard steel of the harpoon's point
Struck deep into its side.
We played out line and backed the oars
And took the cruel sleighride.
The term "Nantucket Sleighride" was coined by the whalers to explain what happened after they harpooned a whale. (Nantucket Island was considered the whaling capital of the world during the 19th century.) The first strike of the harpoon was not intended to kill the whale but only to attach it to the whale boat. The whale would take off pulling the whale boat along at speeds of up to 23 mph (37 kmh). The whale would eventually tire itself out, the leading officer in the boat would then use a penetrating lance to kill the whale.
Nantucket Sleighride is Dedicated to Owen Coffin who was cabin boy aboard the whaler Essex, which was destroyed by a sperm whale in 1819. Owen ended up in the lifeboat with Captain Pollard, his uncle. Two other lifeboats also put out. During the next 3 - 4 months, the lifeboats separated. One was never seen again, but some of those on the remaining two boats were eventually rescued.
During those long months at sea (and on desert islands), many of the men died. The remainder eventually had to resort to cannibalism to survive. After the dead of natural causes were consumed, the men determined to draw lots to see who would sacrifice his life for the others. Owen Coffin ``won'' the lottery. The Captain tried to take Owen's place, but the youth insisted on his ``right''. The executioner was also drawn by lot. That ``winner'', another young man named Charles Ramsdell, also tried vainly to swap places with Owen. Again he refused. Owen's body kept the others alive for ten days (Captain Pollard refused to eat his nephew). Another man died, and his body kept Pollard and Ramsdell alive a few more days until they were rescued.
Lyrics
Goodbye, little Robin-Marie
Don't try following me
Don't cry, little Robin-Marie
'Cause you know I'm coming home soon
My ships' leaving on a three-year tour
The next tide will take us from shore
Windlaced, gather in sail and spray
On a search for the mighty sperm whale
Fly your willow branches
Wrap your body round my soul
Lay down your reeds and drums on my soft sheets
There are years behind us reaching
To the place where hearts are beating
And I know you're the last true love I'll ever meet
Starbuck's sharpening his harpoon
The black man's playing his tune
An old salt's sleeping his watch away
He'll be drunk again before noon
Three years sailing on bended knee
We found no whales in the sea
Don't cry, little Robin-Marie
'Cause we'll be in sight of land soon
Agriculture
Farming and everyday life during the past 250 years
Children who lived in the English countryside
The Agricultural Revolution
Transportation, Industrial Revolution
Stephenson's Rocket Animation
The Spinning Mill Animation
Britain at the time of the Great Exhibition
Who Wants to Be a Cotton Millionaire?
Iron Bridge Virtual Tour
New machines that brought changes in America
Review changes of the 18th and 19th centuries
The Industrial Revolution
The everyday life of children in Victorian Britain (including the cities)
Online game about life in an industrial Victorian city
Take a tour of a workhouse
Children were often exploited during the Industrial Age; one of the most well-known stories from the period is the story of Oliver.
The 2005 trailer for Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, in the film adaptation:
HW email to gmsmith@shanahan.org
1. Connecting to the Past, #1 - 3, p. 369.
