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Industrial revolution and immigrants
A day in the life of a factory worker in the industrial revolution
The life of a factory worker in the industrial revolution
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As factory system began to grow, factory owners wanted workers to work more hours to produce more goods. At the same time working conditions got worse. By 840 employees worked for around 11.4 hours each day. It wasn't easy working in a factory back then. Long leather belts that connected the machines to the factory’s water powered had no protective shield. Without a protection shield workers got injured. Those injuries lead to fingers cut out, and bones broken. Children also had to work in the factories and for them it was more risky of them getting hurt. Working conditions where even worst in the summer and winter. Working in the summer in a factory meant hot days ahead of you, the machines reales heat and made the factory hotter. Then in …show more content…
Workers fighting for a fair treatment formed a trade unions, organizations of workers with the same trade or skill. Then in mid 1830s, skilled workers in NY refused to work in order to put pressure on employers or strikes. In the 1899s, strikes where was illegal and if they did strike workers they could get punished or fired. Later in 1820 immigration started. The Irish migration was stered when a famine accord. Famine means an extreme shortage of food. Potatoes were a mager food supply but when a disease spread around all the potatoes got bad. Being very poor the Irish could not buy land in the US so they got jobs that had a low-paying allowance. Then the German immigrants came most of them had money to buy their land and buy their own factories. Then the Known-Nothing extended the immigrants waiting period for citizens for 5 to 14 years. The party also wanted tp ban foreign-born citizens from holding office. One of the women that tried to change the future for future women was Sarah G. Bagley. She was the Lowell Female Labor Reform Organization in Massachusetts. She was fighting for the ight for women to have jobs and get paid the same
Factory workers worked twelve to fifteen hours a day in hazardous condition. There were no protective rules for women and children and no insurances for job-related accidents or industrial illness. The workers were obliged to trade at company store
The lives of large section For the first time in history children were an important factor of the economic system, but at a terrible price. The master of the factories employed children for two reasons. One, because of their small body which can get inside the machines to clean it and use their nimble fingers. Second, the masters use to pay low wages to the children who could be easily manipulated. The average age for the parents to send their children to work was ten.
In the late nineteenth century, many European immigrants traveled to the United States in search of a better life and good fortune. The unskilled industries of the Eastern United States eagerly employed these men who were willing to work long hours for low wages just to earn their food and board. Among the most heavily recruiting industries were the railroads and the steel mills of Western Pennsylvania. Particularly in the steel mills, the working conditions for these immigrants were very dangerous. Many men lost their lives to these giant steel-making machines. The immigrants suffered the most and also worked the most hours for the least amount of money. Living conditions were also poor, and often these immigrants would barely have enough money and time to do anything but work, eat, and sleep. There was also a continuous struggle between the workers and the owners of the mills, the capitalists. The capitalists were a very small, elite group of rich men who held most of the wealth in their industries. Strikes broke out often, some ending in violence and death. Many workers had no political freedom or even a voice in the company that employed them. However, through all of these hardships, the immigrants continued their struggle for a better life.
The Irish were refugees from disaster, fleeing the Irish potato famine. They filled many low-wage unskilled jobs in America. German immigrants included a considerably larger number of skilled craftsmen as compared to Irish immigrants. Many Germans established themselves in the West, including Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee or the "German Triangle." The heterogeneity that had been a distinctive characteristic of American society since colonial times became more pronounced as some five million immigrants poured into the nation between 1830 and 1860. The Irish and Germans were numerically the two major immigrant groups during this period. These immigrants often faced the prejudice in American society. They were blamed for urban crime, political corruption, alcohol abuses, and undercutting wages. The growth of immigration caused the rise of nativism. The influx of Irish during the 1840s and 1850s led to violent anti-immigrant backlash in New York City and Philadelphia. Those who feared the impact of immigration on American political and social life were called "nativists."
Factory workers of this time had very little freedom. Aside from having to work outrageous hours for 6 days of the week, there was no job security, no solid way to survive day-to-day, and if a family member were to suffer an accident, families had no financial means to carry on. In the early 1900s, there were no labor laws, including the right to organize, an eight-hour day, safety standards, or unemployment/disability pensions. M...
American history between 1865 and 1900 is characterized as the Gilded Age. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner coined this term; it means that this era, from the outside, appeared prosperous, but with a closer look, one could discover the corruption that lay beneath the thin layer of gold. This era was filled with urbanization, industrialization, and immigration; these three things gave the Gilded Age the appearance of being a prosperous time filled with progress. However, the American industrial worker, the bulwark of the age, did not prosper as much as one may have thought. American industrial workers faced extremely difficult lives, working very hard to receive little reward, and it did not take very long before they wanted reform. The industrial workers banded together, forming labor unions, in order to try to negotiate with their employers to have some of their demands met. Labor unions are generally thought of as having positive effects on workers, which certainly was true, but only to an extent. Labor unions also had some very negative effects on workers, specifically when their demands were not met, or when they were seen negatively by the government and the public. Immigration rates during the Gilded Age were extremely high, because the United States had great opportunities, especially in available jobs, which were greatly desirable to foreign people. Immigration generally had negative effects on American industrial workers. With large numbers of immigrants coming from foreign countries, there was a surplus of labor which caused unemployment and wages to remain low. Also, immigration had great effects on labor unions, generally negative as well, which would then in turn negatively affect the workers in that union. Last...
As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence "in the pursuit of happiness" through higher wages and shorter work hours, printers were the first to go on strike, in New York in 1794; carpenters in Philadelphia in 1797, and cordwainers in 1799. 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 look after women. Since these jobs didn't need strength or special skills, the owners hired women.... ...
The owners of these factories had no incentive to look out for the child’s safety or health. The workers also followed a very strict schedule. All workers had to be at the same place at the same time allotted to them. If a worker was injured, he was easily replaced. Another negative was the working conditions.
Many businesses and factories hired children because they were easier to exploit; they could be paid less for more work in dangerous conditions. Plus, their small size made many children idea for working with small parts or fitting into small spaces. Children as young as four could be found working in factories, though most were between eight and twelve. Despite the economic gains made by the business that employed them, many children suffered in the workplace. The industrial setting caused many health problems for the children that, if they lived long enough, they would carry with them for the rest of their lives. Children were also more likely to face accidents in the workplace, often caused by fatigue, and many were seriously injured or killed. Despite efforts by reformers to regulate child labor, it wasn’t until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that children under 14 were prohibited from
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
Many economic changes were changing the pace of our nation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. There were changes being made in how business was being taken care of and how the workers were being treated. Strikes and riots were a constant concern to factory owners. They felt they could not afford to risk their enterprise to demonstrations of dissatisfaction by their workers. By the owners standards, their workers were being paid quite well. However, an immigrant would be willing to twice as much work for half the wages. Millions of immigrants came to America looking for work. This made many Americans apprehensive at the thought of immigrants taking over their jobs. With so many immigrants, who were thought of as untrained, dirty, uncultivated and an inconvenience, factory owners feared that they would be unable to control such kind of unfamiliar people. These immigrants stuck together, almost like animals, nativists thought. Living in ethnic communities, and working in groups with one another. Separately they were seen as weak and unworthy of any basic human ca...
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...
Until the 1860s, the early immigrants not only wanted to come to America, but they also meticulously planned to come. These immigrants known as the “Old Immigrants” immigrated to America from many countries in Northern and Western Europe, known as, Sweden, Norway, Scandinavia, Wales and Ireland. Some of them traveled to Canada, but most of them came to the U.S. seeking freedom they didn’t get in their own countries. Ireland had also recently suffered through a potato famine, where the citizens were left poor and starving. Most settled in New York City and other large cities, where they worked in factories and other low-paying jobs. The immigrants caused a great increase in population in these areas. The “Old Immigrants” tried not to cluster themselves with others of their own nationality. They would mostly try to fit in with Americans as best as they could. Many of them had a plan to come to America, so they saved their money and resources before they arrived so they could have a chance at a better life. On the other hand, another group of immigrants began to arrive
The Industrial Revolution created the new working class. Comparing to the life of the wealthy and people in middle class, the housing conditions of the industrial workers seemed outlandish. They were packed into tenements, or multistory buildings divided into tiny rooms, with no running water, sewage, nor clean drinking water. Their wastes were dumped onto the streets and rivers. On top of these harsh conditions, the sanitation system in these tenements were extremely poor which caused the widespread of diseases, such as cholera. Although their housing condition was bad, it paled in comparison with the working condition in the factories. The working class was composed of farmers who abandoned their rural lifestyles for the industrial cities and job opportunities. Comparing to their previous lifestyle, life in factories was harsh and the workers had to work up to sixteen hours for six or seven days a week with low wages. The workers only got breaks whenever the factory owners permit them and most of the factory owners were Social Darwinism or Rugged Individualism who didn’t care about their workers. The long hours of work resulted in exhausted workers which led to maiming accidents as people accidentally lost parts of their bodies to the machines. In addition to being maimed, many workers developed lung diseases due to long hours of inhaling lint in the unventilated factory air and workers with physical conditions were laid off. Worst of all, women in the factories were burden with factory work and house work. Suffering from exhaustion and diseases from the factory works, women went home to face problems, such as clothing, food, and children. The conditions of the factories were no better in New York City, United States, the Triang...
For example, factory workers were expected to work 14-16 hour days, six days a week. The dusty, dirty, unlit mills along with few break times made working there a living hell. “Breaker boys suffered from chronic throat trouble and respiratory illnesses that were caused by inhaling coal dust. Above ground machinery, particularly coal crushers, were dangerously loud. If a breaker boy worked long hours around the coal crusher he often suffered from hearing loss (Wagner). Due to the fact that there were no safety laws in place, ear plugs and masks were not used. In fact, no safety equipment was. The dangerous machines with unprotected parts made children susceptible to injury and death. If someone were to get injured, they were immediately fired and not paid compensation for their health care. “If a boy was caught wearing gloves, the boss would beat him. A skin condition that miners termed “Red tips” was brought about by prolonged contact with sulfur from the coal. Breaker boys’ fingers often became cracked, bloody, and swollen from sorting (Wagner)....