Taylor Braun
World History Period: 1
May 5, 2016
Female Mill Workers in England and Japan: How Similar Were Their Experiences?
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.
Everyone wants to work in a safe and healthy environment. Unfortunately, women
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didn’t get a chance to experience that in the English or Japanese factories. “Conditions of work were horrendous.” (Document 5: Douglas A. Galbi) That document was talking about the working conditions in England. “In Japan, the factory girl might be far away living in a dormitory and only returning home only a few times a year.”(Industrialization and Women DBQ: Background Essay) Imagine, that at the age of fourteen, a young girl would be living on her own and working to make a living. According to Document 3 in 1841, 43% of the female textile workers in England were under twenty years old. (Document 3: Ivy Pinchbeck) Similarly, in Japan in 1901, 66% of the female silk factory workers were under twenty years old. (Document 4: E. Patricia Tsurumi) The conditions for the young girls in both England and Japan were very dangerous not only because the machinery was so powerful, but also in a more personal way. These young women could become victims to the men that they worked for because they were their superiors. Regrettably, young girls and women in Japan and England were away from family “Leaving the relative safety of the home ....” (Industrialization and Women DBQ: Background Essay) to make a living. Another similarity for these women were the outrageous amount of hours working in the factories.
These women, including mothers, and young girls worked extremely hard for long periods of time. “On weekdays she began work in the factory at 5:30 am, and finished at 8 pm. Included in this period were a thirty-five minute break for breakfast and a fifty-five minute break for dinner.” (Document 5: Douglas A. Galbi) On an average weekday in England the women and young children worked around thirteen-and-a-half hours and additional hours on the weekends. “On weekends she worked another nine hours.” (Document 5: Douglas A. Galbi) One of the young girls, Ellen Hooton, was working in an English factory and only nine years old. “She worked the same amount of hours as adult workers.” (Document 5: Douglas A. Galbi) Adults would tire after long days at work, but a children tire more easily because they are still growing. These ridiculous hours were also similar in the Japanese factories. “Normal working day in a plant in Okaya was thirteen to fourteen hours.” (Document 5: Noshomusho Shokokyoku and Shokko Jijo) “Given fifteen minutes for breakfast, and sent back to work by 6:15. They were allowed fifteen minutes for lunch, between 10:30 and 10:45, and ten-minute break from 3:30 to 3:40.” (Document 5: Noshomusho Shokokyoku and Shokko Jijo) Obviously, these approximately fifteen-minute breaks were barely enough time to eat a snack not to mention a bathroom break or a moment of quiet
time. Lastly, the low-wages that the women were making were similar in both countries. For as hard as the women worked and the long hours each day, they did not get paid as much as a man because they were simply women. The working mother and wife barely made enough to support their families because in some cases their husband was without a job. Working in Japan in 1892, a female cotton mill worker or a seasonal agricultural worker would make about nine sen a day, which is about two cents in American dollars. The highest pay wage female job was a silk factory worker making about thirteen sen for one day’s work. (Document 8: James L. McClain) Much like the women factory workers in Japan, the English women complain about the short wages too. A woman in England who works along with her family, including her three children make a total of twenty-four shillings a week, her husband making 6 times the amount she does. “We complaining of nothing but short wages.” (Document 6: Parliamentary Papers) Overall, the women in both England and Japan work the same type of jobs as the men but earning much less per day. In conclusion, woman working as textile mill workers were treated differently and had a tough time making a good living. Men had better conditions, better pay, and their hours were not as long as the women workers. There is no doubt that the young girls and women worked very hard and in unhealthy conditions, but to simply to be paid less because they were women was common in both England and Japan.
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.
But the process of getting these employees were satisfying to the managers but cruel to the employees themselves. In order for the managers, of the factories, to get their employees, the managers had to give to the head to the employee's family in what they called a earnest money, in which is an large amount of advanced money for the employee to work at their factories. To prove the loyalty of the employee by the family, the head of the family had to sign a contract saying that they accepted the earnest money and if there were any infringement the employee’s family had to pay more than the amount of the earnest money (Document E). In daily work life of a worker, the workers were roused from their bed at 4:05 A.M and sent to work at 6:15 A.M. during the workday the workers received 15 minutes for breakfast and lunch and a ten minute break during 3 P.M. Containing this life style was sometimes very tiring for the workers but also convenient for the working for it was a very healthy lifestyle for some (Document B). Some benefit of working at a factory were that whenever the workers wanted to be released it had to be in some excuse to be release such as getting married and family reasons. A 24 to 29 percentage of the workers getting release from their jobs were mostly due to illness or family reason and some were just release from their jobs in which is a benefit from working at these factories (Document D). Some other benefits of working in a factory was the experience according to a survey made in Japan in 1982, 90 percent of the women had said that their overall experience at working at a factory was very positive the other 10 percent said it was
The periods of 1200-1450 and 1450-1700 were polar opposites for a multitude of reasons but the most important reasons the two were different were, the invention of the printing press, the enlightenment, along with one man, Martin Luther. These three things changed the course of world history and brought upon a period that led to the updating of human nature at a previously unseen rate. They challenged what was though prior to 1450, and helped humanity to develop and expand. Without the printing press, the Enlightenment, and Martin Luther we would be living similar to the people of the time did, 500 years later.
It was estimated that nearly 35 percent to 53 percent of female workers were less than 16 years old in England (Document C), an age that was illegal for employment in modern society. Some of them were even under the age of ten. "I think the youngest children is about seven...I dare say there are twenty under nine years old" the description of the situations in Mr. Wilson's Mill from a worker named Hannah Goode in 1833 (Document J). In addition, a report in 1841 showed that 43% percent of the female workers were no more than 20 years old in four English textile industries in cotton, silk, lace and woolen manufacturing (Document C). In Japan, in the silk factory in Nagano, Japan 1901, 66 percent of female worker were under 20 years old. Female worker were more or less working for gaining more family income in order to release their financial burden. However, did they really contributed to family income and did they get the reasonable payment from the
Industrialization had a major impact on the lives of every American, including women. Before the era of industrialization, around the 1790's, a typical home scene depicted women carding and spinning while the man in the family weaves (Doc F). One statistic shows that men dominated women in the factory work, while women took over teaching and domestic services (Doc G). This information all relates to the changes in women because they were being discriminated against and given children's work while the men worked in factories all day. Women wanted to be given an equal chance, just as the men had been given.
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
The modern world is linked through networks of communication and exchange between peoples. These exchanges between regions has changed cultures, economics, and politics. Through time the cultural influence between regions has consisted of many factors and elements but comes down to the spread of religion and religious teachings , movement of peoples, technological and cultural advancements affecting trade and commerce. Beginning with the Middle Ages in the years 1100-1500 , Africa, Asia, and Europe developed and influenced each other in several different ways. Starting with religion. The birth of Islam in the Middle East rapidly spread throughout Afro- Eurasia. Islam was attractive to people who were uninterested in the requirements of Christianity and the Church.
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...
In the early years while the profits were high working conditions looked promising to the mill girls in their brief opening experiences of factory work. Jobs required little skill because the machinery was mostly self-acting. It looked very pleasant at first, the rooms were so light, spacious, and clean, the girls so pretty and neatly dressed, and the machinery so brightly polished or nicely painted (Harriet Farley, Letters from Susan, Letter Second).
They were forced to go out to work and make a rapid transition into adulthood. In these work places they, like any other adult, had a limited amount of time to eat. Patience Kershaw, a miner at the age of 17 recalls having cake for dinner- in inadequate dinner- and she does “not stop or rest at any time for the purpose” referring to her inability to eat throughout the day . She of course is not the only one, Elizabeth Bentley who works in the mills was asked whether she had the opportunity to eat in the factory. The 23 year old who began working at the age of 6 replied with a “no” saying how she had little to eat. The human rights were furthermore diminished as I read further on about the consequences there were if a child were to arrive late to work or became drowsy. Clearly the long hours and often times the long travel from home to work would severely tire anyone, to keep the kids under control and alert while working, the over lookers resorted to strapping them “when they became drowsy”. Matthew Crabtree explains the dread that these kids had of getting beaten, due to the fear they had we can infer that the means of physical abuse was prevalent in these factories. In the mines the young girls and women had to adapt to the conditions of their workplace. The vigorous lifting and loading was a strenuous activity done by both sexes, males worked naked to combat heat while females also worked
Europeans dominated the African continent for centuries. The white man tried to “civilize” Africa by making themselves superior to other races. They created a rule that non-white races must obey them. This gave Europeans to the power to rob the continent of a huge amount of its riches and inflict a tremendous amount of suffering on Africans. The second letter was called to bury the unpleasant memories of slavery in the past and focus on a future, without this superior rule. It was asked that colonial powers cooperate and fix their past mistakes and injustices against the Africa, by granting them independence. The solution was to bring unity between Africa and the Europeans. The division made them weak because Africa had the potential to be
Following the closure of the Civil War, America and primarily the former Confederacy were tasked with the problem of how they were going to efficiently bring back thousands of former slaves back into the union and convert them into full-pledged American citizens. Adding on to the problems faced during presidential and radical reconstruction from 1865 to 1877, many people including President Johnson feared the rise of the blacks in politics. Due to the new rise in population, southern senators believed that blacks were not equipped for political equality and that suffrage would be destructive to the government by upsetting the balance of power between the republicans and democrats. Such notion that the blacks were inferior and should be treated
The working conditions in the mills and and mines were horrible, nasty, and disgusting. Elizabeth Bentley who started to work at a factory when she was only six years old said that she would work from 5 in the morning all the way to 9 at night. Imagine waking up that early to go to work for more than 12 hours. She also said that she didn’t have any time to get breakfast. When workers didn’t claim their food “the overlooker took it, and gave it to his pigs” (253, Bentley). This shows how much the owners cared about their workers. If people working at factories were late to work, they were beaten and she says that was a common thing at the factories. One view that caught me off guard was of Hannah Richardson, a mine employee that said she said
“The development of agriculture was a radical change in humans’ way of life.” (Stearns, 2) It set the basis for faster change in human societies. Metalworking allowed farmers to work more efficiently. The development of languages increased the chances of civilizations because people were able to communicate with each other. Record keeping and innovated technology also brought people together because they began discovering new things about the society.
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