The Industrial Revolution had a very
significant effect on the lives of workers and their families in both America
and Great Britain. To put it straight,
the working conditions in Great Britain were harsher and much crueler. There were factory accidents, deformities, bad
food and severe punishments.
In England working conditions were brutal
and harsh. Accidents were
inevitable. Children suffered loss of
limbs and death. If one hundred kids
worked in the factories, then at least half, if not more got injured. The
children didn’t get enough sleep either, so their drowsiness made them less
attentive. Children had their arms caught in the machines, lost fingers,
had skin ripped off, etc. There were
also many deformities due to the physical work. The bones of children from age
1-13
would bend and snap. Pregnant women
would have pelvis’s that pressed inwards making child birth dangerous for the
child and the mother. Many people were knock-kneed
and because of the lack of nutrition, there was no marrow in the bones. Only a small portion of food was given to the
workers. There was no variety in the food;
it was usually water porridge with oatcakes and potato with boiled bacon. The food was unhealthy because a lot of
cotton got in the food and the workers had to work and eat at the same
time. The children and women were
constantly beaten by sticks for things that weren’t their fault. If they worked too slow and if there was
something wrong with the machine that they couldn’t control, then they were
beaten. Girls were flogged in front of everyone and children wished they
were dead.
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A child while the mill is moving.
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Mill Workers
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In America, things weren’t nearly as bad
as Great Britain. America didn’t have an
abundant supply of cheap labor like England.
The land was plentiful and most families could move west to purchase
more. The lack of workers in mills made
the Industrialists change the perceptions of manufacturing that was brewing in
England. Industrialists began the Lowell
Experiment to try to avoid the negative aspects of Industrialization in
England. This was an experiment to
convince parents to let their girls come to the mills in Lowell where they will
maintain morality and dignity of temporary workers. It was emphasized that the women would be
protected and taken care of as if they were a part of a family. The father of the family was the
corporation. He set the rules and made
sure the girls went to church no Sunday and maintained a code of behavior. The mother of the family was the boarding
house figure who regulated behavior and maintained a home.
It is quiet easy to see who had it best;
America. If I had the choice to either
work in the mills in England or America, I would choose to work at the Lowell
mills. I would be taken care of, grow
with the right values and live in a protected environment. I wouldn’t want to go to a place where I
would be beaten, given bad food and treated like a slave. Despite Great Britain and America to be only
an ocean apart, they are completely different worlds.
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